Fast food and other minimum-wage workers protest in major cities over pay

[freebuddy]

US income inequality

Fast food and other minimum-wage workers protest in major cities over pay

Airport workers were expected to join thousands of workers from fast-food, home-care and federal industries in support of $15 minimum wage campaign

Thousands of workers in the airline, fast-food, home-care and federal industries have joined together to strike on Thursday in major cities across the US, in support of the campaign to get a $15 minimum wage.

Workers chanted things like Low pay is not OK outside fast-food restaurants, attracting support. Home care workers stood alongside fast-food workers marching outside McDonalds locations as the groups unite to fight for higher wages.

Federal workers are striking in Washington DC, demanding that President Obama encourage federal buildings to set a $15 minimum wage, improve benefits and give them collective bargaining rights.

Contract workers from landmark buildings like the Capitol and the Pentagon, the Smithsonian museums and Union Station were set to take part in the protest. It was scheduled to be the 11th protest for these workers, who are operating under the group name of Good Jobs Nation.

Obama signed an executive order in February that raised federal contract workers wages to $10.10 an hour.

Thursdays rallies were the first national action that airport workers were expected to join. About 40,000 airline employees from airports in cities including Philadelphia, Oakland and Minneapolis were also expected.

These workers said they have pledged to stand together with fast-food and home-care workers in a letter to the chief executives of American Airlines, United Airlines, Alaska Airlines, JetBlue, Southwest Airlines and Delta Air Lines.

We are paid low wages that force us to choose between paying the rent and feeding our families, reads the letter. When that doesnt work we must rely on second jobs or government assistance while we work full time for you.

Hundreds of workers were arrested in September at nationwide fast-food protests that ramped up the now two-year-old campaign for a $15 minimum wage.

The strikes are backed by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which represent about two million workers in the US.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/04/us-minimum-wage-workers-protest-across-the-us-for-higher-pay

[Armada]

You don't deserve $15 for a no skill job.

They're the same kind of people who believe in this

[ronthecivil]

You don't deserve $15 for a no skill job.

They're the same kind of people who believe in this

Unfortunately finance, economics, and even basic accounting are all skills.

Very, very rare skills it seems.....

[RUPERTKBD]

They can't possibly be serious with that sign. Nobody's that stupid...

...are they?

Personally, I agree that the minimum wage should be raised, but $15/hr seems a bit steep. People will pay five bucks for a coffee at Starbucks, but I think they'd draw the line at a $10 Big Mac.

Something in the neighborhood of $12/hr is more realistic, IMO.

[DarthNinja]

You don't deserve $15 for a no skill job.

They're the same kind of people who believe in this

You mean like Alan Greenspan?

[EmployeeoftheMonth]

They can't possibly be serious with that sign. Nobody's that stupid...

...are they?

Personally, I agree that the minimum wage should be raised, but $15/hr seems a bit steep. People will pay five bucks for a coffee at Starbucks, but I think they'd draw the line at a $10 Big Mac.

Something in the neighborhood of $12/hr is more realistic, IMO.

The real problem is that it will force businesses to seek alternatives. I expect in the next 5 years to be punching in my order and table number on a touch screen to get my quarter pounder.

Maybe it's not a problem, maybe it's actually a good thing. I've always thought that getting rid of low skilled jobs as a bad thing because it would end up just draining the system but I'm sure there's lots to that I don't see or understand that would actually make more automation of that stuff better for everybody.

[ManUtd]

They pay home care workers minimum wage? Aren't those the people who come over and do things like change and help bathe seniors who still live at home but aren't fully independent anymore? I'm stunned anyone would accept a job like that for minimum wage.

[EmployeeoftheMonth]

They pay home care workers minimum wage? Aren't those the people who come over and do things like change and help bathe seniors who still live at home but aren't fully independent anymore? I'm stunned anyone would accept a job like that for minimum wage.

It does have a high gross factor to it but it is fairly unskilled labor. Having said that although it just takes a 10 month certificate for education it still does require post secondary education

I work with primarily children with Autism as an interventionist and the company I work for is good and pays based on worth but in general always stays above minimum wage. Other places providing the same services pay minimum wage to have people providing actual therapy; people with 4 years degree programs making minimum wage.

[VanGnome]

Absence of skill does not make it incumbent on employers to subsidize for that lack of skill. Minimum wage jobs should be for people who are new to the workforce, who need to learn and build skills.

The problem here is not income inequality, it's social and educational inequality. People who tend to stay in minimum wage jobs tend to do so for any number of reasons; either they're lazy and are okay with coasting by working a BS job their entire lives, or due to circumstances HAVE to keep that job because it's the only one they can get, or simply it's because they are not bright enough to realize that if they want a change in their quality of life, it's incumbent upon THEM to make that change, not for it to be handed to them.

So, the problem isn't that people are being paid too low, it's the lack of opportunity available to individuals to take advantage of in order to receive a higher wage. This is a social fabric issue, there are too many obstacles currently keeping the lower class from penetrating the middle class, which in turn is rapidly shrinking to the point where there's just the upper class and the lower class.

I've been following Jon Stewart through the two most recently shocking Grand Jury decisions in Ferguson and Staten Island, and he's absolutely correct that we are NOT living in a post racial society; it's still a thing and it's sad. Granted those on the other side of it, are not helping their cause by perpetuating ignorance, but somewhere and somehow, someone has got to just say "For crying out loud, how can everyone in this situation be so frigging moronic?"

I don't believe that there's a conspiracy at work to protect the people of law enforcement when they make stupid decisions, I just think that the people who are making the decisions in general are quite ignorant; and ignorance it seems is the status quo. Bright, engaging, lucid and all in all sound thinking individuals generally don't have an opportunity to make a significant impact in this world because of the overwhelming number of idiots and ignorant fools guiding an equally stupid and ignorant flock of sheep (general public), influencing public opinion.

Then again, maybe its just me

[ManUtd]

It does have a high gross factor to it but it is fairly unskilled labor. Having said that although it just takes a 10 month certificate for education it still does require post secondary education

I work with primarily children with Autism as an interventionist and the company I work for is good and pays based on worth but in general always stays above minimum wage. Other places providing the same services pay minimum wage to have people providing actual therapy; people with 4 years degree programs making minimum wage.

I know it's a pretty low skill job and expected it to be low paying just not quite that low. I figured there would be some kind of bump above minimum wage to entice people to want to work in home care. Maybe it's just me but if someone was offering the same amount to work in retail, fast food, and home care, I wouldn't even dream of picking the latter.

[taxi]

Inflation.

When you raise minimum wage it does not magically make more housing or apartments. Money itself is meaningless pieces of paper.

[Canuck Surfer]

Award wage, the term for minimum wage here in Australia is just under $35,000 per year once you are 24 or over. It's pretty tiny if under 18, and not fair between 18 & 22. Its tipped to age obviously.

$15 per hour is still less than that award wage in Australia. ($15 x 40 hours x 52 weeks= $31,200) And those are based on 38 not 40 hours of work, and people get 4 weeks paid holidays without waiting till they have 5 or ten years tenure.

The rich still get richer off the backs of the working class back home I guess.

[Grapefruits]

Inflation.

When you raise minimum wage it does not magically make more housing or apartments. Money itself is meaningless pieces of paper.

Tell that to the person you rent from or the bank you pay your mortgage to.

[CanadianLoonie]

Inflation.

When you raise minimum wage it does not magically make more housing or apartments. Money itself is meaningless pieces of paper.

Money is a proxy of individuals' labour, productivity, and creativity over time...it's literally distilled life.

Not meaningless at all...until a government/central bank debases it with inflationary policies.

[Grapefruits]

Award wage, the term for minimum wage here in Australia is just under $35,000 per year once you are 24 or over. It's pretty tiny if under 18, and not fair between 18 & 22. Its tipped to age obviously.

$15 per hour is still less than that award wage in Australia. ($15 x 40 hours x 52 weeks= $31,200) And those are based on 38 not 40 hours of work, and people get 4 weeks paid holidays without waiting till they have 5 or ten years tenure.

The rich still get richer off the backs of the working class back home I guess.

Pretty much, and there are a multitude of excuses on why it needs to stay that way. Then there are the people that say thats all they deserve. Well minimum wage is $10.25 currently in BC, that works out to about $660 or so clear every 2 weeks. Hard to live off of that in the lower mainland.

[Jägermeister]

Higher minimum wage = higher costs to produce goods.

Higher costs to produce goods = higher cost to buy goods.

Higher cost to buy goods = burger flipper has no more purchasing power than they did before.

[Grapefruits]

Higher minimum wage = higher costs to produce goods.

Higher costs to produce goods = higher cost to buy goods.

Higher cost to buy goods = burger flipper has no more purchasing power than they did before.

So we may as well just leave minimum wage at what it is now forever. Keep those prices low. At one time minimum wage at least kept people above the poverty line, not so much anymore.

[Ronalds.Kenins41]

You don't deserve $15 for a no skill job.

They're the same kind of people who believe in this

Its very sad that macro-economics is not a mandatory course in high school. It is so important, basically explains how the entire world works. And yet a lot of people have never taken it so they have no clue how the economy works leading to posters such as the one shown above.

I swear, if I met the person who made that poster.... we would get into a heated debate.

[Jägermeister]

So we may as well just leave minimum wage at what it is now forever. Keep those prices low. At one time minimum wage at least kept people above the poverty line, not so much anymore.

If wages go up the amount of money needed to stay above the poverty line will simply increase because companies and business will just react to them by raising prices in order to maintain their profit margins.

[CanadianLoonie]

Its very sad that macro-economics is not a mandatory course in high school. It is so important, basically explains how the entire world works. And yet a lot of people have never taken it so they have no clue how the economy works leading to posters such as the one shown above.

I swear, if I met the person who made that poster.... we would get into a heated debate.

It's intentional...do you think the government really wants its' subjects to be economically-literate?