Fast Food Workers Strikes = Win for better health

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brianpperkins

$15 per hour for the 440,000 employees of McDonalds (corporate and corporate owned locations, not franchises) comes out to over 72% of annual revenues generated. That is simply unsustainable so prices for consumers would increase and every possible labor cost cutting measure possible would get implemented to include kiosks replacing clerks.

kimberlyblindsey

Agreed, I worked at Del Taco in high school, and after that it was not enough to get by, so I looked elsewhere for better pay.

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northbanu

Labor, like most things in the bussiness world, is a market of supply and demand.

When people refuse to work for "x" amount of dollars, employers have to up the wages until workers are enticed to work for them.

When tons and tons of people are out of work, wages go down until the labor market dries up.

While I think minimum wage should be a livable wage, I think labor could do more to control the market.

I think that given the current trends, we will soon see unions regain there strength in helping shape the labor market.

northbanu

http://www.cnet.com/news/mcdonalds-hires-7000-touch-screen-cashiers/

Mcdonald's answer.

Funny, I was just about to bring that up. Because this whole argument is moot.

In a shockingly short number of years a whole lot of cashiers, servers, and waitstaff are going to be rendered obsolete. Touch screens for ordering will become the norm. In 15 years you'll only find waitresses at quaint, throwback diners.

I got no answer for that. But it worries me.

And such is progress. Jobs are lost and gained as the world moves. No answers are needed. It's not a problem. Not many makers of wooden wheels left, blacksmiths are "artisans", coblers a thing of the past. But we have more communication workers, telephone support personnel, web designers, etc. It's just how the ball rolls.

_KitKat_

What's that famous quote about people needing to feel the discomfort of their current situation in order to aspire to a better one?

The fact is that many people earn more because they worked hard to do so (i.e., putting themselves through night school, sacrificing personal time and relationships for classes and homework, and taking out student loans).

While I do agree that CEO pay is out of control, esp. when compared to the rest of the world, it just doesn't make sense for unskilled labor to be paid what a new college graduate might make.

I was determined to not comment but....the bolded portion above struck me.....why is it OK for a recent college graduate to earn so little, especially with the debt one takes on in this country to graduate? Wages in general are an issue and as long as the have nots and the have a little fight each other.....everyone one of them will slowly have less.

MrM27....Your statement about having to work 2 jobs to have a comfortable standard of living is not right or for the benefit of society. I know if I had to call 911 because of an emergency, I would feel much better knowing the man/woman helping my loved one was well rested and not overly stressed. Saving lives, working in dangerous situations, and under constant strain all while having the medical knowledge to save a life deserves a comfortable living wage....not extravagant but 1950-1970 middle class comfortable.

As a business owner General residential/commercial construction.....yes small businesses pay insane taxes, but it is our business practice and quite a few large successful corporations practices to retain the best most skilled employees. Training takes from profit, unreliable workers take from profit and under paid workers just don't put the effort in. Our lowest paid guy is $15 per hour...he is a laborer, unskilled but he busts his butt puts the work in and learns, the highest paid is $28 per hour all positions are full time. The work these guys do brings us a ton of business plus they are fast, efficient and great at what they do, which gibes us a great reputation and allows us to charge a fair rate. After taxes, licensing , expenses and all job costs....we standardly profit per day about 20% under our daily payroll for a 7 man crew. Look at Costco, trader joes and others that offer higher pay....they have low employee turn over and with their employees working harder and staying with them long term their labor cost per position is much lower than places like Walmart or McDonalds. Costco also follows the old business practice of the CEO earning about 10x the average employee, last thing I saw...I think their average employee earns 40k and the CEO make 400k.

Now still not sure on my stance for $15 per hour for ff workers but the economy historically shows that when the middle class down to the poor get extra money they spend which puts that same money back in to grow the economy. The rich tend to sit on their money which may help the stock market but it doesn't do much for the GDP or families like mine that own a small local business. When a family earns more, they tend to invest it in their largest asset, which is their home....that means more business for us, it can also mean more jobs because I can then support another full time crew. My family will in turn put our money back into the economy and so will those 7 new well paid employees. But if the multi-millionaire CEO in a town over gets a 2 million dollar bonus, I doubt any where local will see that money. He will even only see it on a balance sheet, it makes no difference to him except as a number on a piece of paper...most likely to never be spent by him but to either make more numbers on a balance sheet or disappear into thin air when some creative guys on wall street decide to bet on imaginary money again.

As for taxes, mine are way too high but most of these major corporations mentioned in the thread actually pay very little. I saw a interview with Warren Buffet once and something he talked about stuck with me...I can't quote him exactly but it was basically this....If a corporation claims they can't make it big and profit if taxes were to be raised, then they shouldn't be in business because they don't know how to run a company. In the 70's taxes the US corporations had to pay were extremely high .....well this is when I (Warren) made my fortune. I didn't want my companies giving all that money to uncle Sam, there were not the loopholes then that there are now, so I had one option other than giving the government the majority of the profits....I invested the money back into the company, I kept the money and it just made me richer....it also helped the economy by creating jobs. Now all you hear about is we need low corporate taxes or it will cost jobs, these guys hardly pay anything and they are not creating new jobs...they have little incentive, their money is safe...they found the loop holes and the government can't touch it.....I liked the way he said this and the very basic flaw that many believe ...major companies do not create jobs because they have extra money, they invest and park it the majority of the time. Yes companies do expand but in recent decades it is normally not in the labor forces interest.

Also for those that are anti assistance programs how are you OK with the wages some of these major companies pay. No person should be OK with someone working full-time and the company pays so little that the government must subsidize the wage. This is tax payer money that is contributing to reducing the companies labor costs, companies that pay little (percentage wise) in taxes compared with small businesses. It is not the tax payers responsibility to help these corporations reduce labor costs, give them every way possible to skip out on taxes and then hope and wish that they will contribute for the benefit of society.

In America many scream that Europe and Canada pay too many taxes....but they have healthcare, social programs that make ours look non existent, cheap or no cost higher education (an educated society is better for society as a whole).... Number wise they have better health stats, life expectancies, lower infant death and a higher rate of happiness and have much more family time and less stress due to finances compared to the average American..... Many times they also actually pay a lot less than an american worker into their system when costs are factored in. I am not a socialist but anything that benefits society as a whole is a good idea.

Insomnia is to blame for typos, poor grammar and spelling. I need sleep and am not correcting any of this post. I normally do not discuss politics on MFP, but I can see the pros and con's of this situation. Watching people at times argue against their own best interest shocks me at times. The question is not "why should he/she that works FF earn almost as much as I do when I worked hard and went to college?".... The question is" Why the hell did I take on massive student debt, work my butt off and nobody pays a comfortable living wage?" All wages stagnated and the value of the dollar went down, but corporate profits soared and executive pay increased at an extremely accelerated rate. All while these companies continued to pay less and less into the system. If your going to get angry that some may be lazy and may get a free hand out....first explain why during the collapse the CEO's that bankrupted companies and took government welfare still took home bonuses of more money than many will ever see in their life no matter how hard they work. People fight with the wrong people because they can be spinned by a few snappy party lines. I have no problem with profiting from hard work but if I bankrupt my company then ask the government to save it because I made wild bets....I don't deserve a bonus.....I should be charged with fraud for losing my investors money and fired. My assets should also be liquidated, for all the damage I caused the economy from my poor judgment and greed.

Now sleep...sorry so long