US fast-food workers staging nationwide strike

[gnjsdad]

I agree. We all end up subsidizing employers who don’t pay decent wages, or give full time hours.

I am quite surprised at the lack of outrage directed at McDonalds by the “free-market”, “lift yourself up by your own bootstraps” Tea Party types, when it is correctly pointed out that McDonalds is acting like the prototypical “welfare queen”.

When a major corporation pays its workers less than subsistence wages and encourages those workers to apply for government assistance, then has the effrontery to claim that paying its workers more poses an unaceptable pricing risk, this is patent evidence of the culture of greed which capitalism fosters.

Tea Party people can’t have it both ways. You can’t justify corporate starvation wages for “unskilled” labor, and then express resentment at the rising cost of “government” when those people seek relief.

 

[livingwordunity]

My experience with working in fast-food is that they use and abuse their people for minimal pay. When I used to work on fast-food jobs it was over 20 years ago, and the pay was $3.35 an hour. They would only give me two hours a day of work and only during the two busiest hours of the day - lunch. While working during lunch, the place was packed with people and buzzers would be going off it seemed like several times a minute. It was a very loud and chaotic work environment. But as soon as lunch time was over and it started to slow down they would tell me to clock out and leave. One of those times, after I got home (on the bus because I couldn’t afford a car) they called me back in saying that right after I left that things suddenly got busy again. I thought that was very unreasonable for them to expect me to always be on call for them when my paycheck was averaging only about $50 every two weeks.

 

[DeniseNY]

Ever occur to you many of us started at that level and actually bothered to improve our material station in life?

No, I don’t think it’s ever occurred to her.

 

[DeniseNY]

Ever occur to you many of us started at that level and actually bothered to improve our material station in life?

No, I don’t think it’s ever occurred to her. Or if it has, she thinks that those of us who have improved our stations in life are anomalies.

 

[PaulinVA]

The basic fact is that there are people in the country who are unable or unwilling to do anything with their lives, and are perpetually stuck in welfare, government help, and low wage jobs.

I am all for paying people a wage that is commensurate with the work they are doing. If you have a souight-after skill, you make more. If you have no skill, you make less. There is also a comparison going on - an unskilled person gets x, a semi-skilled person gets x times1 point 4, and skilled tradesman gets x times 2 or three.

If you artificially inflate the bottom of the scale, and pay people more than their work is worth, it puts pressure all the way up the ladder, and causes staggering inflation. The guy now making $15 demands $22, and the guy making $30 demands $40. All goods and services prices spiral out of control.

If you want to make more money, improve your skills.

 

[ProVobis]

The thing is, if the minimum wage goes to $15/hr., the cost of everything goes up accordingly. So the minimum wage guy still can’t afford what he couldn’t afford before the wage hike. So what good does it do? Seriously, some people just don’t think things through.

But the argument is that the costs have proceeded any wage hikes, not vice versa. I don’t like this argument (either) because it ignores the consequences of the Federal Reserve actions in regards to excessive money printing, not to mention producing misleading CPI figures. A vicious circle has been created by the Fed and they just sit back and let us play political games with it.

 

[TheWarriorMonk]

And once again, heaven help us if the those who repair our roads, build our houses, clean our public buildings and toilets or pick up the trash stop working. The cities will stink in a week or less and disease will be rampant, not to mention rats and other pests.

For a reality check:

I almost became a contractor during good times. I know how to use tools, but have never done any professional contracting work. Starting wage offered to me: $35 per hour. It would’ve been $30 if I didn’t know how to use the tools. That’s not minimum wage. However, many of these jobs were lost due to current economic policy.

With regard to the other jobs, here those jobs are unionized. Those people make way more than minimum wage, with full benefits. Of course, our taxes are ridiculous. Between federal, state, local, real estate, sales, etc. tax close to half our money if taken away before we can feed our families.

When the average wage in a nation is poverty there is something wrong, very wrong.

 

[TheWarriorMonk]

I would hope not. People need jobs and they need to be gainfully compensated for them. This"trickle a few pennies down to the idiots mentality" in this country needs to stop. Wages have been fairly stagnant since the early 80’s or at least have not kept up with the cost of living, that is unless you are among the top 1%.

People also have to start understanding what they are talking about. McDonalds HQ is running your local McDonalds. They’re often run by small local corporations, or even individuals. Raising prices will not only hurt the employees and customers, but it discouraging the owner of the local franchise to run the business in the first place; i.e., job loss.

 

[Geist]

Last month CNBC interviewed a McDonalds worker who wanted $15 per hour because she had worked there for 13 years. She was making well over the minimum wage but it was not enough to support her as a single mother with three children. When questioned, about why she had not moved into management after all that time, she admitted that she had been offered the assistant manager position, but turned it down because she did not want the responsibility, just the $15.

This attitude is very typical of the modern entitlement mentality.

In my opinion, when you take on the responsibility of three children outside of marriage, you no longer have the luxury of avoiding responsibility at work.

“It was the most memorable time of my life. It was a touching moment because I never thought this day would ever happen. I won’t have to worry about putting gas in my car. I won’t have to worry about paying my mortgage. You know, if I help him, he’s gonna help me.”

Peggy Joseph on Obamas first election

(turns out she was right, why work? why plan? why think? The government will take care of everything).

 

[Tampa_Dave]

Doubling minimum wage to $15 an hour is wholly unfair to skilled labor. My oldest daughter earned an MPA at the University of Alabama. She currently works for an Alabama non-profit corporation making $38,000 $18 per hour]. My youngest daughter earned a BA at Ohio State and will attend law school next year. She currently makes $31,000 $15 per hour] working for a Virginia law firm. Menial laborers are not entitled to an equivalent salary. Their respective duties, responsibilities, skill sets, and societal contributions are entirely unequal. If you need greater income, seek internal promotion or attend college, trade school, etc. Take a second job, live with relatives, or wait to have children until your financial situation improves. Our maid used to work for a cleaning firm for low wages before starting her own business. She earns $25 an hour, drives a $30,000 car, and is paying her daughter’s tuition at the local community college. The owner of our lawn service followed the same route and currently earns a six-figure annual income. I worked menial jobs to pay for college and law school before becoming a lawyer. My wife did the same and now holds a senior executive position in local government. We did better than our parents before us and, hopefully, our daughters will do the same. This is not to say I’m better than someone earning lower wages, since we are all equal in the eyes of God. We simply earn different wages based upon our education, training, experience, and contribution to, or impact on, society. If you disagree with my opinion, so be it. God bless you.

 

[TARRAT]

No, it was not the taxpayers through the public schools. My Mom and Dad realized that the public schools in our area were terrible, and so they sacrificed time and money to homeschool me instead. It paid off, I am acing my college courses. However, my parents were still forced to support a backward, inefficient, corrupt, and incompetent public school system that they did not use.

Hoorah!

 

[Orogeny]

I have known too many people with College Degrees, including myself, who have had to work “low end” jobs that are not even related to their fields of interest and study because of lay-offs, mergers, company by-out and jobs being sent overseas.

Why do you think that you are the only one posting in this thread that had to deal with those situations?

These people include "Geophysical Engineers, Nurses (who by the way make lousy money for what they do), Biologists (myself and friends), and Chemists.

Geophysical engineers who can’t get jobs in that field right now have something wrong with them. There is a nursing shortage so nurses who can’t get jobs have something wrong with them (I am married to a nurse, have two sisters who are nurses and have a daughter-in-law who graduated with a BSN in 2012). Chemists should have no problem getting jobs unless they limit themselves to one specific field that has no career opportunities. Now to your degree. What did you plan to do with a degree in biology? Did you have a career in mind when you decided to major in that subject? Are you willing to move to another part of the country or even overseas to work? Are you willing to take an entry level job, doing the dirty work with long hours and low pay so that you can build up the experience you need to move up in a company?

All too many “jobs” depend on bogus requirements and “who you know” and “who’s fanny” you will (guess??) Too many jobs are granted to people simply because they have a degree and have managed to buy their way up.

How sad that you have to deal with EXACTLY what the rest of us had to deal with when we were getting out of college and had no experience. I’m sorry someone didn’t just give you a management position since you have a degree in biology.

No Christian should find another person’s job as menial and beneath them. I think it would be good for all of us (have done it) to work two or three jobs. You can keep you fancy high end position, but go ahead and add that part-time hamburger swinging job, toilet scrubber to keep you humble. Then give that money to the poor.

Wow. The envy dripping from this post is sickening. I was a janitor for four years. I worked retail for three years. I made pizzas while in college and at the same time I did maintenance and yard work for the apartment complex I lived in during college for a slight rent break. I worked 60+ hour weeks for less than $17K for several years AFTER I graduated with a degree in geology AND I was married and had a child.

Get off of your high horse and listen to what others are telling you in this thread. We have been there, done that.

Peace

Tim

 

[qui_est_ce]

Why do you think that you are the only one posting in this thread that had to deal with those situations?Geophysical engineers who can’t get jobs in that field right now have something wrong with them. There is a nursing shortage so nurses who can’t get jobs have something wrong with them (I am married to a nurse, have two sisters who are nurses and have a daughter-in-law who graduated with a BSN in 2012). Chemists should have no problem getting jobs unless they limit themselves to one specific field that has no career opportunities. Now to your degree. What did you plan to do with a degree in biology? Did you have a career in mind when you decided to major in that subject? Are you willing to move to another part of the country or even overseas to work? Are you willing to take an entry level job, doing the dirty work with long hours and low pay so that you can build up the experience you need to move up in a company?How sad that you have to deal with EXACTLY what the rest of us had to deal with when we were getting out of college and had no experience. I’m sorry someone didn’t just give you a management position since you have a degree in biology.Wow. The envy dripping from this post is sickening. I was a janitor for four years. I worked retail for three years. I made pizzas while in college and at the same time I did maintenance and yard work for the apartment complex I lived in during college for a slight rent break. I worked 60+ hour weeks for less than $17K for several years AFTER I graduated with a degree in geology AND I was married and had a child.

Get off of your high horse and listen to what others are telling you in this thread. We have been there, done that.

Peace

Tim

 

[DeniseNY]

Why do you think that you are the only one posting in this thread that had to deal with those situations?Geophysical engineers who can’t get jobs in that field right now have something wrong with them. There is a nursing shortage so nurses who can’t get jobs have something wrong with them (I am married to a nurse, have two sisters who are nurses and have a daughter-in-law who graduated with a BSN in 2012). Chemists should have no problem getting jobs unless they limit themselves to one specific field that has no career opportunities. Now to your degree. What did you plan to do with a degree in biology? Did you have a career in mind when you decided to major in that subject? Are you willing to move to another part of the country or even overseas to work? Are you willing to take an entry level job, doing the dirty work with long hours and low pay so that you can build up the experience you need to move up in a company?How sad that you have to deal with EXACTLY what the rest of us had to deal with when we were getting out of college and had no experience. I’m sorry someone didn’t just give you a management position since you have a degree in biology.Wow. The envy dripping from this post is sickening. I was a janitor for four years. I worked retail for three years. I made pizzas while in college and at the same time I did maintenance and yard work for the apartment complex I lived in during college for a slight rent break. I worked 60+ hour weeks for less than $17K for several years AFTER I graduated with a degree in geology AND I was married and had a child.

Get off of your high horse and listen to what others are telling you in this thread. We have been there, done that.

Peace

Tim

 

[Peebo]

These are the present cost of meals at McDonald in Adelaide,Australia
big mac meal 5.95
cheese burger meal 4.25
double cheese burger meal 5.95
quarter pounder meal 5.95
McFeast meal 6.75
McChicken meal 5.95
Happy meal 4.25
McDonald workers in that city make between 16-18 dollars per hour

So why do you think we would have to pay double here if workers got 15 per hour

 

[Orogeny]

The answer is actually quite simple. Buy a McDonald’s franchise, pay your employees $15/hr and charge what all other McDonald’s charge. That way you don’t have to ask theoretical questions about how to spend other people’s money.

Peace

Tim

 

[qui_est_ce]

Perhaps if you didn;t make obtuse points, they wouldn’t be missed.

Blaming McDonalds (when there are thousands of other companies who hire a cheaper workforce) is silly.

If you want to blame anyone (and blame is a dangerous game), start with their parents, the school system that educated them, their own life choices, and frankly, the flip of a coin that is our life circumstances.

I am for a decent wage, but the reality is this will be accompanied by a higher cost of goods, like it or not. We can live in fantasy land where the company should eat the cost, but that is folly. They will not. The customer will. I am willing to pay it, or else I will go elsewhere for cheaper goods.

Historically, a job was “created” when Person A had a service they needed performed and Person B had the skill needed to accomplish that service, and thus, the two parties agreed on a fair price for that service. ** The fact that Person B had bills to pay had nothing to do with the job or the payment rendered;** it was simply a positive biproduct of the relationship.

That is the only economics can viably ever work. Artificially creating jobs that have no value like FDRs New Deal, or inflating wages based on not a single economic principle doesn’t work. I favor a just approach to treating workers, and fairness in terms of what the person’s skills are worth, but we have to deal in reality if we are going to discuss these things.

Your parents did a great job educating you!

 

[PaulinVA]

theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/08/the-magical-world-where-mcdonalds-pays-15-an-hour-its-australia/278313/

sorry for the long quote:

That said, not every extra dollar of worker compensation seems to get passed onto the consumer. Again, take Australia. According to the The Economist, Aussies have paid anywhere from 6 cents to 70 cents extra for their Big Macs compared to Americans over the past two years, a 1 percent to 17 percent premium. If you were to simply double the cost of labor at your average U.S. Mickey D’s and tack it onto the price of a sandwich, you’d expect customers to be paying at least a dollar more.
Why don’t they?
To start, some Australians actually make less than the adult minimum wage. The country allows lower pay for teenagers, and the labor deal McDonald’s struck with its employees currently pays 16-year-olds roughly US$8-an-hour, not altogether different from what they’d make in the states. In an email, Greg Bamber, a professor at Australia’s Monash University who has studied labor relations in the country’s fast food industry, told me that as a result, McDonald’s relies heavily on young workers in Australia. It’s a specific quirk of the country’s wage system. But it goes to show that even in generally high-pay countries, restaurants try to save on labor where they can.
It’s also possible that McDonald’s keeps its prices down overseas by squeezing more productivity out of its workers. Researchers studying the impact of minimum wage increases on American fast food chains in the Deep South have found that while restaurants mostly cope by their raising prices, they also respond by handing their employees more responsibility. It stands to reason that in places like Europe and Australia, managers have found ways to get more mileage out of their staff as well.

 

[stevegravy]

All you cheapskates arguing over 15 bucks an hour yet if you can arbitrarily say they should make 15 why not 115 bucks an hour. Why stop at 15 unless you are not a real Christian.

 

[Geist]

Oh yeah pal? True Christians think they should get $115,000,000 per hour.

It’s ok too because McDonalds is rich and can pay it.