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Fran works six days a week in fast food, and yet she's homeless: 'It's economic slavery'
The Guardian ^ | 22 August 2017 | Dominic Rushe

Posted on 08/22/2017 2:52:15 AM PDT by Cronos

Once a customer has barked their order into the microphone at the Popeyes drive-thru on Prospect Avenue, Kansas City, the clock starts. Staff have a company-mandated 180 seconds to take the order, cook the order, bag the order and deliver it to the drive-thru window.

The restaurant is on “short shift” at the moment, which means it has about half the usual staff, so Fran Marion often has to do all those jobs herself. On the day we met, she estimates she processed 187 orders – roughly one every two minutes. Those orders grossed about $950 for the company. Marion went home with $76.

Despite working six days a week, Marion, 37, a single mother of two, can’t make ends meet on the $9.50 an hour she gets at Popeyes (no apostrophe – founder Al Copeland joked he was too poor to afford one). A fast food worker for 22 years, Marion has almost always had a second job. Until recently, she had been working 9am-4pm at Popeyes, without a break, then crossing town to a janitorial job at Bartle Hall, the convention center, where she would work from 5pm- to 1.30am for $11 an hour. She didn’t take breaks there either, although they were allowed.

..More than that, she likes working in fast food. “I love it. I’m good at it. Just like Martin Luther King said, ‘If you are going to be a road sweeper, be the best damn sweeper there is’,” she says. “I don’t know. It’s just this society is all messed up.”

(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; US: Kansas
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To: LeoTDB69

Alright, that was pretty funny.


21 posted on 08/22/2017 3:30:43 AM PDT by LukeL
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To: Buckeye McFrog

/// Huge numbers can politically force bad solutions.

A civil war Rwanda-style would help deal with the “huge numbers” issue.


22 posted on 08/22/2017 3:31:18 AM PDT by baltimorepoet
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To: Cronos
Those orders grossed about $950 for the company. Marion went home with $76.

A bit of propaganda attempted by the Guardian. Ot of that gross sales of 950, the company has to pay...


23 posted on 08/22/2017 3:31:19 AM PDT by Flick Lives (#CNNblackmail)
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To: Spktyr

“Break even for a burger bot is $10 per hour.”

Would you care to substantiate that number and for how long?

Maybe for the extent of the period of which the capital expense recouped.


24 posted on 08/22/2017 3:35:17 AM PDT by mazda77
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To: Cronos
A fast food worker for 22 years...

Aha! There's the problem right there!

25 posted on 08/22/2017 3:40:27 AM PDT by Gay State Conservative (ObamaCare Works For Those Who Don't.)
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To: Enterprise

“It’s an article advocating 15 dollars an hour.”

Agreed. This is not a news story, it is propaganda. “Economic slavery” indeed. They dont even bother trying to be subtle anymore. The woman should be complemented for working so hard rather than go on welfare.


26 posted on 08/22/2017 3:40:53 AM PDT by Brooklyn Attitude (The first step in ending the War on White People, is to recognize it exists.)
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To: JudyinCanada

I did the math, too. This is not poverty income, if she is working both jobs five days each week, it is a decent income. I have spent most of my life working two jobs, often with little sleep. Most of my adult life I didn’t go to a Dr. I still have succeeded putting kids through school, providing healthy meals, and a house to live in. That’s what parents do.
I am not familiar with the cost of housing and food in her area, but that income and living with someone else, she should have a very positive cash situation. She isn’t paying for housing, utilities, insurance, gas, feeding her children, buying them clothing, transporting them to school, etc. where is her $800+ a week going?
She works hard, she makes good money, why all the boo hoo?


27 posted on 08/22/2017 3:41:35 AM PDT by wdnhrse
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To: ImNotLying

Fran played stupid games. But she wants us to pay for her stupid prizes.

There is always a way Fran. Work harder


28 posted on 08/22/2017 3:42:26 AM PDT by Vaquero (Don't pick a fight with an old guy. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you.)
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To: JudyinCanada

Math is racist and you’re racist for noticing that the story is BS./sarc


29 posted on 08/22/2017 3:43:30 AM PDT by Eagles6
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To: mazda77

This was a few years ago and it was a manufacturer of such a system - they had a graphic and all the numbers presented at the time, which I can’t find at the moment. The gist of it was that in 2014, if your minimum wage went to $10/hr, the burger bot’s amortized cost *including expected maintenance* was the same as the cost of your employee doing the same job. Anything more than $10/hr and the bot had the advantage.


30 posted on 08/22/2017 3:45:13 AM PDT by Spktyr (Overwhelmingly superior firepower and the willingness to use it is the only proven peace solution.)
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To: equaviator
Stop getting pregnant by men you can’t live with if you know you can’t afford to raise a family as a single mother with little or no skills and education.

Chris Rock did a concert some time ago in which he did a segment called "Black people vs Niggaz".In it he talked about the portion of the black population who were lazy,irresponsible and violent.At one point he talked about welfare and mentioned women on welfare who had seven kids and he starts yelling "stop fornicating" (although he used a different term).

31 posted on 08/22/2017 3:46:45 AM PDT by Gay State Conservative (ObamaCare Works For Those Who Don't.)
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To: Cronos
This article is propaganda which actually documents how great America is , even if it neglects any government financial she gets like food stamps, housing, Medicaid , daycare etc.

Here is an example of a single mother of two with no husband to provide child support who is able to support her family despite lack its such as education that limits her to entry level fast food work

FWIW, has a friend who had to drop out of high school to help support her family when her dad died in a tragic accident

She got a job flipping burgers at McDonalds and was assistant manager in 6 months and manager of one restaurant in about 18 months

She got her GED somewhere along the line and started community college

The owner of her restaurant had several others and Within three or four years she was responsible for overseeing all of the owners McDonalds

During this time frame she got her associates degree from community college and McDonalds helped her with her education at a 4 year university

After working her way through college she made the jump to McDonalds corporate and worked her way up the ladder and makes a pretty nice six figure income

So much for flipping burgers being a dead end job

Fast food is a great place to get job skills and with the turn over, becoming an assistant manager in less than a year is realistic for anyone hard working and responsible

32 posted on 08/22/2017 3:48:41 AM PDT by rdcbn
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To: Cronos

Lot of good analysis in this thread!

Keep in mind that the average net profit for S&P 500 companies is usually less than 10%.


33 posted on 08/22/2017 3:49:23 AM PDT by jjotto ("Ya could look it up!")
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To: Gay State Conservative

Chris Rock, eh? What makes him such an important voice, the color of his skin?


34 posted on 08/22/2017 3:49:28 AM PDT by equaviator (There's nothing like the universe to bring you down to earth.)
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To: Cronos

Her work ethic seems to be decent, but I wonder what it was like when she was in school. Her lack of mobility is a direct result of her inability to acquire and utilize skill sets and developed talent (if, in fact, she ever developed any). My guess is that when she was in school there was no thought about having this kind of future and so she is now paying for her lack of preparation (and, of course, schools don’t really care if you learn anything or not—it’s graduate, not educate for America’s schools now).

Many (70%?) of the students where I teach will wind up in the same predicament as this woman. Of course, they are easy to write off. Then, one day, they show up in a piece of video showing Antifa and BLM mobs.

The answer is we must take back the nation’s schools.


35 posted on 08/22/2017 3:57:54 AM PDT by MarDav
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To: Cronos

From a caption of her photo: “Marion: ‘At the top of America, when it comes to Trump and them, their goal is to keep us down.”

That about sums up the article.


36 posted on 08/22/2017 3:58:31 AM PDT by raybbr (That progressive bumper sticker on your car might just as well say, "Yes, I'm THAT stupid!")
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To: Spktyr

>>Break even for a burger bot is $10 per hour.

I was talking about this a few days ago with a Prog friend and really needed that figure. Do you have the data to back that figure up?


37 posted on 08/22/2017 4:00:26 AM PDT by Bryanw92 (If we had some ham, we could have ham and eggs, if we had some eggs.)
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To: equaviator
What makes him such an important voice, the color of his skin?

Well,he either does,or doesn't,have something to say that's worth listening to.It's your choice.

38 posted on 08/22/2017 4:01:11 AM PDT by Gay State Conservative (ObamaCare Works For Those Who Don't.)
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To: Spktyr

10-4. Apparently, that was including the capital cost of design and development. With today’s manufacturing processes, that cost comes down for each additional machine, especially when produced on a production scale. I would submit the cost, including maintenance and updates would be much lower than even the $7.50 number because of the elimination of employment costs, overtime, sick days, short shifts and especially in efficiency tied to retraining constantly to keep up with the constant turnover. One machine alone could effectively replace up to four people per shift and we know some of these places are open 24/7.

I am in the design and development business and have been predicting this shift since the first coordinated calls for substantial raising of the “living wage” bullcrap started to surface. As most of my family is in the food service business, I have seen this first person since the early 70’s and the reasons I only worked it part time to help them out while I was focusing on my engineering education to be as far away from it as possible.


39 posted on 08/22/2017 4:06:45 AM PDT by mazda77
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To: Bryanw92

Don’t have a link to it. I was looking for it the other day and the only bookmark I can find for it goes to a page that no longer exists - site’s been redesigned.


40 posted on 08/22/2017 4:19:18 AM PDT by Spktyr (Overwhelmingly superior firepower and the willingness to use it is the only proven peace solution.)
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