Posted on 12/01/2012 7:15:07 PM PST by DeaconBenjamin
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
People in Hell want Ice Water.
If you hate your job, go get a different job. If you touch a hot stove, you pull your hand away. You don’t stand there complaining about the pain.
Life sure is complicated when you’re stupid. It’s only complicated for the rest of us because stupid people get to Vote. November 6th turned theory into fact.
“The strike, organised by pressure group New York Communities for Change (NYCC)...”
When I first read this, I thought it said New York Communists for Change.
_________________________
That’s what I thought. LOL
That’s what it should be.
Actually it did...you just have to understand the code words. :-)
$21.85 an hour
That is more than I make currently. I live quite comfortably.
“These morons crack me up. McDonald’s jobs weren’t meant to be jobs that would support a family. They’re entry level jobs for kids. As you get used to the work environment and your skills/education increase, you leave jobs like this and take higher paying jobs.”
What higher paying jobs would those be?
Manufacturing was dismantled and shipped to a location where labor can be had for pennies on the dollar or skilled tradesman jobs were overrun by illegal immigrants.
That is what it'll run you in Europe.
My husband called me from Stockholm the other day. He had a Subway sub, bag of chips and a coke--$15
hang on... they claim $21.85 an hour (29 hours?) is the minimum needed to live in NYC and then demand $15 an hour?
...........
Their elevators don’t reach all the way to the top do they?
You're gonna bust a 10, and get very little back as it stands right now.
Double their wages, and they will double their prices.
BaraqaClaus will put a boot on the fast food chains throats, so that these folks can get the wages they’re asking for. More Social Justice.
Walk off the job? I'd think they meant to quit and just fire 'em! They might think $8.90/hr is low for a no-skill menial job, but $0 is even less.
Even in the food industry, there are higher class places that pay more than McDonalds.
I once knew a waitress that waited tables at a budget restaurant chain. After she had been there for a few years, I suggested she could make more money by brushing up on her skills and applying at a higher class restaurant.
Why do the same amount of work, for tips based on $7.50 meals, when you could be getting tips on $27.50 to $150.00 dollar meals?
I am sympathetic to your argument, because outsourcing is something I’ve been against for the last twenty years.
People need only take a look at our work environment these days, to see what outsourcing has accomplished.
I consider it downright evil.
“I consider it downright evil.”
It’s just greed. IMHO that’s what the slave wage pay at a fast food place is as well.
I read this thread and saw the contempt for people struggling to get by.
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.
I hate to say it but the attitude of some of the conservatives here toward struggling workers may be why we’re losing everywhere.
A robot won’t spit in your food either
Careful, Ben Bernanke might hear you.
Or take a whiz in the secret sauce.
“When I first read this, I thought it said New York Communists for Change.”
Dude, it does say that, they’ve just wiggled it around a little bit.
These jobs were never intended to be careers, it’s too bad these people were so ill served by the union teachers who taught them that Mickey Ds is the best they can do, job wise.
I said something anti-union at work the other day, I’ve been having a bad month since Sandy and it just popped out of my mouth. To my amazement the 2 gals I said it too agree with me, strongly. One is pretty libertarian and generally aware an involved, but I’m sure the other is a big lib. But they both had NO USE for unions.
I can see unions for cops, firemen, maybe coal miners and others working risky, life-on-the-line jobs, nobody else.
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 hate to say this, but it is not all stupidity, some of it is LAZINESS and it infests even those with high IQs.
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