$15/hr for fast food work

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  • RockadelicRockadelic Out Digging 13,993 Posts
    Double post > Double wages

  • Guzzo said:
    do people really believe when they apply to work at a fast food restaurant they are applying for a job with a good wage?

    I'm totally in favor of the minimum wage being increased, but the fast food industry doesn't make it a secret that its not looking to get you paid. I've always been under the belief that its more of a "starter" job than anything else.

    As for the argument that the employees may mess up your order because they aren't being paid well enough, I'd say that's bullshit. The care a worker brings into their job is much more a showing of their personality/ work ethic than some sort of passive protest against their salary.

    Sabotage in the workplace is one of the oldest and most common forms of worker protest. Jeezus, it's where the word "sabotage" comes from in the first place.

    "Claimed explanations include:

    That it derives from the Netherlands in the 15th century when workers would throw their sabots (wooden shoes) into the wooden gears of the textile looms to break the cogs, fearing the automated machines would render the human workers obsolete.[1]
    That it derives from the French sabot (a wooden shoe or clog) via its derivative saboter (to knock with the foot, or work carelessly).[2]
    That it derives from the late 19th-century French slang use of the word sabot to describe an unskilled worker, so called due to their wooden clogs or sabots; sabotage was used to describe the poor quality work of such workers.[3]

    Luddites and radical labor unions such as the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) have advocated sabotage as a means of self-defense and direct action against unfair working conditions.

    The IWW was shaped in part by the industrial unionism philosophy of Big Bill Haywood, and in 1910 Haywood was exposed to sabotage while touring Europe:

    The experience that had the most lasting impact on Haywood was witnessing a general strike on the French railroads. Tired of waiting for parliament to act on their demands, railroad workers walked off their jobs all across the country. The French government responded by drafting the strikers into the army and then ordering them back to work. Undaunted, the workers carried their strike to the job. Suddenly, they could not seem to do anything right. Perishables sat for weeks, sidetracked and forgotten. Freight bound for Paris was misdirected to Lyon or Marseille instead. This tactic ??? the French called it "sabotage" ??? won the strikers their demands and impressed Bill Haywood."

    And it's not just sabotage, it's also theft. Ask anyone who works or has worked in retail security - they spend as much or more time monitoring employees as they do looking for shoplifters.

  • Rockadelic said:
    $15.00 an hour = $31K a year.

    I know public school teachers that don't make that much!

    And that's another goddamned disgrace.

    Meanwhile:

    http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/jul/31/bernie-s/sanders-says-walmart-heirs-own-more-wealth-bottom-/

    "Sylvia Allegretto, a labor economist at the Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics at the University of California-Berkeley, compared the Waltons??? cumulative net worth with that of the overall population, as cited in the Survey of Consumer Finances. (She used the Waltons??? wealth from 2010, which was valued at $89.5 billion.)

    Allegretto found that in 2007, the wealth held by the six Waltons was equal to that of the bottom 30.5 percent of families in the U.S. In 2010, the Waltons??? share equaled the entire bottom 41.5 percent of families."

    We're in the middle of a damn near unprecedented transfer of wealth from the poor to the uber-rich (no relation) and there is no question that it's adversely affecting the overall economy.

  • GuzzoGuzzo 8,611 Posts
    Jean-ClaudeBanDamned said:
    Guzzo said:
    do people really believe when they apply to work at a fast food restaurant they are applying for a job with a good wage?

    I'm totally in favor of the minimum wage being increased, but the fast food industry doesn't make it a secret that its not looking to get you paid. I've always been under the belief that its more of a "starter" job than anything else.

    As for the argument that the employees may mess up your order because they aren't being paid well enough, I'd say that's bullshit. The care a worker brings into their job is much more a showing of their personality/ work ethic than some sort of passive protest against their salary.

    Sabotage in the workplace is one of the oldest and most common forms of worker protest. Jeezus, it's where the word "sabotage" comes from in the first place.


    I definitely wouldn't say slow or bad fast food workers are doing some sort of sabotage protest, some people just aren't good workers and have poor attitudes. I worked minimum wage retail for years and in those years I had a shit load of co-workers tht just wanted to get stoned and fuck off on the clock. They were shitty in their customer service and shitty in the work they did. Not once did I think these guys were working here and trying to sabotage the system from the inside.

    You give workers that give slow service far too much credit.

  • ppadilhappadilha 2,233 Posts
    Horseleech said:
    I know times have changed, but when I was younger nobody expected to make a "living wage" flipping burgers.

    Shit was for high school kids looking to make spending money.

    but walk into a McDonald's now and how many of their workers are actually high school kids?

    at any rate, the living wage thing isn't really about the high school kid who's flipping burgers for spending money. There's plenty of jobs in NYC that don't pay enough to live on. I remember a certain hipster publication with their headquarters in Williamsburg that paid some of their employees something close to the federal minimum wage, which is barely enough to cover rent.

  • sabadabadasabadabada 5,966 Posts
    What would you consider to be an adequate wage for unskilled labor?



    Whatever the market will support.

  • sabadabadasabadabada 5,966 Posts
    skel said:
    bassie said:
    why don't you tell us your thoughts on the topic?

    This.
    What does the 1% think of the 99's demand for a nudge towards the suspicion of a sniff in the direction of parity?
    Should a Wall Street commodities broker shell out an extra buck fifty or whatever to his desk boy to go get the Clownburgers in?
    Or is that way too Socialist a move?

    Speak on it, Brian.

    No self respecting 1 percenter eats fast food, so the only people to be adverseley effected by this are the poor people who eat fast-food and will now have to pay higher prices in order to sustain those salries.

  • Bon VivantBon Vivant The Eye of the Storm 2,018 Posts
    sabadabada said:
    skel said:
    bassie said:
    why don't you tell us your thoughts on the topic?

    This.
    What does the 1% think of the 99's demand for a nudge towards the suspicion of a sniff in the direction of parity?
    Should a Wall Street commodities broker shell out an extra buck fifty or whatever to his desk boy to go get the Clownburgers in?
    Or is that way too Socialist a move?

    Speak on it, Brian.

    No self respecting 1 percenter eats fast food, so the only people to be adverseley effected by this are the poor people who eat fast-food and will now have to pay higher prices in order to sustain those salries.

    Yeah, that $.68 increase in the cost of Big Mac will crush the poor. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/business/2013/07/price-of-big-mac-could-rise-by-68-cents-if-minimum-wage-doubles/

    Note also how it says "could", meaning, the cost doesn't HAVE to go up that much, or even at all.

    Of course, this is based on an increase to $15/hr.

    "Another estimate suggests the price of a Big Mac would jump 5 cents, or 1 percent, if the minimum wage was raised to $10.50, according to a letter signed by 100 economists in favor of raising the U.S. minimum wage."

  • DORDOR Two Ron Toe 9,896 Posts
    ppadilha said:
    Horseleech said:
    I know times have changed, but when I was younger nobody expected to make a "living wage" flipping burgers.

    Shit was for high school kids looking to make spending money.

    but walk into a McDonald's now and how many of their workers are actually high school kids?

    Only 16 percent of fast food industry jobs now go to teens, down from 25 percent a decade ago.

  • skelskel You can't cheat karma 5,033 Posts
    sabadabada said:


    No self respecting 1 percenter eats fast food,

    Dude, get thyself to the financial district stat

    Fat multi millionaire traders be stuffing that shit down they neck all fucking day long

  • RockadelicRockadelic Out Digging 13,993 Posts
    Bon Vivant said:
    sabadabada said:
    skel said:
    bassie said:
    why don't you tell us your thoughts on the topic?

    This.
    What does the 1% think of the 99's demand for a nudge towards the suspicion of a sniff in the direction of parity?
    Should a Wall Street commodities broker shell out an extra buck fifty or whatever to his desk boy to go get the Clownburgers in?
    Or is that way too Socialist a move?

    Speak on it, Brian.

    No self respecting 1 percenter eats fast food, so the only people to be adverseley effected by this are the poor people who eat fast-food and will now have to pay higher prices in order to sustain those salries.

    Yeah, that $.68 increase in the cost of Big Mac will crush the poor. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/business/2013/07/price-of-big-mac-could-rise-by-68-cents-if-minimum-wage-doubles/

    Note also how it says "could", meaning, the cost doens't HAVE to go up that much, or even at all.

    Of course, this is based on an increase to $15/hr.

    "Another estimate suggests the price of a Big Mac would jump 5 cents, or 1 percent, if the minimum wage was raised to $10.50, according to a letter signed by 100 economists in favor of raising the U.S. minimum wage."

    Not that it makes a big difference but the $0.68 increase reported above has proven to be inaccurate and it would be closer to $1.00.

    Maybe an increase like this will force people to eat more healthy.

  • Bon VivantBon Vivant The Eye of the Storm 2,018 Posts
    skel said:
    sabadabada said:


    No self respecting 1 percenter eats fast food,

    Dude, get thyself to the financial district stat

    Fat multi millionaire traders be stuffing that shit down they neck all fucking day long

    Most millionaires got that way by being cheap.

    Doens't get much cheaper than the Golden Arches.

  • Bon VivantBon Vivant The Eye of the Storm 2,018 Posts
    Rockadelic said:


    Not that it makes a big difference but the $0.68 increase reported above has proven to be inaccurate and it would be closer to $1.00.

    Maybe an increase like this will force people to eat more healthy.

    I think those are fair points, especially your second one.

    As to your first, that it would go up a buck, does that mean the other items stay the same price. Now, I like a BIg Mac, from time to time, but I can just as easily have a cheeseburger.

    I'm finding the "but, the burgers will cost little bit more" argument to be less than persuasive.

  • The_NonThe_Non 5,691 Posts
    -If you pay people a decent wage, they can buy stuff=Fordism.
    I dunno what -ism the current economy is utilizing, but I guess if I'd have to propose one, it'd be paeanism?
    -Australia has a decent min. wage, they're doing pretty well economically at the moment.
    -If the world continues down this path, we are going to have a large amount of people with absolutely no job nor any prospects for one, and that will lead to the collapse of governments around the world, including, possibly, OURS.
    -Having said that, we should train the US populace to do jobs (and accept jobs) that actually exist. That Mike Rowe foo from Dirty Jobs says there's many jobs around the U.S. that can't be filled that are well paying because no one will take them. We should copy Germany's job retraining programs when certain people's vocations become obsolete.

  • Guzzo said:
    Jean-ClaudeBanDamned said:
    Guzzo said:
    do people really believe when they apply to work at a fast food restaurant they are applying for a job with a good wage?

    I'm totally in favor of the minimum wage being increased, but the fast food industry doesn't make it a secret that its not looking to get you paid. I've always been under the belief that its more of a "starter" job than anything else.

    As for the argument that the employees may mess up your order because they aren't being paid well enough, I'd say that's bullshit. The care a worker brings into their job is much more a showing of their personality/ work ethic than some sort of passive protest against their salary.

    Sabotage in the workplace is one of the oldest and most common forms of worker protest. Jeezus, it's where the word "sabotage" comes from in the first place.


    I definitely wouldn't say slow or bad fast food workers are doing some sort of sabotage protest, some people just aren't good workers and have poor attitudes. I worked minimum wage retail for years and in those years I had a shit load of co-workers tht just wanted to get stoned and fuck off on the clock. They were shitty in their customer service and shitty in the work they did. Not once did I think these guys were working here and trying to sabotage the system from the inside.

    You give workers that give slow service far too much credit.

    It's not a matter of credit, but your total dismissal of the phenomenon is more than a little naive.

    This is a fun read and even people who make minimum wage can afford it used:

    http://www.amazon.com/Sabotage-American-Workplace-Anecdotes-Dissatisfaction/dp/0962709131

  • RockadelicRockadelic Out Digging 13,993 Posts
    What percentage of fast food workers getting the order wrong do you think is sabatoge vs. ineptness?

  • The_Non said:
    -Having said that, we should train the US populace to do jobs (and accept jobs) that actually exist. That Mike Rowe foo from Dirty Jobs says there's many jobs around the U.S. that can't be filled that are well paying because no one will take them. We should copy Germany's job retraining programs when certain people's vocations become obsolete.

    I've seen Rowe talking about this and I agree with him up to a point. What he doesn't address is the fact that companies used to invest a lot more in training their employees to do more advanced work, and that most companies are loathe to do that these days.

    My first real job out of college was with a bank that had a rep for training its employees and promoting from within. They paid me jack shit to start but the training was real and within a year I had almost tripled my salary. That used to be a standard model for American businesses and it just isn't anymore, because the MBA-Gordon Gekko mentality has fucked everything up.

  • Rockadelic said:
    What percentage of fast food workers getting the order wrong do you think is sabatoge vs. ineptness?

    No idea. How high does it have to be to be significant?

  • The_NonThe_Non 5,691 Posts
    Jean-ClaudeBanDamned said:
    The_Non said:
    -Having said that, we should train the US populace to do jobs (and accept jobs) that actually exist. That Mike Rowe foo from Dirty Jobs says there's many jobs around the U.S. that can't be filled that are well paying because no one will take them. We should copy Germany's job retraining programs when certain people's vocations become obsolete.

    I've seen Rowe talking about this and I agree with him up to a point. What he doesn't address is the fact that companies used to invest a lot more in training their employees to do more advanced work, and that most companies are loathe to do that these days.

    My first real job out of college was with a bank that had a rep for training its employees and promoting from within. They paid me jack shit to start but the training was real and within a year I had almost tripled my salary. That used to be a standard model for American businesses and it just isn't anymore, because the MBA-Gordon Gekko mentality has fucked everything up.

    Yes. His point is more with the "dirty" and blue collar/manual labor jobs people refuse to "stoop" to take that are actually well paying jobs and can easily support a family.


  • The_Non said:
    Jean-ClaudeBanDamned said:
    The_Non said:
    -Having said that, we should train the US populace to do jobs (and accept jobs) that actually exist. That Mike Rowe foo from Dirty Jobs says there's many jobs around the U.S. that can't be filled that are well paying because no one will take them. We should copy Germany's job retraining programs when certain people's vocations become obsolete.

    I've seen Rowe talking about this and I agree with him up to a point. What he doesn't address is the fact that companies used to invest a lot more in training their employees to do more advanced work, and that most companies are loathe to do that these days.

    My first real job out of college was with a bank that had a rep for training its employees and promoting from within. They paid me jack shit to start but the training was real and within a year I had almost tripled my salary. That used to be a standard model for American businesses and it just isn't anymore, because the MBA-Gordon Gekko mentality has fucked everything up.

    Yes. His point is more with the "dirty" and blue collar/manual labor jobs people refuse to "stoop" to take that are actually well paying jobs and can easily support a family.

    Right, and he mentioned the Caterpillar company's need for mechanics specifically. Meanwhile vocational training programs at public high schools all over the country have been/are being cut to the bone. And I wondered why Caterpillar, a company with a long history of labor strife, doesn't train some of its own workers to be able to handle some of those jobs. Rowe didn't ask that question. He's kind of cozy with the CAT brand...

    http://www.amazon.com/Caterpillar-Mens-Rangler-Mike-Black/dp/B006BZERV6

  • Bon VivantBon Vivant The Eye of the Storm 2,018 Posts
    Rockadelic said:
    What percentage of fast food workers getting the order wrong do you think is sabatoge vs. ineptness?

    What percentage is them just not caring because they don't make shit anyway?

    Increase the wage = increase in morale, IMO.

    Not for all, of course, but for most.

    Again, it's called the dignity of work.

  • batmonbatmon 27,574 Posts
    Next thing they'll want to unionize.

  • batmon said:
    Next thing they'll want to unionize.

    Already do:

    http://www.chicagogrid.com/news/food-retail-workers-strike-mcdonalds-sears/

  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    Rockadelic said:

    Technically panhandling is a "skill".

    A family member of mine read an article about the people who panhandle on freeway ramps.
    He would always say, don't give them any money, they are not poor, they make a lot of money doing that and could work a job if they were not lazy.

    And I'm thinking, who would want to stand all day at a freeway ramp in the sun, rain and snow?
    And how is that lazier than a real job.

  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    McDonalds CEO makes 13.8 million a year.
    I think they can afford to pay their workers a living wage.
    Not the farm workers or the butchers, or the food processors, or the people who make the toys. Let's be realistic.
    But the people who do the work in the restaurants.

    Of course that 13.8 million isn't his pay, that includes benefits.
    If we calculate the benefits of the people working in the restaurants - oh wait, they don't get benefits.

    Some people just don't care about this.
    They don't eat fast food. They don't work minimum wage.
    So why should they care?
    They could care because these are real people trying to live. But that is not realistic.
    They should care because fast food workers often depend on SNAP, Section 8, free school lunch for their kids, and other government programs that are paid for by taxes. All because they are not getting a living wage.
    A large increase in restaurant workers wages could be paid for by a tiny decrease in managements wages.

  • rootlesscosmorootlesscosmo 12,848 Posts
    batmon said:
    Next thing they'll want to unionize.

    I'm reading Fast Food Nation and it chronicles McDonald's' history of union-busting.

    Obviously they should be free to organize.

    And McDonald's should be/is free not to employ union labor.

  • RockadelicRockadelic Out Digging 13,993 Posts
    LaserWolf said:
    McDonalds CEO makes 13.8 million a year.
    .

    That's less than $10.00 per employee.

  • rootlesscosmo said:
    batmon said:
    Next thing they'll want to unionize.

    I'm reading Fast Food Nation and it chronicles McDonald's' history of union-busting.

    Obviously they should be free to organize.

    And McDonald's should be/is free not to employ union labor.

    So you think they should be free to organize but McDonalds can fire them if they do?

    Some freedom.

    Fortunately that's not actually how our labor laws work... yet.

  • Rockadelic said:
    LaserWolf said:
    McDonalds CEO makes 13.8 million a year.
    .

    That's less than $10.00 per employee.

    It's also more than triple what their CEO was paid just a couple of years ago.

    http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/04/12/mcdonalds-former-new-ceo-big-pay-bumps/2078001/
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