"Janine, someone with your qualifications would have no trouble finding a top-flight job in either the food service or housekeeping industries."
Posted on 04/04/2013 10:05:37 AM PDT by traumer
They work for some of the biggest businesses in the United States, yet they are among the country's lowest-paid workers.
On Thursday, fast-food workers staged walkouts at McDonald's, Burger King, Taco Bell and other restaurants in New York City to call attention to their plight. Organizers scheduled the job actions to commemorate the day Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated 45 years ago in Memphis, where he was supporting a strike by sanitation workers.
"It's not enough," Elba Godoy, a crew member at a McDonald's just a few blocks from Times Square, said of her $7.25-per-hour minimum wage, which helps support her extended family of seven. "They don't like [that we're out here], but we have to do it. We cannot survive on $7.25."
Godoy and her colleagues are seeking a raise to $15 an hour and the right to form a union without retaliation. The walkout is part of a national movement by low-wage workers to raise wages and gain rights.
(Excerpt) Read more at inplainsight.nbcnews.com ...
Union wages are pegged to the minimum wage.
Funny how in the Bush era Pelosi called these “McJobs”
Now they hire 4 yr college grads for them who expect a middle class lifestyle.
To pay a $15 per hour wage in a fast food place would require improving productivity and necessarily raising the cost of the food dramatically. Would the market be willing to pay $10-15 for a fast food burger?
“What can we do with such people?”
In the good old days, they worked in the fields growing and picking cotton. That line of work doesn’t require much mental capacity.
The “strikers” in the article firmly set the demarcation line between those who believe they should be give/awarded material things just because of who they are and those who believe if your situation isn’t good, work hard to improve it. In short, the difference between takers and makers...liberals and conservatives. If you asked them whether they think the world owes them a living, they’d all shout yes.
They should get Haz Mat pay,,,,
seriesly
Jeez, talk about biting the hand that feeds you.
Bingo. It's a place to build a resume, a work history, and maybe a job network. Shows that you can reliably show up on time, follow basic instructions and not make customers angry.
Nothing wrong with working at McDonalds. It's a job, and honest work at that. But, in general, you're not going to be promoted from slinging burgers at the counter, to a corner office in a Fortune 100 firm. There are a number of steps that need to be taken to that end, and "first job" is one of them. :-)
I tell ya, I look at a lot of entry level hires (out of college) in my job. I never cease to be amazed at what walks in the door. They could do with some basic job skills....showing up on time, dressing appropriately, not cursing at the interviewer (me) and so on.
As a firm believer in the free enterprise system, I can find no fault on the part of any worker who tries to maximize the rewards for their labor. In a truly competive system, the business owner as well as his suppliers are trying to maximize profits and the customer is attempting to get the best value possible for their purchase, and there is no reason the worker should not leverage any advantage they have. So often we conservatives try to assign artificial values on labor based on our perceptions of the social status of the position rather than on supply and demand. If there is a shortage of fast food workers and a surplus of university professors, should not the pay of the former rise and the pay of the latter decline? For a good example of the free enterprise system at it’s best, visit one of the boom towns in the oil patch and see what the fast food franchise is paying for labor.
1988? they were on the way down then. the double digit rates didn’t last all that long. Carter into 1st 2 years of Reagan if my mind is still working.
Pulls out the official "victim" card with my local Organizing for America funded advocate to get my story in the newspaper.
wages are low... because unemployment is high.
there are just too many people available to do the job.
welcome to reality.
you can thank bj & hillary clinton for helping to ‘nudge’ all walmart suppliers to move their manufacturing to china.
The thing that amazes me, truly astounds me in fact is the venom directed towards people who work hard and want to make a little more.
I cannot believe the lack of empathy towards people who would like to make a living wage. The same people who will comment on jobless rate and stick their tongue out at Obama and comment, and rightfully so that he has been a disaster for the economy can turn around and say oh just get a better job. These are the jobs this economy is creating. We are not creating low skill entry positions where a person can work hard and better themselves. Those jobs are the scarcest of the scarce.
I refrained from making this statement early but now i guess i will. The problem is capitalism. There. Now flame me. I’m not advocating communism,socialism or anything else but merely pointing out a flaw. what is the ultimate goal of capitalism? The greatest production with the fewest employees. That is the goal. That is maximization of profits. That problem is put off by new technologies but each growth cycle spurred by innovation needs fewer workers because its building on other new technology.
I don’t know the answer and this is not directed at you although i don’t think i’ve been venomous in my little missive. Oh i’ve been on wall Street for 30 years and the whole fewer workers producing more is something i have witnessed in this industry and others many times over.
I’d rather not answer 100 attacks but i suppose i will.
The union will hire here as a spokesperson - sad but likely true.
Me first!
We haven’t had capitalism in the USA that hasn’t been infected by socialism and communist ideas for over 110 years.
That answers nothing does it? Are you saying that the goal of capitalism is other than i stated? This works better than everything else but this is a problem that has only come up the past 30-40 years and has accelerated the past 20.
Will the last person working anywhere in the USA please turn out the lights when they retire?
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