McDonald's workers: 'supersize my check'

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Gargamel

So unless they start paying the EMS community $30-$40 an hour if these idiots get $15, I will be mightily inclined to start fire bombing fast food joints. And then I'll move to the Netherlands, they seem like they have their act together a bit more than we do.

According to payscale.com, a UK paramedic gets a median of £25k/year, which basing that on a 37.5 hour work week (they should be so lucky), works out around £12.82/hr, which translates into $19.85. So honestly, a pay-rise to EMTs to between $25-30 an hour would make sense in my opinion, likewise to other front-line forces (police and fire).

The problem is, short of direct governmental intervention in the economic markets, it is a vicious cycle. Companies will raise their prices if they have to raise their wages, which means that the cost of living will go up which means they'll have to raise their wages again. It is one of the fatal flaws in the capitalist system, you are always running to stand still.

[Betonov]

Right now 1 euro is 1.1 dollars, so I'll just post in euros.

Slovenia: bread €0,70; a pound of meat €3.00; a pint of beer €2,20; a litre of gas 1,50 (about 5,50 per gallon); big mack about €4.00

Apart from bread and beer, the US is not that much more expensive to live and our minimal wage is €4/h. €15 is a mid level managers pay here.

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

While I agree there needs to be a set minimum wage, how did they decide it should be $15?

One of the problems is that the government is reluctant to explain, clearly, what the purpose/goal of the minimum wage is.

Is a single person expected to maintain their life based solely on a minimum wage rate? Dunno. The government does not state that.

That has always been my question about the minimum wage -- what is it intended to do. Without knowing that, it is impossible to evaluate what the minimum wage should nor should not be.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Platapus

One of the problems is that the government is reluctant to explain, clearly, what the purpose/goal of the minimum wage is.

Is a single person expected to maintain their life based solely on a minimum wage rate? Dunno. The government does not state that.

That has always been my question about the minimum wage -- what is it intended to do. Without knowing that, it is impossible to evaluate what the minimum wage should nor should not be.

I can't really confirm for the US government (sadly I'm not employed by them), but I think the goal of the minimum wage in general is either to meet the living wage of a nations employees, or to be a compromise between the living wage and what industries can afford. It depends on nation to nation, really. In the UK it's the latter, in other nations it's the former.

[Wolferz]

Give the Micky D's folks their pound of worm burgers.

Taco Bell will thank you for making them a reservation only restaurant chain.

[mapuc]

Here is how I see it.

I don't want to pay to much for an hamburger, but I don't like to see an employee to be a working poor, so I can get a cheap hamburger or other things cheap.

Oh well what do I know

Markus

[vienna]

California's minimum wage is US$9.00 per hour. Based on a 40 hour week, that's US$360 per week or, over a 52 week year, US$1,560 per month. The average rent in in CA is $US1,957 per month. By these numbers, a person working for minimum wage in CA is, on average, roughly US$400 in the hole. Also, remember, the US$1,560 per month is pre-tax income out of which is automatically deducted Federal and State income taxes and Social Security taxes, leaving a net income of well below the gross...

It is amazing to me how persons earning minimum wage ever manage to make ends meet and survive. To a lot of us, maybe it's just "flipping burgers"; to those who do the "flipping", it's a struggle for basic life...


<O>

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by vienna

California's minimum wage is US$9.00 per hour. Based on a 40 hour week, that's US$360 per week or, over a 52 week year, US$1,560 per month. The average rent in in CA is $US1,957 per month. By these numbers, a person working for minimum wage in CA is, on average, roughly US$400 in the hole. Also, remember, the US$1,560 per month is pre-tax income out of which is automatically deducted Federal and State income taxes and Social Security taxes, leaving a net income of well below the gross...

It is amazing to me how persons earning minimum wage ever manage to make ends meet and survive. To a lot of us, maybe it's just "flipping burgers"; to those who do the "flipping", it's a struggle for basic life...


<O>

Well put, I think that it's partly this and the increase in house prices which is seeing a large section of todays youth living with their parents for longer periods. For a lot of youth, the flipping burgers is their first place after school, especially if they have done poorly at school, whether their school performance is their fault or the school is a topic for another thread so let's not go there, but you'll find that catering and cleaning is where most of the early school leavers go. On the minimum wage on these jobs, even working full-time, they cannot afford to buy or rent a property, so they hang on and wait to see if a better paid job will come up.
Now, law of averages dictates that with millions of kids doing this across a country, there's going to be a lot of people trying to fit into a small hole and that's going to mean a lot of 'Thank you for applying for this job, we're sorry but...' letters in the mail (if they're courteous enough to even bother with such things), and that's going to mean another week flipping burgers.
Who knows how long such a situation would continue for some? It's a numbers game really, and it does absolutely nothing for your self-esteem, especially when everyone else is looking down their noses at you like you're some kind of lower class scum just because you work at McDonalds.
Little wonder so many turn to drink and drugs.

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by Wolferz

Taco Bell will thank you for making them a reservation only restaurant chain.

Not once I open my Twin Peaks Restaurant Franchise in NAPA(I belive one has just become available) ... then every one will have reservations

[Buddahaid]

Originally Posted by vienna

California's minimum wage is US$9.00 per hour. Based on a 40 hour week, that's US$360 per week or, over a 52 week year, US$1,560 per month. The average rent in in CA is $US1,957 per month. By these numbers, a person working for minimum wage in CA is, on average, roughly US$400 in the hole. Also, remember, the US$1,560 per month is pre-tax income out of which is automatically deducted Federal and State income taxes and Social Security taxes, leaving a net income of well below the gross...

It is amazing to me how persons earning minimum wage ever manage to make ends meet and survive. To a lot of us, maybe it's just "flipping burgers"; to those who do the "flipping", it's a struggle for basic life...


<O>

You split rent with others just like I did for years.

[Buddahaid]

Originally Posted by mapuc

Here is how I see it.

I don't want to pay to much for an hamburger, but I don't like to see an employee to be a working poor, so I can get a cheap hamburger or other things cheap.

Oh well what do I know

Markus

Make it yourself at home.

[Torplexed]

Posting this photo for the benefit of anyone who accidentally mis-read the title of this thread as 'supersize my chick'.

[HunterICX]

[AngusJS]

Until we can create an army of intelligent robots to do the crappy jobs for us, someone will always be stuck with those jobs. I don't see why those workers should be punished for it - it could very well be you or me.

It also doesn't make sense to say they should be paid peanuts because when you worked job X, you were paid peanuts too. You're basically saying that you suffered, so everyone else should suffer too.

It shouldn't be possible to work full time and still fail to make ends meet, thru no fault of your own. So they should ask for $15, and maybe they get $12 or 13 - that's the way bargaining works. And then maybe they'll actually be making a living wage.

Of course, the corporation they work for may very well raise prices to offset loss in profits. Because heaven forbid the CEO be able to buy only one island and not two. I don't know what the answer is. Based on their track record, we can only expect the worst from most US corporations. But there needs to be a minimum wage.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by AngusJS

Until we can create an army of intelligent robots to do the crappy jobs for us, someone will always be stuck with those jobs.

It's happening, slowly but surely it is happening.

You see a rise of automation which began in the Industrial Revolution and has continued to this day, which has also helped to contribute to the shift from manual labour into the service sector.
Take for example a manufacturing plant, seventy years ago there would have been a multitude of people working at the plant, now many of them have been replaced by robotics. The people displaced from these jobs have got to go somewhere.
Even now, robotics, in particular computers, are creeping into the service sector. Self-service check-outs at supermarkets are the vanguard of a force which will eventually automate many of these menial tasks...and then whither those employed in these?
And God help us when we actually crack robotics to the level that we can create androids, workers that need no sleep, think faster, that are hard to injure and who (at first) will not need paying? The human workforce is screwed. What will happen to those at the bottom end of the pay scale then?