Free Republic

While we talk about democracy and equal rights, we seem increasingly to let both private and government decisions be determined by mob rule. There is nothing democratic about mob rule. It means that some people's votes are to be overruled by other people's disruptions, harassments and threats. The latest examples are the mobs in the streets in cities across the country, demanding that employers pay a minimum wage of $15 an hour, or else that the government makes them do so by law. Some of the more gullible observers think the issue is whether what some people are making now...

Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog Would liberals please explain why union workplaces are exempt from SeaTac’s $15 minimum wage law? The Washington Post recently published this article on the new $15 minimum wage law in SeaTac, Washington. The article states:“… union workplaces are exempt…”This exemption is wrong because the law is supposed to treat everyone equally.But also, it is an extreme example of hypocrisy. It was unions who got the ball rolling on this $15 minimum wage. It was unions who said that all workers should be paid at least $15 an hour.But now, these very same unions are getting an...

"MCDonalds Mcdonalds, can't you see...Seven-forty is not for me..." The chant, recited through a megaphone, was being led by a man identifed as a Christian Pastor ("Reverend Charles" we'll call him), near a McDonalds restaurant in Detroit last week. Dozens of people in the parking lot uttered the chant with him, as the crowd sought to malign McDonalds restaurants while at the same time demanding a $15.00 per hour wage. "They want fifteen, they want a union, they want to be organized" Pastor Charles told the tv news crews. "The McDonalds corporation should allow that to happen immediately." The illogic...

Want robots at McDonald's? Hike minimum wage: Zell Matthew J. Belvedere | @Matt_Belvedere Wednesday, 3 Sep 2014 Video Federal and state efforts to increase the minimum wage are misguided and pose serious risks to the economy and the job market, billionaire Sam Zell told CNBC on Wednesday. "The tinkering with the minimum wage is a very dangerous game," the chairman of Equity Group Investments said in a "Squawk Box" interview. "You start talking about a $13 or a $15 minimum wage, and you're going to have robots that are operating McDonald's."

Those who have left the workforce long ago or are now on fixed incomes are in for a rude awakening if the union goons and agitators of the Democratic Party get their way. A catastrophic rise of a new minimum wage to $15/hr would certainly make their standard of living deteriorate on an order of magnitude not seen since Jimmy Carter's 9th inning as Wimp In Chief. Consider. As businesses attempt to survive the new artificial input costs of labor imposed on them, they can 1) reduce the amount of labor; 2) invest in new IT and/or machinery in hopes...

Three things fast food workers should do with the “extra” money you’ll get if the national minimum wage is raised from $7.25 to $15 per hour. For argument sake, let’s call the average minimum wage $7.85 to account for California, New York, Arizona, Colorado, Montana, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Nevada, Ohio, Illinois and Florida, all of whom have something in the neighborhood of $8 (give or take).  Socialist enclaves of Oregon, Washington, Vermont, and Connecticut are in the $9 range, with Washington the winner at $9.32. Let’s also set the number of hours per week at 30 for the average burger-flipper or fry...

Sixty-one years ago last month, the third-ever McDonald's opened in Downey, Calif., a suburb of Los Angeles and home to Apollo, the third-ever NASA manned spaceflight program. McDonald's went to 119 countries from Baku, Azerbaijan, to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; Apollo went to the moon. A man who witnessed much of this history is Ron Piazza, who owns the landmark McDonald's in Downey —the world's oldest-operating McDonald's— along with nine other golden-arched franchises in the area. Piazza is something of a throwback. Plainspoken and serious, he is the type of business owner whose name and phone number are printed at the...

Dozens of fast food workers have been arrested at protests around the country where they are demanding higher pay at popular restaurants such as McDonald's, Burger King and Domino's. Fast food workers in New York City, Chicago, Detroit and possibly more cities were arrested for blocking traffic in front of restaurants early Thursday morning, while thousands more continued protesting peacefully, according to news reports. Backed by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), fast food workers in 150 cities are walking off the job and picking up picket signs to demand that they be paid no less than $15 per hour....

NEW YORK (AP) — Police handcuffed dozens of protesters in cities around the country on Thursday as they blocked traffic in the latest attempt to escalate their efforts to get McDonald's, Burger King and other fast-food companies to pay their employees at least $15 an hour. The protests, which were planned by labor organizers for about 150 cities nationwide throughout Thursday, are part of a campaign called "Fight for $15."

"The question is not whether we wish to see everybody as well off as possible. Among men of goodwill such an aim can be taken for granted. The real question concerns the proper means of achieving it. And in trying to answer this we must never lose sight of a few elementary truisms. We cannot distribute more wealth than is created. We cannot in the long run pay labor as a whole more than it produces."

Liberals are always talking about how easy it would be for McDonald’s to pay its workers $15 an hour. However, so far, no liberal has actually bought a McDonald’s franchise and paid those wages. So, I dare liberals to prove that it’s as easy as they claim it is. I dare liberals to buy a McDonald’s franchise, and pay the workers $15 an hour.

Illinois Governor Pat Quinn says he will live on $79 this week.. in a showcase for his call to raise the state’s minimum wage to a nice round ten dollars per hour… and he thinks that will help his campaign. Now, we can certainly grant that it’s a clever bit of showmanship – a governor being paid $177,000/year can hire an accountant to estimate the after-tax, after-housing funds of a “typical minimum wage worker” and then profess to be living on that amount for a week. He can hope that it showcases the need he imagines for poor people to...

President Barack Obama says he’ll press Congress to raise the minimum wage in the same way he courted his wife — never taking no for an answer. Obama brought a buoyant Labor Day message to Wisconsin, telling union members on Monday that he sees, quote, “engines are revving a little louder” in an economy coming back from a near-depression five years ago. Now, he says, quote, “America deserves a raise.” He promises his administration will keep pushing for one. Obama told the crowd to great applause that he would join a union for job security.

Op-Ed Hiking L.A.'s Minimum Wage Is A No-Brainer Minimum wage Fast food workers protest low pay, demanding a $15/hour minimum wage outside during a two-day nationwide strike. (Los Angeles Times) By ELI BROAD Raising the minimum wage isn't just good for workers: It's good for business Could you support your family in Los Angeles on the current minimum wage? Raising L.A.'s minimum wage will be a win all around Of all major cities in the country, Los Angeles has the highest percentage of population living in poverty. After decades of slow job growth and stagnant wages, 28% of Angelenos —...

By REBECCA KAPLAN CBS NEWS September 1, 2014 At Labor Day Event, Obama Pushes GOP To Raise Minimum Wage In the spirit of Labor Day, Obama promotes boosting minimum wage President Obama used a Labor Day event to tout economic gains and chide Republicans for not joining him in promoting policies he says will help working Americans, his latest push on a campaign-year issues that Democrats hope will boost their support at the polls this fall. Mr. Obama traveled to Milwaukee, Wisconsin Monday to speak at Laborfest, an event he visited in 2008 during his first presidential campaign. Despite a...

MILWAUKEE (AP) - President Barack Obama renewed his push for Congress to raise the minimum wage Monday in a buoyant accounting of the economy's "revving" performance, delivered on behalf of Democrats opening their fall campaigns for the midterm congressional elections. "America deserves a raise," he told a union crowd in Milwaukee, vowing to keep a hard sell on Congress in much the way he once courted his wife. "I just wore her down," he cracked. Timing his push to Labor Day, the traditional start of the autumn campaign, Obama aggressively drew attention to recent economic gains, setting aside past caution...

McDonald’s, Wendy’s and other fast-food restaurants are expected to be targeted with acts of civil disobedience that could lead to arrests Thursday as labor organizers escalate their campaign to unionize the industry’s workers. Kendall Fells, an organizing director for Fast Food Forward, said in an interview that workers in a couple of dozen cities were trained to peacefully engage in civil disobedience ahead of this week’s planned protests. Fells declined to say what exactly is in store for the protests in around 150 U.S. cities. But workers involved in the movement recently cited sit-ins as an example of strategies they...

President Barack Obama renewed his push for Congress to raise the minimum wage Monday in a buoyant accounting of the economy’s “revving” performance, delivered on behalf of Democrats opening their fall campaigns for the midterm congressional elections. “America deserves a raise,” he told a union crowd in Milwaukee, vowing to keep a hard sell on Congress in much the way he once courted his wife. “I just wore her down,” he cracked. Timing his push to Labor Day, the traditional start of the autumn campaign, Obama aggressively drew attention to recent economic gains, setting aside past caution on that subject....

President Barack Obama is asking Americans this Labor Day to think about the rights and benefits that people often take for granted. […] Obama says to strengthen the modern middle class, the U.S. must raise its minimum wage. He says states and businesses have raised wages already and Congress should, too. …

The misguided attempt to increase the minimum wage can almost be passed off as institutionalized economic illiteracy. Many people, however, have argued that it’s more than simple ignorance that drives the Left to ignore fiscal sanity and push for a $15 per hour burger-flipping wage. Well, if the latest attempt to institute mandated-minimum-pay illustrates anything, it shows that the Left isn’t that fond of the effort/reward relationship of hard work. Labor groups are now aiming to snuff out the system of tipping servers because… well… because it’s “unfair”.There is a movement to bump the minimum wage for tipped servers (often...