New York fast food workers strike over low wages [want $15/hr]

Hundreds of fast food workers at New York City branches of McDonald's, Burger King and other big-name chains have staged a walk out in protest of low wages.

The strike, organised by pressure group New York Communities for Change (NYCC), was part of an attempt to gain union recognition for staff at fast food outlets in the city.

"So many people in our neighbourhoods work at fast food restaurants and make poverty wages so low people can't put food on the table, put clothes on their kids' back or even afford the train ride to work."

The group staged a number of demonstrations across the city, culminating at the McDonald's in Times Square.

NYCC organizers have held discussions with employees about forming a new union, the Fast Food Workers Committee, for several months. Attempts have been made to sign them up to a petition demanding that workers be granted the freedom to join a union, and a raise the minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 an hour.

McDonald's said in a statement: "McDonald's values our employees and has consistently remained committed to them, so in turn they can provide quality service to our customers." It added that most of its franchisees offered competitive benefits.

Some 50,000 workers are involved in the fast food industry across the city, with many paid the median hourly wage of $8.90 (nationally, it is $8.76). Low-pay campaigners estimated in 2010 that an adult with one child living in the least expensive area of the city needs to make $21.85 an hour to be self-sufficient. The average fast food worker in New York earns about $11,000 a year.

“I’m a small remodeling contractor, and there are few young, hardworking English speaking Americans who are willing to work hard in the trades. They want to make $25 an hour for standing around. There is always a large group of Hispanic guys in the Home Depot parking lot who will work cheap. I refuse to hire them because I refuse to hire illegals, and I would never bring someone who I don’t know to a customer’s home. For the most part, I work by myself, taking and pricing jobs accordingly. Hispanic labor has driven labor rates down.”

I live in Texas and until a few years ago I worked as a cabinet maker. Not a serviceman or one of the guys on a production line putting tenon A into mortise B, but a cabinet maker and woodworker who knew the tools and the materials and how to read a blueprint and all the things associated with woodworking and cabinetry.

I gave it up because the wages were actually falling and this was still in the building boom when I was repeatedly told that I should be happy with $10.50 an hour and that the contractors had to hire armies of illegals to keep their prices low, even tho I never saw the price of anything go anywhere but through the roof.

I remember one job interview where the shop forman was up against a really bad deadline. He told me that he had 15 employees, who BTW were all illegals, but not single one of them had skills.
I told him I was interested and I had been making $15 an hour but was willing to start at $12 an hour.
He told me he could start me at $8.50 an hour with an option for a .50 cent an hour raise after 6 months. Then he said that was still a dollar an hour better than flipping burgers.
I agreed it was a dollar an hour better than a burger flipper made and then suggested he go hire a burger flipper.
He was actually kind of POd that I didn’t take the job.

I’ve certainly seen my share of unmotivated workers, but I’ve seen just that many who did want to learn it and get it right.

I consider it (oursourcing) downright evil.

It’s just greed. It goes way beyond that, but that is part of it.

IMHO that’s what the slave wage pay at a fast food place is as well.

I know that some people look at it that way, and I can even understand why they do. At the end of the day though, there are a lot of reasons why the pay scale is what it is. It's not slave wages, nor is it the least bit unfair.

Slaves are owned. They are forced to work for free. They get room and board. They are fed. They are clothed. End of story. Referencing wages paid at McDonalds, as slave wages is so incredibly dismissive of what slavery was/is, that it's beneath you to make that reference.

1. People don't have to work at McDonalds. They choose to.
2. McDonalds is in business to make money, but in order to make money they have to fill a nitch market that only supports minimalist wages.
3. People don't live on McDonald's food. They go there once in a while as a treat. They don't have to. There are a number of issues they consider, when they decide to eat there or not.
4. McDonalds is a cheap place to go out for food. Driving up costs hurts people who don't have enough money to go to a higher class sit-down restaurant.
5. Increase the cost of a meal at a McDonalds actually hurts low income people. You'll price them out of the market base, if you aren't careful.
6. What happens if the cost of a McDonald's meal goes up from $7.50 to $15.00? Will McDonalds sell as many meals? Will it need as many employees? Will it maintain as many units?
7. Will low income people have as many choices, if fast food reaturants raise prices and or shut down?
8. Will low income people be able to eat out as often, if McDonald's increases it's prices?
9. Sure McDonald's can pay people more. There are some important reasons why they don't.
10. What makes you think McDonald's makes more money if it pays employees less money? Can't McDonald's keep it's profit margin the same, just raise prices? The answer is yes, it can. The down side is, there will be half as many customers. They will be half as many employees. There will be half as many McDonald's around. There will be half as many choices for people who frequent McDonald's.

What was that about 'slave-wages'?

I read this thread and saw the contempt for people struggling to get by.

Oh for heaven's sake... I worked at a McDonalds and a Jack-in-the-Box for several years when I was in high school. My skill set was non-existant. My work ethic was not stellar. I got paid what I was worth. It was $1.35 an hour. As a freshman in high school, I earned $0.49 cents an hour at a boarding school working in the kitchen. Big freakin deal. It was either that or raise tuition.

Do you have any idea at all where this 'labor rally' is headed, what their goals are? What do you think, they're going to increase pay a few bucks and hour and call it a day? No! They'll force fast food restaurants to pay $15 to $20 dollars an hour. They force all sorts of employee benefits. They'll force employers to hire people, employ them, and keep them on when they aren't worth crap. And then you get to retirements, employee health insurance, months off for vacation..., it never ends.

Contempt for people? I have contempt for unions. They are not there to help people. They are there to F with capitalists business establishments, bamboozle workers into signing up as union members, and using thier dues to support more Al Gores, John Kerry's, Barack Obamas, and worse.

They don't give a flying fig about the employees. Look at the employees who worked for Hostess. They're gone. The union still exists. Look at the union support for illegal immigrants rights, flying in the face of the fact that those illegal are taking jobs that used to be unionized. Why are you sympathizing with these enemies of our Republic?

This is the same forum that regularly bashes welfare recipients and yet here’s a group of people working an honest job for a Corp that is worth who knows how much and it’s somehow offensive that the workers try to get more money.

Wow, have you ever had a quadruple helping of the Leftist swill. Are you reading that, or do you know it so well by heart, you just rattle it off on your own now?

BTW: I don't think anyone here is adverse to helping someone down on their luck. We are loath to support a family for generations who members never go out and work. This nation is paying out over $1 trillion dollars a year right now for Welfare. That doesn't even count unemployment insurance and other freebies. Bashing some of that? You bet your ass!

I hate to say it but the attitude of some of the conservatives here toward struggling workers may be why we’re losing everywhere.

Well, you know, I am having to struggle against my natural Conservative instincts here, but you really are somewhat lost in space. The emphasis in our nation is on free enterprise. It's not on creating the next 'workers paradise'.

People can choose where they work. They can either take the job or not. They can come up with their own business. My hope is, that if they do, they don't have to jump through the hoops you and the 'workers paradise' ass-hat clowns will set up for them.

With all due respect, what you think you want, will actually hurt the people you profess to have sympathy for, and want to help.

You're going down the wrong road.

“I don’t think the majority here are against any one trying to make more money as an individual. It’s the “collective” that would rather put a company out of business (Hostess) than take less and save your own job. Even McDonald’s would pay more for experienced hard working people, but our society is crippled. Too many waiting in line for even lousy paying jobs.”

I don’t know. There were some pretty acid tinged posts about these particular workers.

Not arguing for a union but I am wondering. Outside of collective bargaining how do laborers best sell their labor.
I’m much to old believe that any major corp or really large company pays one penny more than they absolutely have to.

I’ve worked for smaller companies that based pay on merit and the better you got at your job the more you got paid. Yet I somehow don’t think that principle really applies to Micky Ds counterhelp.

So why exactly don’t these low skilled workers deserve to be paid up to just below the poverty level.
It’s not like Micky Ds isn’t doing the volume to pay for it.

The really unsettling part was the derision of the posters toward a group of people who are actually trying to make a living working. Would it be better if they quit and went all out on the public dole?

I thought labor was a legitimate business expense. If a company can only remain in business by having their employees live under the poverty line, then maybe they shouldn’t be in business.

Don't think any worker can make it in NYC on 15/hr..unless they are illegal.

Kind of the problem of the future coming to a city near you..

Whether its union non-union 5, 10, 15, 20 or whatever the wage is what you get where you work...

The employees want the least the employee want the most..the government want everybody to just get along..

Its not capitalism, its not socialism or communism pushed by the political enemy, the problem as I see it is simply a loss of the concept of being an American.

You are proud to be an American or you are not..I'm sick of folks who claim their particular political persuasion is correct, and feel free to run down this great country irregardless of party.

I cant stomach the posts of so called conservatives cheering every factory closing and their elation at fellow Americans losing their jobs.

I'm far Right, and have left the GOP years ago. I fought for this country and I'll be dammed if I'm going to succeed, or put any party or region of this country over the basic fact that I am an American.

The idea of being a conservative first and an America second is bullshit ....

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