Big Mac attack: US low-wage workers prepare to strike in over 200 cities

[Donald Polish]

Low-wage fast food workers are preparing for a one-day nationwide protest in what some are saying will be the largest mobilization of US workers seeking to achieve higher pay, benefits and the right to unionize.
Fast food employees are planning a labor walkout in some of the largest American cities, including Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, St. Louis and Kansas City, as part of the Fight for $15 movement.
However, other low-wage groups will also be joining the fast food employees, including Walmart workers, home-care assistants and childcare workers in what organizers say will be the biggest demonstration by low-wage workers in American history.
International protesters, in solidarity with their US counterparts, will organize demonstrations in more than 100 cities in 35 countries, according to the organizers. Among the various planned actions include a one-day strike by fast food workers in New Zealand and by restaurant, hotel and tourism employees in Italy.
Organizers chose April 15 - the day US tax returns are due - to draw attention to their demand, and to illustrate how many low-wage workers are now dependent on government handouts.
More than 52 percent of fast-food employees depend on public assistance to make ends meet, according to a recent report by the UC Berkeley Labor Center.

Its not exactly a high skilled job, so the US government could reduce or abolish wage taxes on low wages to compensate. Tell the truth, I don't know why so many people eat Mc Donald's food, its revolting and dangerous to your health.

How do you like the perspective of world revolt of fast food workers?
It seems to me America will be the very center of this chaos.

 

[Preacher]

Already a thread on it in Politics.

 

[Katzndogz]

These franchises should automate and be done with it. Fire them all.

 

[Preacher]

These franchises should automate and be done with it. Fire them all.

^ retardpublican compassion. Another reason they will be a dead party within 20 years.

 

[ScienceRocks]

Raise their pay to 12 bucks per hour!

 

[Katzndogz]

These franchises should automate and be done with it. Fire them all.

^ retardpublican compassion. Another reason they will be a dead party within 20 years.

And these unskilled workers will still be unemployed and unemployable.

 

[DarkFury]

Low-wage fast food workers are preparing for a one-day nationwide protest in what some are saying will be the largest mobilization of US workers seeking to achieve higher pay, benefits and the right to unionize.
Fast food employees are planning a labor walkout in some of the largest American cities, including Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, St. Louis and Kansas City, as part of the Fight for $15 movement.
However, other low-wage groups will also be joining the fast food employees, including Walmart workers, home-care assistants and childcare workers in what organizers say will be the biggest demonstration by low-wage workers in American history.
International protesters, in solidarity with their US counterparts, will organize demonstrations in more than 100 cities in 35 countries, according to the organizers. Among the various planned actions include a one-day strike by fast food workers in New Zealand and by restaurant, hotel and tourism employees in Italy.
Organizers chose April 15 - the day US tax returns are due - to draw attention to their demand, and to illustrate how many low-wage workers are now dependent on government handouts.
More than 52 percent of fast-food employees depend on public assistance to make ends meet, according to a recent report by the UC Berkeley Labor Center.

Its not exactly a high skilled job, so the US government could reduce or abolish wage taxes on low wages to compensate. Tell the truth, I don't know why so many people eat Mc Donald's food, its revolting and dangerous to your health.

How do you like the perspective of world revolt of fast food workers?
It seems to me America will be the very center of this chaos.

So I eat a frozen dinner one day. Big deal.

 

[Stephanie]

How about that. they take a job knowing what the wage is and then turn around and go out and protest them. Now who would want to keep an employee like that?

so we don't want to HEAR any whining when they LOSE their jobs and make NO WAGES over their stupidity

this has SEIU written all over it and the day after TAX DAY...you think people will be sympathetic..

little tools in this country

 

[Stephanie]

VIDEO at the site. take a look

snip:

Home » CNSNews TV
Raise the Minimum Wage to $50!
April 15, 2015 - 9:30 AM




College students are asked to sign a petition to raise the minimum wage to $50

all of it here:
Raise the Minimum Wage to 50 CNS News

 

[Iceweasel]

That's why they ARE low wage workers. Dumb as a box of rocks.

 

[Stephanie]

SNIP:
SEIU Rolls Out Astroturf at McDonald’s
Fast food protests will begin Wednesday
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Flickr Creative Commons

BY: Bill McMorris
April 15, 2015 5:00 am

Labor giant SEIU invested about $20 million on worker organizing committees in 2014, and they’re going to see a return on that investment on Wednesday as protesters assemble outside McDonald’s.

The Fast Food Forward movement, an SEIU-supported coalition group, is organizing protests in cities across the country at fast food franchises. The demonstrations are ostensibly targeted at raising hourly wages of workers to $15 per hour, more than double the current national minimum wage. But critics, such as Ryan Williams, a spokesman for Worker Center Watch, said that the protests are “street theater,” using “shell game” worker centers to gin up media attention and sympathy for its cause.

“Many Americans may not realize the extent to which the SEIU has [invested] and propagated the Fight for 15 campaign,” Williams said during a Monday teleconference. “The union has invested upwards of $20 million in 2014, $50 million over the last two years in this ongoing effort of organizing fast food workers. This is a coordinated effort, an effort based on street theater.”

The union’s federal labor filings released in March showed that the SEIU spent nearly $4 million on the Fast Food Workers Organizing Committee in 2014, more than double its 2013 spending. It also pumped money into regional organizing committees, which are expected to serve as point-men to eventually organize workers. The East Bay Organizing Committee, for example, saw its SEIU allocations balloon to more than $1 million in 2014, triple the $300,000 it received in 2013.

The SEIU did not return a request for comment.

Glenn Spencer, vice president at the Chamber of Commerce’s Workforce Freedom Initiative, said that the majority of attendees are professional protesters and union agitators, rather than actual fast food employees.

all of it here:
SEIU Rolls Out Astroturf at McDonald s Washington Free Beacon

 

[Iceweasel]

...and yet, McDonalds only owns 10% of McDonalds restaurants. Morons leading morons.

 

[Stephanie]

and how cute: they are now called, low wage workers. What I'd like to know is WHO FORCED them to take the low wage job?

my gawd is everyone a frikken victim in this country in this day and age. they can't make on their low wage go another part time job and WORK to take care of your families. it's not up to everyone else to do it for you

 

[martybegan]

These franchises should automate and be done with it. Fire them all.

They keep pushing and that will happen. Even if they manage to get the wage to $15 an hour, that amount will attract better workers, so the $8 an our worker will now be making $0.

 

[Fang]

I always thought working at McDonalds was something you did while training/studying for your future job, or for extra money in the evening. I never thought it was a way of life to raise a family. It won't be easy to just raise wages because there's a fundamental difference in philosophy here that both sides will never come to agreement on.

 

[Preacher]

How about that. they take a job knowing what the wage is and then turn around and go out and protest them. Now who would want to keep an employee like that?

so we don't want to HEAR any whining when they LOSE their jobs and make NO WAGES over their stupidity

this has SEIU written all over it and the day after TAX DAY...you think people will be sympathetic..

little tools in this country

Unless you were in a poor person's shoes you wouldn't understand. When you are dirt poor,got no money to your name,got a family to feed etc you aren't exactly in a position to dictate how much you make. Its why we have unions.We organize together to fight back against the thieves stealing our labor and not giving us just payment. I swear republicans are idiots. They must think EVERY person already has a job and can negotiate their pay at their new job they are applying for....such stupidity. When you are IN their shoes THEN you will understand.

 

[Stephanie]

SNIP:

• Economics

Union Bosses Use Fast-Food Workers For Personal Gain
Unions are organizing a fast-food worker’s strike this week to push for a $15 minimum wage. What they don’t say is how much unions will benefit.

By Jared Meyer
April 14, 2015


On April 15, the Service Employees International Union is organizing nationwide fast food worker strikes to draw attention to its push for a $15 hourly wage. While such protests may seem to be grassroots efforts led by struggling workers, major unions fund and promote them. Unions desperately need to extend their reach to the high-turnover fast food industry if they are to stem sharply declining membership rolls.

Unions often make contact and generate political activism from low-wage employees through what they call “worker centers,” which conduct activities similar to those of unions but with fewer legal restrictions and oversight. My Manhattan Institute colleague Diana Furchtgott-Roth argues these worker centers are doing unions’ dirty work. As she wrote during similar strikes in November 2013, “Unlike worker centers, unions must hold supervised elections so that members can elect union officials as representatives. Worker centers do not necessarily represent employees. Employees can decertify a union—dismiss it from representing them—but they cannot dismiss a worker center” (emphasis added).


Worker Centers Are Union Branches

all of it here:
Union Bosses Use Fast-Food Workers For Personal Gain

 

[Stephanie]

I always thought working at McDonalds was something you did while training/studying for your future job, or for extra money in the evening. I never thought it was a way of life to raise a family. It won't be easy to just raise wages because there's a fundamental difference in philosophy here that both sides will never come to agreement on.

It's not up to the company to pay them so they can take care of their families. they can't make it on the Federal min. wage. Then they need to find another job, negotiate for higher wages at their job. Or go find another part-time job to help take care of their families. that's what people DID back in the "old" days. Not sit around whining

 

[Fang]

I always thought working at McDonalds was something you did while training/studying for your future job, or for extra money in the evening. I never thought it was a way of life to raise a family. It won't be easy to just raise wages because there's a fundamental difference in philosophy here that both sides will never come to agreement on.

It's not up to the company to pay them so they can take care of their families. they can't make it on the Federal min. wage. Then they need to find another job, negotiate for higher wages at their job. Or go find another part-time job to help take care of their families. that's what people DID back in the "old" days. Not sit around whining

I recall my father working 2-3 jobs sometimes. Again, it's a difference in philosophy. What are you saying about yourself if you're fighting to stay in the same menial job instead of fighting to get ahead through hard work and education? What's $15 an hour going to do??? It will make you realize it still isn't good enough, hence the job itself was always a dead end.

 

[Delta4Embassy]

Classic union (heh) scene here from "Ice Pirates" when a pro-worker type's shouting "Power to the people! Workers walk off you jobs!" right before he's castrated by a metal pair of hinged jaws.