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New York fast food workers strike over low wages [want $15/hr]
guardian.co.uk ^ | Thursday 29 November 2012 19.32 EST | Gizelle Lugo

Posted on 12/01/2012 7:15:07 PM PST by DeaconBenjamin

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To: DeaconBenjamin

Just a thought....
How about the restaurants pushing back with offering an alternative pay: the workers can take home 12 “value combo meals” per day, arrange mass-transit passes for 2 rides per day, and housing voucher for going rate on 500 sq feet basic housing rental.
There. Your ends are met. “Now what did you REALLY want from this negotiation?”


141 posted on 12/02/2012 12:43:17 PM PST by ctdonath2 ($1 meals: http://abuckaplate.blogspot.com)
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To: snarkybob

“Outside of collective bargaining how do laborers best sell their labor.”

Improve what they have to offer.

The problem is there are too many people expecting good pay for lousy work. If the market needs 10,000 workers to do what pretty much anyone can do with a few minutes’ orientation, and there’s 50,000 people wanting to do those jobs, and 10,000 of those people are willing to take minimum wage for that work, then either 40,000 people need to either figure out how to get paid less, improve their ability so they can perform jobs warranting higher pay, move, or STFU and be thankful for any opportunity that opens for them.

Collective bargaining doesn’t work in this case because there’s nothing to bargain for: if they all quit, McD’s et al just put out “Hiring” signs and get back to normal a couple days later with new staff.


142 posted on 12/02/2012 12:50:52 PM PST by ctdonath2 ($1 meals: http://abuckaplate.blogspot.com)
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To: snarkybob

“So why exactly don’t these low skilled workers deserve to be paid up to just below the poverty level.”

Because “poverty level” is a farce. The US official poverty line is some 20x world median income. If you’re being paid twenty times what the top of half the world’s population gets, you’re not poor.

Urban living is expensive. If you can’t handle the cost, you gotta go somewhere else.


143 posted on 12/02/2012 12:54:11 PM PST by ctdonath2 ($1 meals: http://abuckaplate.blogspot.com)
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To: snarkybob
This was never about wage busting. It was about a business model that adults decided to crash, and now complain about. There is a considerable difference.

I would say that whatever the earlier business model, that’s not the case now.  If it were meant as a kids job, they should have maintained the practice of hiring kids.

I believe the employer's only duty is to hire a person who can do the job and is willing to work for the wages that have been offered.  When this McDonald's unit hired these people, they did so because the potential employees asked to work for those wages.  McDonalds hired them in mutual good faith.  The potenitail employees agree to the parameters, and McDonalds agreed to allow them to work for under those parameters.  How would it have been beneficial if McDonalds had refused to hire them in the first place, because they were too old, didn't fit their business model?

I’m actually part of the problem as I don’t eat fast food, but my kids do sometimes. The McDs nearest our house only has adult workers and their English is not very good.

Saying that you are a part of a problem as it relates to this is not accurate.  You are simply making a choice that is yours to make.  You probably made a decision based on health or some other logical reasoning.  Good for you.  I fully support your decision, and it's no problem whatsoever.  You've done nothing negative here.

As for the employees you describe, there's your reason.  These folks can barely function in English.  Now they want salaries commensurate with a person who can function in the language of this nation.


I don’t know if they’re illegals ot guest workers.

Neither one should be here, if they aren't fully capable of speaking English, or educated well enough to providing for themselves and their families.  Here we are assessing blame on a business for extending it's hand to hire people nobody else would.  And this is what they get for it?

Shouldn't the blame here be on these people who are not qualified to participate in the broader jobs market?  Surely you must see some truth in this.

I agree with the other points you made.


I appreciate that.

Take care.

144 posted on 12/02/2012 12:55:29 PM PST by DoughtyOne (Hurricane Sandy..., a week later and over 60 million Americans still didn't have power.)
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To: ctdonath2

“Collective bargaining doesn’t work in this case because there’s nothing to bargain for: if they all quit, McD’s et al just put out “Hiring” signs and get back to normal a couple days later with new staff.”

Unless they unionize.
The article said that was a possibility.


145 posted on 12/02/2012 12:56:14 PM PST by snarkybob (')
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To: DoughtyOne

“Shouldn’t the blame here be on these people who are not qualified to participate in the broader jobs market? Surely you must see some truth in this.”

I do blame them, but I also blame the people who imported them and gave them jobs.
I realize flipping burgers isn’t the same as working for Boeing.
But, the argument that unions distort the market and artificialy inflate labor overlooks the fact that guest workers and illegals artificialy drive the labor market down.
If the only way to keep the price from going up is to hire illegals or guest workers doesn’t that subvert the free market.


146 posted on 12/02/2012 1:17:30 PM PST by snarkybob (')
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To: snarkybob
Shouldn’t the blame here be on these people who are not qualified to participate in the broader jobs market? Surely you must see some truth in this.

I do blame them, but I also blame the people who imported them and gave them jobs.

I doubt you envision McDonalds going to India or Bangladesh and recruiting.  I think you're making a good case against H1-B visas, but missing the mark when it comes to fast food restaurants.

I realize flipping burgers isn’t the same as working for Boeing.

No it isn't.  I'd be much more comfortable if you were making an argument with a position only a little above the McDonalds example though.  This is an important point, one that I think will help you to understand another dynamic in play here.

Why is it healthy to have different pay scales from bottom to top?  Why is the admission of a desire to see a Utopian world of equal pay an admission of not understanding fully what takes place in a Capitalist society, or for that matter, a healthy society?

How many engineers would we have if upon completion of high school, a graduate could choose from among a massive list of positions they could accept, that would afford them "a living wage"?


I would submit to you, that a number of things would take place the very moment the minimum wage was raised to $15.00 to $20.00 bucks an hour.

1. Tens of millions of jobs would vanish.
2. Tens of millions of new people would be unemployed.
3. There would be very little (almost no) incentive for anyone sixteen years and above, to continue with education.
4. We would in short order see the amount of people who were procuring advanced degrees, diminish in significant numbers.
5. We would in short order see a massive brain drain in the United States.
6. We would in short order be unable to fulfill strategically important jobs
7. We would in short order see a massive number of businesses fail.
8. The United States would hit the bottom with an echoing thud.

There has to McDonalds, or there are not only no Boeings, but very little else in-between.


But, the argument that unions distort the market and artificialy inflate labor overlooks the fact that guest workers and illegals artificialy drive the labor market down.

Well, that hasn't been overlooked by me.

If the only way to keep the price from going up is to hire illegals or guest workers doesn’t that subvert the free market.

In some instance yes, and in other instances no.

In almost all instances though, I disagree with either of these options.

147 posted on 12/02/2012 2:55:11 PM PST by DoughtyOne (Hurricane Sandy..., a week later and over 60 million Americans still didn't have power.)
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To: DoughtyOne
I had a lapse there didn’t I. Chalk up one more person who has a massive loss, if this union thing catches on.

Well, it's the age of "Hope & Change". We can expect to see more of this sort of thing over the next four years. We're about to witness a veritable orgy of leftist idealism on display throughout the country.

148 posted on 12/02/2012 3:26:40 PM PST by Windflier (To anger a conservative, tell him a lie. To anger a liberal, tell him the truth.)
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To: Windflier

Yes, sadly, I agree. And it’s also sad to see otherwise sound people, be moved in part on the lies of these groups.

It’s going to be a time of required heightened vigilance.


149 posted on 12/02/2012 3:34:19 PM PST by DoughtyOne (Hurricane Sandy..., a week later and over 60 million Americans still didn't have power.)
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To: DoughtyOne

Thanks for your replies.
I like thought out positions like yours, even if I disagree.
In this case the disagreement is actually not very much.

I’m not a class warrior. I do know that everything can’t be equal or there’s no inecntive to move forward.
I do believe tho that all labor has value. Even cleaning the muck from the gutters.

I’m not sure how it happened, that’s probably why it happened, but my experience with wage distortion is based on the construction trade in Texas.
When I left high school many of the boys in my peer group
myself included, opted to skip college.
We were all rural kids and most of us had been working some kind of blue collar labor job since we were old enough to work.
Obviously some blue collar jobs were’nt realistic. My senior year job was as a ranch hand and that didn’t pay enough to eat on a regular basis even back then.

Most of us that opted out of higher education got jobs as carpenters, drywallers, roofers, truck drivers....you get the gist.
Fast forward 15 years, suddenly these guys notice they’re being pinched. Everything costs more and they’re still within a couple of dollars an hour of where they started.

Then I started noticing that the construction crews were speaking less and less English.
At first I didn’t worry about it, figuring that anybody could drive a nail or make big piles out of little piles.
After a while though I started to realize that the trend for cheap labor had not only done away with what had been traditional entry level construction jobs, but the new workers were causing the pay for foremen and assistant foreman to stop getting bumped.

The new workers had none of the creative thought that you mentioned, they had zero curiosty about, or interest in their jobs other than to get a check on Friday. They were willing to work for just about half what the job had paid in previous years.

At about this same time I begin to notice that the materials used in construction jobs was getting crappier and crappier. I mean the cheapest junk that could be purchased.

I asked and was told that the cheap labor and materials were to keep the costs for construction projects low enough that they were affordable.

Funny thing, those projects kept right on climbing in costs and not just for houses but for things like roofs and floors and siding.

I wish I had some idea where it all goes from here, but IMHO the greed factor now outweighs the sense factor.
Some things have gotten cheaper, ChiCom junk from Walmart for example, but real goods and services haven’t stayed low cost.

The factory jobs seemed safe until the wave upon wave of outsourcing killed them as well.

The ripple effect has been catostrophic.
People work full time jobs to live on the margin. They fell into the easy credit trap. I know a lot of people who lived beyond their means via credit cards, but I also know a lot of people who were racking up CC debt just to stay fed and clothed.
God help you if you get sick or injured or miss a weeks work.
To get any kind of gainful employment you almost have to have a college degree that you then spend the next 15 years paying for. And even the college degree jobs aren’t paying at the top of the scale.

Somethings going to have to give. Because the people downsized or under employed or underpayed aren’t going to evaporate when they hit bottom. They’re going to come asking for assistance.
I’ve seen it said on this forum that a good parasite doesn’t kill its host, this is usually said about people on welfare, but the parasites at the top have done a pretty good job of it as well.

There’s a thread running now about what happened when the manufacturing sector was taken over by MBAs and displacing the designers, engineers, marketers and sellers who had traditionaly ran things.

Sorry this was so long winded. I had to take a break from FR and actually get a little something done.

Hope your Sunday is enjoyable.


150 posted on 12/02/2012 4:19:25 PM PST by snarkybob (')
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To: snarkybob
I didn’t say anything about anybody being owed a living wage.

I'm not going to wade back through the whole thread to find it now, but you definitely inferred that, even if you didn't directly state it as such. It's been one of your chief points throughout this conversation.

What I said is if the business can’t pay wages that workers are willing to work for and the workers have an option to unionize then they will.

Do you hear yourself? If a business can't afford to pay more for certain types of labor, then what good will it do for their workers to unionize (provided they can)?

If the fast food workers are unwilling to work for wages that the free market will support, then they need to upgrade their skills and seek work that does pay more. It's as simple as that.

No one's saying that these workers won't try to force McDonalds to pay them more, but they're going to run smack dab into the brick wall of reality, when they find that the net result of applying that force, is that fewer jobs are available in that company. They might even force the owners to close those stores and relocate to a saner market environment.

I've seen it happen before.

I lost one of the best jobs I ever had, because the Teamsters Union forced my company to relocate. They were already operating at barely sustainable margins, and the final push by the union was the last straw. Several hundred people lost their jobs at that one location, because of the greed of that union.

And we weren't the only ones. The Teamsters broke the backs of several other big freight haulers at the same time. Thousands lost their lifetime employment security in that one incident.

The McDonalds workers who are clamoring for more pay, need to realize that they do some of the most mindless, menial work in the economy, and that there simply isn't enough headroom in the pricing structure of their company's products to pay them more.

If these uneducated shlubs want to push it, and unionize all the fast food workers across the country, then there will be a lot less fast food restaurants, and a lot fewer of those kinds of jobs for entry level workers. In the end, who wins? Who loses?

Think about it.

151 posted on 12/02/2012 4:33:39 PM PST by Windflier (To anger a conservative, tell him a lie. To anger a liberal, tell him the truth.)
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To: Windflier

“If these uneducated shlubs want to push it, and unionize all the fast food workers across the country, then there will be a lot less fast food restaurants, and a lot fewer of those kinds of jobs for entry level workers. In the end, who wins? Who loses?”

I’m still not being clear. I don’t personally care if the burger flippers unionize or not. I don’t eat there.

My point is ,if McDs doesn’t want to raise their pay, and they can unionize and get a pay bump. They’re within their rights to do that.
McDs can then close or do whatever option is best.

The workers are pushing the cost of labor up...period.

A friend of mine who had been working as an independent driver with his own truck just recently gave that up and started looking for a new way to make a living due to the cost of fuel.
The fuel company doesn’t owe him low cost fuel.
These workers don’y owe McDs low cost labor.

There seem to be several solutions. Raise their pay. Don’t raise their pay and hope they just go back to work.
Deal with a union if they organize one and either raise prices and pay them or close up shop.

You seem to be taking this personally.


152 posted on 12/02/2012 4:48:36 PM PST by snarkybob (')
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To: snarkybob

You keep leaving out “Replace the workers who won’t work for that pay with those that will”

That is definitely an option and should always be an option


153 posted on 12/02/2012 4:50:13 PM PST by GeronL (http://asspos.blogspot.com)
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To: GeronL

“You keep leaving out “Replace the workers who won’t work for that pay with those that will”
That is definitely an option and should always be an option”

Of course that’s an option.


154 posted on 12/02/2012 4:53:43 PM PST by snarkybob (')
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To: snarkybob

You said something like 3 options, raise pay, unionize, or close.

How about kick the workers out on their ass and put up a help-wanted sign.....


155 posted on 12/02/2012 4:58:51 PM PST by eyedigress ((zOld storm chaser from the west)/?)
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To: eyedigress

“You said something like 3 options, raise pay, unionize, or close.
How about kick the workers out on their ass and put up a help-wanted sign.....”

Also an option. At least until they unionize.


156 posted on 12/02/2012 5:00:42 PM PST by snarkybob (')
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To: snarkybob

Let them unionize and be unemployed union. Then hire non-union employees.

They are not owners of those jobs, they are not entitled.


157 posted on 12/02/2012 5:14:36 PM PST by GeronL (http://asspos.blogspot.com)
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To: GeronL

“Let them unionize and be unemployed union. Then hire non-union employees.
They are not owners of those jobs, they are not entitled.”

You’re right, they’re not entitled.
The same McDs isn’t entitled to cheap labor.
Or the public to cheap burgers.


158 posted on 12/02/2012 5:18:31 PM PST by snarkybob (')
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To: snarkybob
Thanks for your replies. I like thought out positions like yours, even if I disagree. In this case the disagreement is actually not very much.  I thought this was a nice reply in light of some of my comments.  I appreciated it.  When you first wrote this to me as private comments, I expressed by appreciation of you being willing to listen and agree/disagree.  I am happy to do so here as well.

I’m not a class warrior. I do know that everything can’t be equal or there’s no incentive to move forward.   I do believe tho that all labor has value. Even cleaning the muck from the gutters.  I believe so too, but I'm not a big fan of a government or union entity coming along and declaring what that value is.  I respect people for doing work.  If a job needs to be done, someone needs to do it.  I respect the person who does it.  You'll never see/hear me putting someone down for the job they're doing, unless that job is gaming the citizens of the United States for the attainment of evil goals.

I’m not sure how it happened, that’s probably why it happened, but my experience with wage distortion is based on the construction trade in Texas. When I left high school many of the boys in my peer group myself included, opted to skip college. We were all rural kids and most of us had been working some kind of blue collar labor job since we were old enough to work. Obviously some blue collar jobs weren't realistic. My senior year job was as a ranch hand and that didn’t pay enough to eat on a regular basis even back then.  Most of us that opted out of higher education got jobs as carpenters, dry-wallers, roofers, truck drivers....you get the gist. Fast forward 15 years, suddenly these guys notice they’re being pinched. Everything costs more and they’re still within a couple of dollars an hour of where they started.

I think there are a lot of us who dropped out into decent paying jobs.  Although my story is a little different than yours, your description comes close enough for us to be in the same group, folks who opted to work rather than continue our education.  And even though times have changed, I believe there is a vital need for jobs like this.  Not everyone is going to have the aptitude, financial stability, or drive to continue on with higher education.  If everyone did, that would be a problem too.  Not every job requires a four year college degree.  It's not necessary, and actually counter-productive for everyone to have one.

Imagine everyone walking around with $50,000 to $250,000 dollar in college loans to pay off, and there being nowhere near the volume of high paying jobs to place them all in.  That would be very unfortunate.

Then I started noticing that the construction crews were speaking less and less English. At first I didn’t worry about it, figuring that anybody could drive a nail or make big piles out of little piles. After a while though I started to realize that the trend for cheap labor had not only done away with what had been traditional entry level construction jobs, but the new workers were causing the pay for foremen and assistant foreman to stop getting bumped.  The new workers had none of the creative thought that you mentioned, they had zero curiosity about, or interest in their jobs other than to get a check on Friday. They were willing to work for just about half what the job had paid in previous years.

I have seen this.  The construction industry used to be a great place for citizens to go when they didn't want to continue on with schooling.  Yes, some positions required more schooling such as electricians, but many positions paid a decent salary that folks could earn a living to support a family on.  I have railed against the cheap labor in this area for a long time.

At about this same time I begin to notice that the materials used in construction jobs was getting crappier and crappier. I mean the cheapest junk that could be purchased.

I don't work in the trades, but I dabble enough in my own projects to know what you're addressing.  I agree.

I asked and was told that the cheap labor and materials were to keep the costs for construction projects low enough that they were affordable.  Funny thing, those projects kept right on climbing in costs and not just for houses but for things like roofs and floors and siding.

Once again, I agree.  I've seen it.  I watch some of the HDTV shows, and even on those I spot plenty of inferior products and short-cuts, that are often described as better, or simply more green.  In many instance they are clearly NOT better.  They are simply more politically correct.  Those homes will not last as long.  In short order they'll begin to have problems.  They're just inferior.  Old homes lasted decades.  I watch some of these projects and recognize issues that will materialize in the future, and not that distant a future either.

I wish I had some idea where it all goes from here, but IMHO the greed factor now outweighs the sense factor.  Some things have gotten cheaper, ChiCom junk from Walmart for example, but real goods and services haven’t stayed low cost.

I agree.  The problem is, new homeowners don't know what a complete bucket of bunk they're being sold.  The homes they are purchasing can't possibly withstand the test of time.  By the time the mortgage is paid off, they'll be left with a lot of problems.  I am referencing some of the newer construction.  Older homes that have been updated have some pretty good bones.  They'll remain okay.

The factory jobs seemed safe until the wave upon wave of outsourcing killed them as well.  And lets add, wave upon wave of immigrant labor...

The ripple effect has been catastrophic.  I agree that the U. S. Citizen worker, and there-by the U. S. Citizens at large have been gamed over the last twenty years, and it has gotten as still getting worse.

People work full time jobs to live on the margin. They fell into the easy credit trap. I know a lot of people who lived beyond their means via credit cards, but I also know a lot of people who were racking up CC debt just to stay fed and clothed.
God help you if you get sick or injured or miss a weeks work.  And don't forget the interest rates that are now around 30%, when in the old days someone would be prosecuted for trying to enforce these interest rates.

To get any kind of gainful employment you almost have to have a college degree that you then spend the next 15 years paying for. And even the college degree jobs aren’t paying at the top of the scale.  Yep.  That's right.  And as I was telling someone several days ago, I think we did this to ourselves to a certain degree.  We effectively doubled the work-force by having two wage earner families.  What did we expect that to do to wages?

Somethings going to have to give. Because the people downsized or under employed or under-payed aren’t going to evaporate when they hit bottom. They’re going to come asking for assistance.  I’ve seen it said on this forum that a good parasite doesn’t kill its host, this is usually said about people on welfare, but the parasites at the top have done a pretty good job of it as well.

Well, I think we have all contributed to what ails us to a certain extent.  I do agree that parasites have cropped up, but I'm reticent to call the current crop 'good' in any sense of the word.  Don't get me wrong, I don't consider someone with a hand out to be a parasite, until they decide to stay in that status by intent.

There’s a thread running now about what happened when the manufacturing sector was taken over by MBAs and displacing the designers, engineers, marketers and sellers who had traditionally run things.

Should be interesting, but I'll take a pass.  We've spent enough time on these subjects today.

Sorry this was so long winded. I had to take a break from FR and actually get a little something done.  No problem.  I appreciate the discussion.

Hope your Sunday is enjoyable.

At this point, I merely hope yours was enjoyable.  Take care.

A
159 posted on 12/02/2012 5:40:08 PM PST by DoughtyOne (Hurricane Sandy..., a week later and over 60 million Americans still didn't have power.)
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To: snarkybob
These workers don’y owe McDs low cost labor.

Right, and McDonalds doesn't owe them a job - low paying, high paying, or in between. They're paying these workers what the market will bear.

That's what you seem to be missing here. These folks don't have a right to a bigger slice of the pie in that company. They willingly chose to perform unskilled labor for a low wage. That wage can't be higher than it is, due to the cost of the products being produced, and the cost of all the other related overhead and expenses involved with running one of those stores.

If these folks want to make a higher wage, then they've got to confront the fact that they'll have to produce a tangible service that's of greater value to the buying public.

They can organize, go on strike, complain to the media, threaten their employers, pout and stomp their feet, but the fact remains, no one's cheating them out of anything and they're not being harmed in any way.

It's up to them to improve their lot in life, if that's their desire. Applying force to obtain greater material rewards, while not increasing their exchange with those who pay them, is nothing short of criminal. It's leftist think, and destructive to everyone concerned.

And now, I really do need to end off on this. There's really nothing more for me to say. If you still sympathize with these workers, that's your business. You're welcome to your viewpoint.

160 posted on 12/02/2012 7:35:27 PM PST by Windflier (To anger a conservative, tell him a lie. To anger a liberal, tell him the truth.)
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