Fast Food Strike: Workers Walk Out In US Cities

EnglishLady

Veteran Expediter
Fast food workers in seven cities across the United States are staging a one-day strike over wages they say are too low to survive on.

Staff at well known chains including McDonald's, Burger King, KFC and Wendy's were due to walk out on Monday in New York, Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, St Louis, Kansas City and Flint, Michigan.

They are calling on fast food restaurants to pay $15 per hour, which compares to the New York state average pay of $8.25 per hour and the minimum wage of $7.25.

The action is being organised by Fast Food Forward, a movement of employees from fast food outlets in New York City aimed at raising wages and increasing workers' rights.

A statement on the group's website says: "In America, people who work hard should be able to afford basic necessities like groceries, rent, childcare and transportation.

"While fast food corporations reap the benefits of record profits, workers are barely getting by - many are forced to be on public assistance despite having a job.

"Raising pay for fast food workers will benefit workers and strengthen the overall economy."

The website also says that the $11,000 average annual salary of fast food workers in New York compares to a $25,000 average daily salary of fast food firm chief executives.

Jonathan Westin, director of Fast Food Forward, told New York radio station 1010 WINS that fast food workers are not paid a living wage despite having to raise families.

"A lot of the workers are living in poverty, you know, not being able to afford to put food on the table or take the train to work," he said.

"The workers are striking over the fact that they can't continue to maintain their families on the wages they're being paid in the fast food industry."

He said it was hoped the action would attract interest and gather momentum for the movement across the country.

The action - which follows a walk-out last April - comes as a survey suggested four out of five adults in the US suffer from unemployment, near-poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives.

Fast Food Strike: Workers Walk Out In US Cities
 

xiggi

Veteran Expediter
Owner/Operator
Fast food is not supposed to be a job to raise a family on. It is for an extra job, kids in high school and that type of thing.

Sent from my Fisher Price ABC-123.
 

layoutshooter

Veteran Expediter
Retired Expediter
Don't like low wage jobs? Upgrade your skills. No one is "owed" a living wage. You get out of life only what you are willing to put into it. No good paying jobs where you live? MOVE to where they are. You are either willing to improve your lot or you are only willing to accept the leftovers.
 

OntarioVanMan

Retired Expediter
Owner/Operator
Don't like low wage jobs? Upgrade your skills. No one is "owed" a living wage. You get out of life only what you are willing to put into it. No good paying jobs where you live? MOVE to where they are. You are either willing to improve your lot or you are only willing to accept the leftovers.


If you can't do any of the above...get a 2nd job and work a few more hours...to bump up the take home pay....
 

layoutshooter

Veteran Expediter
Retired Expediter
in history we've seen what "bad" capitalism can do as well...that's why anti monopoly laws...


Yeah, they government only want monopolies that they either own or control. Like Social Security, the ULTIMATE "Ponzi Scheme". That is why they went after Madoff, he was cutting into the governments monopoly on ripping off people's money.
 

wvcourier

Expert Expediter
Corperations need to share profits with their workers...... This is why corperations and banks are investing in Prisons. In the future , almost everyone will be convicted of some type of crime(cheap labor, Workers with no rights, workers who have to show up for work or get thrown in solitary or added time, workers getting paid 12cents an hour) This machine isnt stopping anytime soon. They are even naming football stadiums after Corperate Prisons.

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Slo-Ride

Veteran Expediter
The world found we can live with-out Twinkes and Im sure we can figure out how to eat without the fast food industry. If I remeber correctly I just heard some of these fast food chains are dropping reveune anyways..
Hopefully ppl are starting to understand for another dollar or so ya can eat at a full service resturant, and sometime ya just may get away cheaper then fast food. Other then a occasional Subway sandwich, I honestly cant remember the last time I ate fast food.
Let em walk out and reduce their own income.
 

OntarioVanMan

Retired Expediter
Owner/Operator
Yeah, they government only want monopolies that they either own or control. Like Social Security, the ULTIMATE "Ponzi Scheme". That is why they went after Madoff, he was cutting into the governments monopoly on ripping off people's money.


or Standard Oil.....JD Rockerfeller
 

layoutshooter

Veteran Expediter
Retired Expediter
or Standard Oil.....JD Rockerfeller

NO corporation, even Standard Oil, has ripped off the People as badly as the government has. None will likely ever even come close to that. ONLY the government can use force to insure that their monopoly remains intact.

Health care is the next government monopoly in the making. It will be an even BIGGER rip off than Social Security is.
 

Maverick

Seasoned Expediter
NO corporation, even Standard Oil, has ripped off the People as badly as the government has. None will likely ever even come close to that. ONLY the government can use force to insure that their monopoly remains intact.

Health care is the next government monopoly in the making. It will be an even BIGGER rip off than Social Security is.

Remember though.....your taxes mostly go to interest on the debt. Who receives that interest? The Fed reserve. Who collects the tax for the Fed reserve? The IRS.

The government is only ripping you off by feeding the cooperation's who gain the profits, and the bankers who sit a top the pyramid. As for workers needing to step it up......c'mon LOS! ;)

You can't apply that now, because that path has been shut off. The few who can, will take the very few jobs your talking about. That only leaves about a gazillion other people to fill the no spots left.
 

runrunner

Veteran Expediter
Fast food is not supposed to be a job to raise a family on. It is for an extra job, kids in high school and that type of thing.

Sent from my Fisher Price ABC-123.

Who made that rule! The truth is it is a low skill job and has been held by young people,but in today's economy you see more and more adult's having to take those job's,so what is wrong with asking for better wage's?
 

asjssl

Veteran Expediter
Fleet Owner
Sent from my DROID RAZR using EO Forums mobile app
 

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layoutshooter

Veteran Expediter
Retired Expediter
Who made that rule! The truth is it is a low skill job and has been held by young people,but in today's economy you see more and more adult's having to take those job's,so what is wrong with asking for better wage's?

Who is going to PAY for those better wages? How many could it put out of work altogether. I doubt that there is enough margin to cover even a small raise let alone a doubling of wages. I KNOW my friend who owns a pizza shop is considering selling out due to low margins, the Obama Care costs and this.

What's wrong with it? Everything.
 

runrunner

Veteran Expediter
Who is going to PAY for those better wages? How many could it put out of work altogether. I doubt that there is enough margin to cover even a small raise let alone a doubling of wages. I KNOW my friend who owns a pizza shop is considering selling out due to low margins, the Obama Care costs and this.

What's wrong with it? Everything.
I doubt Obama Care effects a small pizza shop with less than 50 employee's.
 

pandora2112

Seasoned Expediter
Who made that rule! The truth is it is a low skill job and has been held by young people,but in today's economy you see more and more adult's having to take those job's,so what is wrong with asking for better wage's?

Most adults taking fast food jobs are unskilled...it's just not fair to make those who make a living wage pay for those who won't do anything to better themselves. I know that's not always the case but most people who work fast food, collect welfare and other assistance are capable of more. They don't want to do more.


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Turtle

Administrator
Staff member
Retired Expediter
Who made that rule! The truth is it is a low skill job and has been held by young people,but in today's economy you see more and more adult's having to take those job's,so what is wrong with asking for better wage's?
It's not a rule, it's a simple fact of economics. As Layout noted, the margins simply aren't there. I spent too many years in the restaurant industry not to know how it all works. While there's certainly nothing wrong with asking for better wages, it's utterly ignorant to think you're going to get better wages in the restaurant industry where food costs and labor costs have to be tightly controlled in order to stay in business. The money for increased wages has to come from somewhere, and that will be in the price of the food. If McDonald's, Burger King, KFC and Wendy's all got together and suddenly raised their menu prices, they'd be out of business within 3 years because the competition wouldn't follow suit.

I can't make a living mowing my next door neighbor's yard for $20, therefore, she should pay me $400 to mow her lawn. That's what these restaurant 'tards are in effect saying.
 

layoutshooter

Veteran Expediter
Retired Expediter
I doubt Obama Care effects a small pizza shop with less than 50 employee's.

Nope, wrong. It has something to do with how the "parent company" is set up and how the franchise agreements are written. The owner of the "parent company" had a lawyer speak to all shop owners. They were told that, as the law reads now and how the agreements are written, Obama Care counts all the shops as one. That means that every shop is responsible for Obama Care costs. It is not as "clean" as the news and Blinkin Barry want to make it.
 
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