Fast food workers prepare for another strike for living wages

No, no you’re not, you are worth exactly what someone is willing to pay you for your labor.

Yes, you heard me right, fast food workers across the country are going to be striking today in an apparent attempt to show solidarity in order to force their employers to raise their wages to $15 an hour. They of course want their employers to more than double their hourly pay for the lowest paid, minimum wage jobs, to making what someone at a skilled job does.  They want living wages, without the work requirement. That amount of money would equal over $31,000 a year for a full-time employee, and they want this for entry-level jobs.

Here is the thing, we don’t need fast food that much, it is a luxury item, convenient yes, necessary…not really.  So if the price of the food goes up to meet these people’s salary demands to the point where it is just expensive to eat at a family restaurant, guess where a lot of people will end up instead. I don’t care that the SEIU (Service employees International Union) is helping these poor people strike and paying them for the day, they’re no angels.  Interestingly enough, union wages, which are not considered no or low skilled job positions due to collective bargaining rules, can go back into negotiation every time the minimum wage goes up or the prevailing wages in the work places rise.  So, the SEIU has a vested interest in helping these people blackmail their way into the middle class with none of the work. However, changing those minimums means that the fast food employers will have to raise prices, which means that ripple will go all throughout the economy, into most sectors, and inflation will rise again and then where will this $31,000 job be,  right back near the bottom.

I am not going to apologize for calling fast food employment low skilled labor.  That is what it is, they are entry-level jobs, a place for someone to start into the workplace and learn a few skills, hence the low skilled part, then move on up the chain and find better work.  I wonder if that is why the average McDonald’s worker only stays about 30 days.  These jobs are not meant to provide a family with a living wage.  If your skills, or education, or whatever is so low that the best you can do is a fast foo job, maybe you ought to take stock in your life and dedicate your free time to picking up some marketable skills, or education.  I have an idea for all the fast food employers out there.

I know that these employers don’t exist to provide jobs, they exist to provide a needed, or wanted service.  I think they can have their burger and eat it too.  I’ve seen the touch pads used when ordering food.  Fire the workers in the front, turn the touch pad around so that I can use it to order my meals, it probably can’t get put maybe one or two button pushes simpler, install a cash taking device like the self checkout at the grocery.  That way you can fire all the front staff except the one taking drive through orders.  That should free up six or seven jobs you were paying.  Give the rest of the individuals a fifty cent raise and tell them to work harder than an automated system could, because you’re considering it.

Poorly educated drones, with surly attitudes and poor drive are not worth more than minimum wage.  The bottom of the ladder was never meant to be a place to reside and earn a living wage or raise a family.  these jobs are for part-time workers to have supplemental income.  If they are that hard up, get another job…plenty of people work two jobs to support a family, and maybe then they will understand and appreciate the value of hard labor for a day’s pay, because all they want now is just another hand out.

Fast food joint pays workers $12 an hour, and lives to tell the tale — What a Crock

First of all, it is not a corporate chain responsible to shareholders, it is a single location. Stand alone businesses have lower overhead and also have lower turnover rates than larger corporate companies. Smaller places exist for the pleasure and profit or not of their owners. Corporations are beholden to the people whom fund them, in this case their shareholders where keeping costs down result in more profits. Maybe if the government wasn’t taking over 30% taxes (McDonalds, 32.4% effective tax rate according to ADVFN) they might be able to share a little more wealth.