“Look, America is founded on free enterprise and capitalism,” said Bill Essayli, the first assistant United States attorney for the central district of California, during the press conference. “Anyone who attacks our values, our way of life, our system, which provides the best goods and services to the most people, we’re gonna come after aggressively.”
I don't think he's right about America's founding ideas. Free enterprise, maybe. But capitalism is a different beast, and only came to America much later. The young country's first taste of real capitalism was the East India Company and their tea trading business. And look how they reacted to that.
I don't think capitalism was what the USA's founding fathers had in mind at all. I do think the linguistic conflation of "free market" with "capitalism" is an intentional large scale psy-op designed to make people forget that. And it's working.
The US founding fathers only gave voting rights to men with capital. I think that maybe those rich slave owning genocide enthousiasts who revolted because they were being taxed to pay the wages of the soldiers that suffered permanent injuries to defend their property might have been cool with capitalism.
Those anticapitalist shitheads. They should be beaten with billyclubs and have their wages reduced for the pain and suffering they have caused their bosses.
Those first two translate to me as "Remember I hate the same people you do, so it's OK to struggle while I keep more money. I donate to Republicans, you know."
He's saying their values are everyone's values. "Our way of life" is trying to rally us to his side--"rally around the flag"--to divide us against ourselves. It works pretty well with MAGA, and they all know it.
For those yelling about Unions being better than what this guy did:
Unions were always the compromise. We've watched as corporations fight tooth and nail against unions, even closing locations and laying people off to quash them. Our union protections in the US are pathetically weak, especially with the current regime.
Workers used to get beaten and threatened when they tried to advocate for better conditions. Eventually workers would start burning down their workplaces like this guy. In extreme cases they would kill the factory owner or foreman. If the conditions are unbearable and voices aren't being heard, people will get desperate and do unthinkable things.
For their sake, let's hope the business and corporate types remember this before the bread or circuses run out.
Yep. The alternative to no unions or worker's rights is people dragging Jeff Bezos out of his mansion, beating him to death in front of his family, and then burning the house down.
People need to plan en mass if they want to scare these psychopathic billionaires properly. Took 30k Dubliners burning down the British embassy to drive out the British in Ireland.
This is what they learned after the rise of unions. Unionization was the compromise they made to stop angry workers dragging owners into the streets and beating them to a pulp. They've forgotten those lessons.
Most American firms would rather pay lawyers to fuck their employees over, than pay their employees more.
Recreational Equipment Incorporated Co-operative are closing a flagship store in Manhattan rather than deal with a union.
America hates Americans.
Holy crap, granted I haven't deep researched them or anything but I always thought of REI as the granola-munching fun hiking kids cooperative kind of environment...
No one was harmed and he got his point across. Keep up the good fight Americans, show them how much youre suffering under this regime and dont let the corporations/billionaires win
Even comments-section of fox news was supporting it. Well, mainly calling it a fire-insurance scam, but I think conspiracy theories are how fascists express their love?
In my experience conspiracy theorists tend to be rather mundane with shit like this, why that is is problematic up for debate but I assume it's some fucked up version of Occam's Razor with an absurdity modifier based off of scale or potential scale.
No one was physically harmed, but there was financial harm. I wonder how many people lost their job due to the fire and now can’t pay their bills. The town only has 3k people, so I wonder how much of that population worked there.
The warehouse was burned down because they weren't paid enough on the first place.
Either someone with some foresight gets ahead of the problem and starts paying people enough to live, cancelling debts, etc., or there's now ~1-200 more people with little left to lose and the fires will spread.
I know solidarity is unheard of in the US, but this is something that often builds it out of necessity if nothing else.
Ah, the type of harm that's the easiest to manage. Can't really blame this dude for the harm capitalism causes after the fact via suppression of basic social safety nets.
they were barely paid enough anyways, it isnt a lost to the workers. and warehouse job isnt exactly a career for people, not even long term or part time. they f' around enough witht the hours to prevent that, and injuries are quite frequent in these jobs.
Funny how people barely scraping by with peanut wages is "Well we all have to just suck it up for the sake of the economy." (Thatcher/Reagan types love to use this 'take your medicine' analogy.)
...but burning down a corporate warehouse is also "Oh no. Now those workers can't work for peanuts. :("
Almost like the power dynamic here is ridiculously askew and the company never feels the hurt.
At least one direction here has a chance of actually shifting the balance, and that direction surely isn't
"Clock in day after day, say 'yes, boss', and hope for the best."
The alleged arsonists motives are likely about class war and not "The Turner Diaries" like Mcveigh. We do not know enough yet about the motives of any alleged arsonist, but I would NOT say Mcveigh was morally right.
Those mansions and bunkers and yachts and private jets all require a surprising amount of working class labor to maintain. Often dozens of employees. The distribution center in the OP only had 8 employees at the time of the fire, so it would be comparably safer!
Fires happen all the time. Owners probably didn't maintain the warehouse since they couldn't pay their employees a fair wage. Where is the fire supression system?
The alleged arsonist could have been caught up in the rush of an already existing fire when the video was filmed. Blaming anyone for a warehouse without proper fire suppression seems negligent.
Yes. That it is an important distinction especially with the american tax system which is known for not benefitting the wealthy and redistributing wealth across all social classes, allowing the United States to funnel more money into welfare for the greater common good.
Just fyi, the CEO of Kimberly-Clark, Michael D. Hsu, earns per year, whereas warehouse workers typically earn about $50k a year, that’s about 0.33% or 300 times less.
There were ~65000 arson offenses in 2024 with 6% as "other" which I'm interpreting as businesses, warehouses, etc. similar to this one. Which gives a high estimate of ~4000 events similar to his per year.
We are all hearing his story because he 'flapped his gums' and we aren't hearing about the other 3999.
Minimum wage is almost half the estimated living wage in CA for a single working adult. Living Wage Calculator - Living Wage Calculation for California. My source.
Rent is by far not the only expense you need to account for. Essentials in California were already higher than a considerable portion of the rest of the country BEFORE the massive inflation spike this decade and it's only getting worse. The minimum wage there is certainly more generous than most states, but it is not adjusting proportionally just like everywhere else.
Damn, dawg. That's a pretty damning justification for shoving great personal sacrifice onto others. That's the kind of thinking the Epstein class employs every day.
Yep. Shit sucks for those guys. Thank fuck the US and its citizenry can see an obviously messed up thing and join in to support like healthy socities do. With like social welfare, TNFA, unemployment ect........
These companies actively make that unfeesable. They'd spend the extra money to close the location. Claim it was unprofitable. And hire all new ununionized staff elsewhere.
If you unionize the location mysteriously becomes unprofitable and they have to shut it down leaving everyone without a job. If you burn it down, the location closes leaving everyone without a job. But costing the bastards who can't spare the profit to pay their workers a fair wage Millions. The arrangements of the unions was never please please Mr Boss Man can we be allowed to live too. It was paying us a fair wage or you might wake up dead in your own bed.
And more importantly, the other owners of other companies have two brilliant examples of what can happen when you continue to fuck with workers: If you are lucky, workers will only burn all your shit to the ground. If you're unlucky, you get Luigi'ed. EITHER WAY, THE NEXT BUSINESS OWNER WILL THINK TWICE ABOUT CUTTING WAGES AND FUCKING WITH WORKERS.
That's the benefit for all. You just have to be capable of thinking about someone other than yourself.
The massive amount of product lost and the perfectly good building destroyed?
Like, the difference is the damage — it's a very big spectacle and proof that all it takes is 1 person in the right place and you can cause massive damage. The Dems aren't going to save you if you don't scare them into saving you.
Hi, my name is (whatever the fuck your disappointed parents named you) and I don't understand a lick about context, history, or why my one-off attempt at sounding smart comes off like I couldn't find my own ass with two hands and a map.
You bring up a good point and it's dumb you're being downvoted for it. That being said, I don't think a union would have hurt the shareholders in the same way.
Anyone who's been paying attention knows that corporations have gutted union rights, laws and the NLRB. Trying to organize a union is a long shot and you're just as likely to be fired (for something completely unrelated, of course) the first time you start talking to people about unions.
Companies like this can fire low wage employees all day every day for years (look at Amazon's warehouse turnover rate) just to prevent a union from forming. If they ever get to the point where there will be a union vote the company will pay millions for some union busting firm to come in and suddenly all of the pro-union people's work is under a microscope, anti-union propaganda is everywhere and they're scaring the other workers with talks of closing the business if a union happens.
They drag it out until everyone quits, is fired or is scared away from voting. Even if the vote passes the company is under no real obligation to negotiate with the union and the NLRB is effectively toothless. A union can go years and years without seeing any meaningful changes.
Unions and labor rights were the compromise, what this man did is only a small taste of what it was like before the compromise. His target was inventory, not people. That wasn't always the case.
He could have been part of a unionization effort, instead he chose violence, harmed his peers, and took away that possibility.
Saying that he should have just tried to unionize demonstrates an ignorance of the state of unionization in the US as I outlined in my comment.
He could have begged outside of the headquarters too, for all of the good it would do. Treating unionization as if it were some viable option is not a good point.
I'm not saying that everyone should burn their place of employment down, but he did it in a way that led to nobody being injured and the message resonates with a lot of people. Much like Luigi, it isn't that what he did is the right thing, but it is undoubtedly a more effective message to the elites than printing union flyers and getting fired.
California has unemployment and, assuming this company cheats their employees by making them all part-time, it pays as much or more than their lost wages.
These kinds of things are going to keep happening as the lower class is squeezed by economic pressures and the elites who control the political system block any attempt at reforms that would benefit the labor class. In the grand scheme of things, the harm suffered here was financial and not measured in human lives.
What a thing to say.
I don't think he's right about America's founding ideas. Free enterprise, maybe. But capitalism is a different beast, and only came to America much later. The young country's first taste of real capitalism was the East India Company and their tea trading business. And look how they reacted to that.
I don't think capitalism was what the USA's founding fathers had in mind at all. I do think the linguistic conflation of "free market" with "capitalism" is an intentional large scale psy-op designed to make people forget that. And it's working.
The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world that commerce and capitalism are the same thing.
The US founding fathers only gave voting rights to men with capital. I think that maybe those rich slave owning genocide enthousiasts who revolted because they were being taxed to pay the wages of the soldiers that suffered permanent injuries to defend their property might have been cool with capitalism.
I was never great at history, but I seem to recall Alexander Hamilton being a big supporter of capitalism.
How'd things end for Alex?
first to get Luigied
I dont know what he's even trying to say. He's coming after employees that want to be paid more?
Those anticapitalist shitheads. They should be beaten with billyclubs and have their wages reduced for the pain and suffering they have caused their bosses.
I assume this is his internal monologue.
Hes a slaver
How dare they demand a living wage? Why, it's unAmerican!
Yes. It's an (unfortunately) empowered corporate scree. Pure retaliation slave owner bs, looking for blood.
“Our values” and “our way of life” sound so strange. Especially since “best goods and services” is a crock of shit. 😂
Those first two translate to me as "Remember I hate the same people you do, so it's OK to struggle while I keep more money. I donate to Republicans, you know."
Those are human rights in other countries.
He's saying their values are everyone's values. "Our way of life" is trying to rally us to his side--"rally around the flag"--to divide us against ourselves. It works pretty well with MAGA, and they all know it.
All Property Matters!
They don't give a fuck about people, but they do give a fuck about their assets.
And that's why it's perfectly acceptable to do whatever the fuck you want to these people's assets. Burn it all to the ground if that's your vibe.
No it wasn‘t.
For those yelling about Unions being better than what this guy did:
Unions were always the compromise. We've watched as corporations fight tooth and nail against unions, even closing locations and laying people off to quash them. Our union protections in the US are pathetically weak, especially with the current regime.
Workers used to get beaten and threatened when they tried to advocate for better conditions. Eventually workers would start burning down their workplaces like this guy. In extreme cases they would kill the factory owner or foreman. If the conditions are unbearable and voices aren't being heard, people will get desperate and do unthinkable things.
For their sake, let's hope the business and corporate types remember this before the bread or circuses run out.
Yep. The alternative to no unions or worker's rights is people dragging Jeff Bezos out of his mansion, beating him to death in front of his family, and then burning the house down.
A Reign of Terror redux would be ... um ... yeah, I'd be ok with that
People need to plan en mass if they want to scare these psychopathic billionaires properly. Took 30k Dubliners burning down the British embassy to drive out the British in Ireland.
Yeah unions are a better deal for everyone. I hope the business owners come around to that as workers acting on discontent increases
They do, and they will try and do just enough to not get killed.
We get the crumbs, while they get the whole pie.
They've already run out.
Wareluigi
I was gonna riff off of "Warehouse Luigi" and say he's "Waluigi" for short :P
paying a living wage is cheaper than trying to quell a labor uprising.
This is what they learned after the rise of unions. Unionization was the compromise they made to stop angry workers dragging owners into the streets and beating them to a pulp. They've forgotten those lessons.
Most American firms would rather pay lawyers to fuck their employees over, than pay their employees more. Recreational Equipment Incorporated Co-operative are closing a flagship store in Manhattan rather than deal with a union.
America hates Americans.
Holy crap, granted I haven't deep researched them or anything but I always thought of REI as the granola-munching fun hiking kids cooperative kind of environment...
...friggin' branding...bamboozled again.
Also cheaper than the loss of stock, rebuild costs, and loss of income while rebuilding a warehouse. Some of it will be insured, but not all.
Plus, their customers will go elsewhere while things rebuild.
Getting those customers back is no small task.
they legislate laws to weaken labor protections and pay instead of the "pinkertons":
You cant become smart if all you do is partying and traveling
Not this quarter it isn't! (Until it suddenly is.)
No one was harmed and he got his point across. Keep up the good fight Americans, show them how much youre suffering under this regime and dont let the corporations/billionaires win
Even comments-section of fox news was supporting it. Well, mainly calling it a fire-insurance scam, but I think conspiracy theories are how fascists express their love?
Wildfires are antifa, but when someone actually does commit arson for class war reasons, it's an insurance scam? What a bizarre psychosis.
In my experience conspiracy theorists tend to be rather mundane with shit like this, why that is is problematic up for debate but I assume it's some fucked up version of Occam's Razor with an absurdity modifier based off of scale or potential scale.
Best book and movie ever.
Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club
No one was physically harmed, but there was financial harm. I wonder how many people lost their job due to the fire and now can’t pay their bills. The town only has 3k people, so I wonder how much of that population worked there.
Oh no, think of the poor capitalists. They might get mad and stop giving us their crumbs!
Get their meals, eat the rich!
The warehouse was burned down because they weren't paid enough on the first place.
Either someone with some foresight gets ahead of the problem and starts paying people enough to live, cancelling debts, etc., or there's now ~1-200 more people with little left to lose and the fires will spread.
I know solidarity is unheard of in the US, but this is something that often builds it out of necessity if nothing else.
Ah, the type of harm that's the easiest to manage. Can't really blame this dude for the harm capitalism causes after the fact via suppression of basic social safety nets.
they were barely paid enough anyways, it isnt a lost to the workers. and warehouse job isnt exactly a career for people, not even long term or part time. they f' around enough witht the hours to prevent that, and injuries are quite frequent in these jobs.
The hard working warehouse employees will be receiving unemployment. They just got several weeks of PTO.
The demolition and reconstruction is new work that will be going on for the next few years.
Job creation at its finest
Funny how people barely scraping by with peanut wages is "Well we all have to just suck it up for the sake of the economy." (Thatcher/Reagan types love to use this 'take your medicine' analogy.)
...but burning down a corporate warehouse is also "Oh no. Now those workers can't work for peanuts. :("
Almost like the power dynamic here is ridiculously askew and the company never feels the hurt.
At least one direction here has a chance of actually shifting the balance, and that direction surely isn't
"Clock in day after day, say 'yes, boss', and hope for the best."
Corporate fire-insurance will cover their paycheck so what are you on about?
Insurance will cover most of it. And there will be more jobs as things are cleaned up and rebuilt.
Are you an agent
If 9/11 taught us anything it is that there is nothing a man cannot do if he no longer fears the consequences.
Timothy Mcveigh showed us that in 1995. The civilian deaths were terrible but turns out he was sorta right all along
Violence can look similar, but motive matters.
The alleged arsonists motives are likely about class war and not "The Turner Diaries" like Mcveigh. We do not know enough yet about the motives of any alleged arsonist, but I would NOT say Mcveigh was morally right.
Are you talking about Flight 93?or?
I know they said we'd never forget but I don't know what you are talking about that is specific to 9/11.
What's next? The wealth have to tremble in their yachts.
Those mansions and bunkers and yachts and private jets all require a surprising amount of working class labor to maintain. Often dozens of employees. The distribution center in the OP only had 8 employees at the time of the fire, so it would be comparably safer!
Only 8 employees for something that was just reported as half a billion in loss?
Damn did they have it coming lmfao
Who, while surrounded by wealth, are probably paid very poorly. wealthy gotta wealth.
And, in their bunkers, and on their islands, and hopefully first in their boardrooms. I wonder what they're saying to each other.
Very thin line between "I'm safe in my bunker" and "I'm trapped in my bunker."
"we cannot get out: the end comes soon we hear drums drums in the deep. They are coming"
To be safe, it should be a fairly thick line... of concrete.
Anyone want to cowrite the movie that jumps to mind off this person's excellent quote?
Burn the yachts lol
(Unironically. After all, who are the ones cleaning those things?)
A desperate and enraged man will not be reasonable.
FUCK YOU KIMBERLEY-CLARK. You're a shitty employer.
This hurt the share price, for a day anyway....
I don't know about you all, but I didn't see nothin'.
Fires happen all the time. Owners probably didn't maintain the warehouse since they couldn't pay their employees a fair wage. Where is the fire supression system?
The alleged arsonist could have been caught up in the rush of an already existing fire when the video was filmed. Blaming anyone for a warehouse without proper fire suppression seems negligent.
Agreed on all points, but especially this one.
The tp factory guy was with me… uhh…. Yeah. Something like that
He doesn't earn $15.5 million a year, he gets paid $15.5 million a year.
Poor CEO!!!
Yes. That it is an important distinction especially with the american tax system which is known for not benefitting the wealthy and redistributing wealth across all social classes, allowing the United States to funnel more money into welfare for the greater common good.
Why don’t we focus on some real issues instead?
its probably brutal full time schedules too
What a role reversal.
Wow, the number of americans I respect and aren't feeble whiny losers has just doubled!
You respect Americans?
Two of them now if you read the comment
The elevator didn't go to the top floor with this one.
They should have paid him enough to live
He could have done this good deed and gotten away with it if only he just shut the fuck up but he had to flap his gums.
The article mentions surveillance video of him lighting a fire so probably not haha.
There were ~65000 arson offenses in 2024 with 6% as "other" which I'm interpreting as businesses, warehouses, etc. similar to this one. Which gives a high estimate of ~4000 events similar to his per year.
We are all hearing his story because he 'flapped his gums' and we aren't hearing about the other 3999.
A true martyr
I don’t know what this is… but I know I can’t stop looking at it 😭
Based, but also selfish as fuck with all their coworkers out of work.
Should have paid them enough to live ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
You don't know what the worker was being paid. You don't know what the other workers were being paid. Being in CA it was a minimum of ~$17/hr.
Minimum wage is almost half the estimated living wage in CA for a single working adult. Living Wage Calculator - Living Wage Calculation for California. My source.
There are $1500/m apartments on Zillow in that area. Less than that if you commute. Minimum wage covers that and more without even having a roommate.
Should they be paid more? Yes. They probably are. But this guy decided to put his coworkers at risk of homelessness which is the point I'm arguing.
Rent is by far not the only expense you need to account for. Essentials in California were already higher than a considerable portion of the rest of the country BEFORE the massive inflation spike this decade and it's only getting worse. The minimum wage there is certainly more generous than most states, but it is not adjusting proportionally just like everywhere else.
Yeah, I don't know what else to say to you aside from personal anecdotes of living in CA on minimum wage.
Fuck that guy. Hope he rots.
If minimum wage is truly livable then why is homelessness a risk? Surely they could just find any other job?
There were all of 20 people working. That would put the total employee numbers at what, 60-100 people max?
Relative to a second shot across the bow of the Epstein Class?
Priceless. Literally priceless. I feel for the 100 folks who have to find somewhere else to be exploited, but it's not a difficult trade to accept.
Damn, dawg. That's a pretty damning justification for shoving great personal sacrifice onto others. That's the kind of thinking the Epstein class employs every day.
He's just a fucking sociopath that ruined lives of countless coworkers who are now jobless. Fuck him, I hope he rots in prison
Are you saying that it is a good thing that those people lost their job?
no thats not what i meant stop mincing words
That's the biggest most insulting FU to these people you could ever write.
Eat more boot leather.
They were stacking toilet paper. I doubt they're in love with their careers or insulted.
Imagine they worked there to live because most of them couldn't find any better job. And now they're jobless
Damn, maybe the company should've paid them a living wage.
Maybe thanks to that brigt beacon of communist revolution they have now no wages at all. Bravo
Oh no. Maybe next time they will pay their workers a living wage.
I don't think you understand how disposably warehouse workers are treated, or how frequently we change jobs. A job is not a gift.
Yep. Shit sucks for those guys. Thank fuck the US and its citizenry can see an obviously messed up thing and join in to support like healthy socities do. With like social welfare, TNFA, unemployment ect........
Fuck off, you disingenuous little twat
Bootlicker
You can count em. Another comment said there were 8 workers.
He could have been part of a unionization effort, instead he chose violence, harmed his peers, and took away that possibility.
These companies actively make that unfeesable. They'd spend the extra money to close the location. Claim it was unprofitable. And hire all new ununionized staff elsewhere.
If you unionize the location mysteriously becomes unprofitable and they have to shut it down leaving everyone without a job. If you burn it down, the location closes leaving everyone without a job. But costing the bastards who can't spare the profit to pay their workers a fair wage Millions. The arrangements of the unions was never please please Mr Boss Man can we be allowed to live too. It was paying us a fair wage or you might wake up dead in your own bed.
Yes, but now the owners get nothing either.
And more importantly, the other owners of other companies have two brilliant examples of what can happen when you continue to fuck with workers: If you are lucky, workers will only burn all your shit to the ground. If you're unlucky, you get Luigi'ed. EITHER WAY, THE NEXT BUSINESS OWNER WILL THINK TWICE ABOUT CUTTING WAGES AND FUCKING WITH WORKERS.
That's the benefit for all. You just have to be capable of thinking about someone other than yourself.
I can't tell if you're being deliberately obtuse or if you're just thick-headed.
By chance are you a conservative?
As per the foundational liberal thinker Jean-Jacques Rousseau: "Eat the rich". Unless you meant neoliberal. Wealth flight is a neoliberal concern.
Oooo, what a threat. You sure got them. Nice. Nailed it. Well done. So thoughtful. So smart. Oh wise sage. So worldly.
Hahahahahahaha
The massive amount of product lost and the perfectly good building destroyed?
Like, the difference is the damage — it's a very big spectacle and proof that all it takes is 1 person in the right place and you can cause massive damage. The Dems aren't going to save you if you don't scare them into saving you.
Or maybe he tried that first. You don't know.
He filed a lawsuit in 2024 against his former employer, PrimeFlight, alleging unpaid wages and missed break times.
Sounds like he chose the right course of action every step of the way.
Hi, my name is (whatever the fuck your disappointed parents named you) and I don't understand a lick about context, history, or why my one-off attempt at sounding smart comes off like I couldn't find my own ass with two hands and a map.
Muricans can't find their own country on a map, so that tracks.
Companies fought to nullify unions. It's the companies' fault people don't just join unions and negotiate anymore.
Guess that's natural order and the chance you take when you exploit people.
You bring up a good point and it's dumb you're being downvoted for it. That being said, I don't think a union would have hurt the shareholders in the same way.
It's not a good point.
Anyone who's been paying attention knows that corporations have gutted union rights, laws and the NLRB. Trying to organize a union is a long shot and you're just as likely to be fired (for something completely unrelated, of course) the first time you start talking to people about unions.
Companies like this can fire low wage employees all day every day for years (look at Amazon's warehouse turnover rate) just to prevent a union from forming. If they ever get to the point where there will be a union vote the company will pay millions for some union busting firm to come in and suddenly all of the pro-union people's work is under a microscope, anti-union propaganda is everywhere and they're scaring the other workers with talks of closing the business if a union happens.
They drag it out until everyone quits, is fired or is scared away from voting. Even if the vote passes the company is under no real obligation to negotiate with the union and the NLRB is effectively toothless. A union can go years and years without seeing any meaningful changes.
Unions and labor rights were the compromise, what this man did is only a small taste of what it was like before the compromise. His target was inventory, not people. That wasn't always the case.
It's a terrific point. All the people who worked there are now out of work.
The point was:
Saying that he should have just tried to unionize demonstrates an ignorance of the state of unionization in the US as I outlined in my comment.
He could have begged outside of the headquarters too, for all of the good it would do. Treating unionization as if it were some viable option is not a good point.
I'm not saying that everyone should burn their place of employment down, but he did it in a way that led to nobody being injured and the message resonates with a lot of people. Much like Luigi, it isn't that what he did is the right thing, but it is undoubtedly a more effective message to the elites than printing union flyers and getting fired.
California has unemployment and, assuming this company cheats their employees by making them all part-time, it pays as much or more than their lost wages.
These kinds of things are going to keep happening as the lower class is squeezed by economic pressures and the elites who control the political system block any attempt at reforms that would benefit the labor class. In the grand scheme of things, the harm suffered here was financial and not measured in human lives.