Midway through The Hand That Feeds — a new documentary by Rachel Lears and Robin Blotnick — Mahoma López, a shy Mexican immigrant restaurant worker, reflects on the effectiveness of a labor organizing tactic used by workers at Hot and Crusty, a New York City café and bakery. They put the faces and names of abusive managers and restaurant owners on fliers, and distribute them to passersby on the sidewalks of Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

As grainy cell phone footage of managers angrily pushing union organizers and workers in the street and kicking the fliers flashes across the screen, Lopez flatly states, “It works really well. It really puts them in their place.”

At the Chicago theater where I recently watched the documentary, the crowd of around two hundred fast-food workers and members of the Fight for 15 campaign erupted in laughter at Lopez’s deadpan commentary — not only because it felt hilariously incongruent with the scenes of workers and managers nearly coming to blows, but also because the Hot and Crusty unionization struggle closely mirrors the battle for decent pay of these Chicago workers and so many other low-wage workers around the country.