Fight For 15

[AUChizad]

http://chicagoist.com/2013/08/01/fight_for_15_movement_begins_two_da.php#photo-1

Minimum Wage Workers Walk Out To Fight For 15

A second wave of protests to raise the minimum wage began in Chicago Wednesday with workers from the Fight for 15 movement and other labor organizations picketing two McDonald’s locations and Whole Foods on Halsted and Waveland. The Chicago protests are part of a larger national week of action, with rallies to raise the minimum wage and other strikes happening in Michigan, New York, Wisconsin and Missouri.

“We’ve got people working really long hours,” said Jose Rodriguez, a cashier at Whole Foods. Rodriguez and several other workers walked out of the store in the morning to join more than 100 people picketing out front. Rodriguez said he and other striking workers were looking for better wages for the work they do, as well as sick days and vacation time. Matthew Camp, another cashier at the location said, “We started organizing at this location against the points system. It’s an unfair attendance policy in which we don’t have sick days. Any reason why we miss a day of work goes on our records as a demerit.”

The fight to organize low wage workers has spread like wildfire across the country, with dozens of labor organizations organizing both national days of action and local strikes. Last week, more than 200 people protested in front of three different food and retail locations, demanding both better wages and fairer labor standards. Both organizers and workers say increased wages and benefits mean a healthier economy. In a press release, Carlos Cardenas, vice president of community organizing group ONE Northside said “The workers’ action will lift up all of Chicago. If they have more money in their pockets, they’ll spend it right here, helping to boost the entire economy.”

On Thursday, activists with the Fight For 15 movement and their allies plan to stage a series of protests beginning in the early morning and lasting all day at more than 20 locations throughout the Loop and Magnificent Mile.

How about learning a skill that could not be performed by a retarded monkey?

$15/hour works out to about $30,000 a year, which is what my first CAREER job with a college degree paid. Are they suggesting that a fry cook at McDonald's is equally as important to society and equally demanding of skill as such an office job?

Minimum wage jobs are not intended to be careers. You shouldn't BE trying to feed a family of four on them. You shouldn't BE comfortable. You should be trying to work your way up and out of the cash register job. I'm aware that for some, there's no other choice, and to that I say, everyone in America can't be successful. Artificially making a job cleaning toilets on par with a entry level job that requires a college degree is not solving anything but driving up inflation.

[Townhallsavoy]

Why not just mandate a flat rate for all jobs?  All 1st year employees get 15 per hour with a max of 40 hours per week.  It raises a dollar each year until retirement.  All extra money goes to the government for programs and infrastructure. 

[Snaggletiger]

Alabama is an at-will employment state.  Simply means there doesn't have to be a reason to fire someone, as long as it's not for discriminatory reasons or in breach of a written contract.   If our employees walk out and protest, we will simply block their access to the computers, change the locks and tell them thanks for playing.  Then go hire someone who wants to work.  Now take your signs and get the fuck off our lawn.   

[Vandy Vol]

Alabama is an at-will employment state.  Simply means there doesn't have to be a reason to fire someone, as long as it's not for discriminatory reasons or in breach of a written contract.   If our employees walk out and protest, we will simply block their access to the computers, change the locks and tell them thanks for playing.  Then go hire someone who wants to work.  Now take your signs and get the fuck off our lawn.

When did you stop caring?

[Buzz Killington]

Chicago Labor Unions...imagine that.

[Snaggletiger]

When did you stop caring?

Look, "Lawyers That Care" is all we could fit on the sign.  There's much more we wanted to say but money and space didn't allow us to.

[ssgaufan]

If this passes do I get a raise to keep me where I'm at above the minimum wage?  Or will it just drive the price of everyday products even higher which therefore puts me closer to where they are now?

[Townhallsavoy]

If this passes do I get a raise to keep me where I'm at above the minimum wage?  Or will it just drive the price of everyday products even higher which therefore puts me closer to where they are now?

I wonder this too. 

As a teacher, I was making what?  $22/hour? 

For $7 less and a lot less time and effort, I could go do something easier.  Mindless.  Like work at McDonalds. Except wait, those people will be replaced by robots soon. 

Then there will be higher unemployment.  And people with the remaining menial jobs will want more money.  Then we'll raise minimum wage again forcing more tax dollars to be paid thus giving the government the ability to give out money to more people unemployed. 

[AUChizad]

I wonder this too. 

As a teacher, I was making what?  $22/hour? 

For $7 less and a lot less time and effort, I could go do something easier.  Mindless.  Like work at McDonalds. Except wait, those people will be replaced by robots soon. 

Then there will be higher unemployment.  And people with the remaining menial jobs will want more money.  Then we'll raise minimum wage again forcing more tax dollars to be paid thus giving the government the ability to give out money to more people unemployed.

Is it even that much of a gap?

I know a lot depends on the school system, tenure, etc., but don't a lot of teachers make right at around $30,000?

[Townhallsavoy]

Is it even that much of a gap?

I know a lot depends on the school system, tenure, etc., but don't a lot of teachers make right at around $30,000?

Varies by state.
 
Alabama starts out at $36k.  By year three, a teacher without a master's jumps up to $40k. 

[Ogre]

The current minimum wage in Chicago is $8.25/hour.  That equates to $330/week in gross pay for a 40-hour a week job.  If you raise the minimum wage to $15/hour, that would raise the employee's gross wages to $600/week for a 40 hour week.  Essentially the employer will now be doubling their Salary & Wage expenses, which means if they want to continue to operate in a profitable manner they are going to have to cut that expense elsewhere.  More than likely they will cut their minimum-wage staff by 1/2 and try to figure out how to operate on a skeleton crew.

These people don't realize that businesses have to make money in order for them to keep a job.  They can continue to hike the minimum wage and watch unemployment skyrocket. 

I'd guestimate that half of the employees at my company make less than $15/hour.  We are 90 employees and 6 locations.  If something like that passed here we'd be forced to shut down at least 2 of our operations and trim our minimum wage staff at every other store by at least 25%. 

I'd start by laying off anyone with an Obama bumper sticker.

[AUChizad]

HuffPost posted an article saying it would only raise the cost of a Big Mac $0.68.

However:

http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/big_mac_numbers_too_good_to_ch.php

Big Mac numbers too good to check—or to correct
Fixes and non-fixes following a Huffington Post story

By Ryan ChittumFacebookTwitterEmailPrint More Sharing Services One Page
The Huffington Post has all but retracted the story on Big Macs and wages that I criticized here (as did Tom Maguire, who deserves credit for getting there first). It has pointed out the errors, where they came from, and how they were made. It’s admirably done what you’re supposed to do when you mess up.

That’s far more than you would ever get from, say, the serially wrong Matt Drudge.

But since the wrong information went big on the Internet after the original HuffPost piece, we thought it would be interesting to see how other outlets have handled the fixes. It’s not very encouraging.

MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell ran an embarrassing segment the other day about the erroneous non-study:

MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell broke down the numbers in his latest Rewrite segment, pointing to new research by Arnobio Morelix at the University of Kansas. The study, which looked at labor costs at McDonald’s, found that if you double every salary of every worker at the fast food chain, the price of a Big Mac would increase just 68 cents from $3.99 to $4.67.
MSNBC’s piece stands uncorrected.



Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Forbes, which was a key vector in the story’s spread, has updated its post with a note at the top that says, “Questions have been raised about the study at the center of this post, and the post has been changed accordingly.” MSN also put a big correction at the top of its story, as did David Atkins at Digby’s Hullabaloo.

ABC News had even less excuse to write about this “research” since by the time it published its story, it knew that it was some undergrad’s work. It did some actual reporting that introduces some skepticism and context, but the headline still says, “Price of Big Mac Could Rise by 68 Cents If Minimum Wage Doubles.”

Reading through the hits on this is an appalling tour of click-whoring aggregation at its worst. A site called Opposing View calls it “a new study conducted by a University of Kansas scholar” and rewrites Think Progress and the Huffington Post, burying links to the sources at the bottom. Fox News Radio ran it through the talk-radio wringer, unchecked.

The Houston Chronicle aggregated the HuffPost, didn’t namecheck HP till after the end of the post, and then aggregated the HuffPost’s retraction. The coup de grace, though, is that the Chron also reprinted an erroneous Business Insider aggregation. It’s uncorrected. Great work, Hearst! Business Insider itself put a three-paragraph correction atop its post. Henry Blodget also updated his post.

Gawker aggregated and its errors are uncorrected. Also uncorrected: The Washington Post, The Franchise Herald, KIRO radio in Seattle, Newser, The Week, The Spokane Spokesman-Review, PJ Media, Truthdig, the Albany Times-Union, LiveLeak, The Daily Meal, AMNewYork, Moyers & Company’s blog, HuffPostLive’s video, and ABC Action News in Tampa.

The Jane Dough corrected its post to call the KU researcher an undergrad, but has left all the other wrong information as is.

The New York Times puts its multiple corrections at the bottom of its erroneous post. Think Progress puts its corrections at the bottom, as well, and leaves the body of the post—errors and all—as is. A strikethrough would work best here.

We’ll induct this gem from Oklahoma City’s KFOR-TV into the Hamster Wheel Hall of Fame for this dumb aggregation, which has no correction and, egregiously, introduces its own fact error, calling the KU kid’s numbers a “study from Kansas State University.” And maybe The Examiner too. It aggregates MSN Money aggregating The Huffington Post and its post is also uncorrected.

And, of course, my favorite, the false MLive story on the “comprehensive research conducted by the University of Kansas,” hasn’t been touched.

I said yesterday that one of the first rules of Internet journalism is that false news is far more likely to go viral than factual news. Audit Boss Dean Starkman points out that’s nothing new and that Mark Twain said it best more than a century ago:

A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes

And

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/08/02/the-real-change-in-the-cost-of-a-big-mac-if-mcdonalds-workers-were-paid-15-an-hour-nothing/

The Real Change In The Cost Of A Big Mac If McDonald's Workers Were Paid $15 An Hour: Nothing
 14 comments, 2 called-out Comment Now
Follow Comments
I will admit to having been amused at the error strewn Huffington Post piece which insisted that doubling the wages of McDonald’s workers to $15 an hour would have only a minimal effect on the price of a Big Mac or the dollar menu. Clare O’Connor here at Forbes describes what went on. My amusement isn’t at the errors in the calculation, nor in the way that it was subsequently re-reported. We all make errors at times and the important thing is what one then does: just as Mother always said, ‘fess up and try not to do it again. On which point everyone has acted excellently.

My amusement rather is about the fact that a doubling of, or a halving of, or any other change in, the wages of McDonald's MCD +0.03% workers will have absolutely no effect whatsoever on the price of a Big Mac or the dollar menu. For prices are not set by the cost of production of something, but by the supply and demand for that item.

Adam Ozimek makes an excellent point here about changes in labour costs. The choices available are not only whether to raise prices in order to cope with those changes in costs. Instead, a change in the price of labour leads to the opportunity to substitute capital for labour.

 
Will the Living Wage Trend Kill or Make McDonald's and WalMart?
Adam HartungAdam Hartung
Contributor
 
Doubling McDonald's Salaries A Great Way To Get Workers Replaced By Machines
Adam OzimekAdam Ozimek
Contributor
 
How Much Would A Big Mac Cost If McDonald's Workers Were Paid $15 Per Hour? (Updated, Corrected)
Clare O'ConnorClare O'Connor
Forbes Staff
 
Would A Higher Minimum Wage Help McDonald's Workers?
Art CardenArt Carden
Contributor
Doubling of labor costs will simply increase a fast food restaurant’s incentives to adopt technology like this. And if fast food wages doubled everywhere it would spur the development of these technologies even faster.

The obviousness of this point is demonstrated by the way in which Apple AAPL +1.02% gets its kit manufactured in China. There’s, as we all know, some 250,000 people working at Foxconn to make all that shiny shiny gadgetry. They’re paid $400 to $500 a month to do so. If all that manufacturing were done in the US people would be being paid $2,000 to $3,000 a month for the job: but there would be many fewer of them and many more machines. A change in the labour costs changes the trade off between employing labour and employing capital to reach the same production goal. This is of course why a rise in the minimum wage does indeed increase unemployment. Perhaps not much, not as much as some alarmists claim, but it really does.

But my major point is this that Adam alludes to:

What do people expect will happen when prices go up 17%? If McDonald’s could raise its prices by that much without lowering demand they would.

Take a step back a moment. We all know that McDonald’s is indeed a rapacious capitalist organisation. It cares only about the profits being made for its shareholders, not for the wider group of stakeholders that is its employees and the community. We know this absolutely because this is the very thing that everyone is complaining about: McDonald’s cares so much about profits that it’s not paying a living wage to its workers.

Hmm. Well, what else can we surmise about a rapacious capitalist organisation? In that ruthless pursuit of gelt and pilf for its shareholders it is going to gouge the customers for the absolute maximum that it can, yes? This is what capitalists do: we hear people complaining about that all the time as well. What limits McDonald’s ability to entirely empty our wallets every time we want a hamburger is that there are other people who will also sell us one. Wendy’s, Jack in the Box, In and Out, there’s a multiplicity of places where we can go to fur our arteries. Which leads to our conclusion on pricing in a capitalist and free market economy. The capitalists charge the absolute maximum they can get away with, that ability being limited by the competition that comes from alternative suppliers.

Thus the price is not determined by the cost of production of an item. Which means that, if we raise McDonald’s production costs by increasing the wages of the workers, the price isn’t going to change. For it’s not production costs that determine prices: it’s competition that does. Another way to put this is that McDonald’s is already charging us the absolute maximum that it can for its current level of sales. Thus it cannot raise its prices if its production costs go up.

All of which means that the real change in the cost of a Big Mac, or the dollar menu, if McDonald’s workers were paid $15 an hour is: nothing. For production costs simply do not determine the prices that can be achieved in a competitive market.

[GH2001]

When did you stop caring?

He does care. It's for their own good. The commie bums.

[Token]

You know, I dont make a lot of money, I average between 35 and 40 depending on OT. But the truly rewarding part of my job is being able to tell a worthless piece of shit that they are a worthless piece of shit. It appears as though I should take my talents north.

[The Prowler]

I flip burgers all night at Wendy's. I'm not out there protesting, but if I get a bump in pay AWESOME, if not...oh well, kay say ra say ra.

[Kaos]

So here's the basic economic point these idiots fail to understand. 

If I'm required by law to bump all my minimum wage employees to double what they're making, that has to come from somewhere.  In order to maintain my profit margins, keep my stockholders happy, stay in business I'm going to have to do one of two things:

1) Raise my prices
2) Let people go.

Actually, I'll probably do a combination of both.  When I raise my prices that will cause the people who use my products to raise theirs in order to keep their businesses alive. 

So these clowns will make $15 an hour.  Yay!  Oops.  Gallon of milk now costs $8.  Gallon of gas goes up to $6.50.  The bama t-shirt he wears under his Hardee's uniform now costs $16 instead of $5.  The flat-brim douche hat sets him back $45.  He's got more money, but can buy less. 

Idiot. 

[RWS]

It is absolutely saddening that this is what our country is coming to.  If you want to get paid $15/hr, go get a real job.  Why should some burger flipping cock goblin make as much or more than an entry level police officer or firefighter? 

[Buzz Killington]

Hey, I started out mopping the floor just like you guys. But now... now I'm washing lettuce. Soon I'll be on fries; then the grill. In a year or two, I'll make assistant manager, and that's when the big bucks start rolling in.

[GH2001]

So here's the basic economic point these idiots fail to understand. 

If I'm required by law to bump all my minimum wage employees to double what they're making, that has to come from somewhere.  In order to maintain my profit margins, keep my stockholders happy, stay in business I'm going to have to do one of two things:

1) Raise my prices
2) Let people go.

Actually, I'll probably do a combination of both.  When I raise my prices that will cause the people who use my products to raise theirs in order to keep their businesses alive. 

So these clowns will make $15 an hour.  Yay!  Oops.  Gallon of milk now costs $8.  Gallon of gas goes up to $6.50.  The bama t-shirt he wears under his Hardee's uniform now costs $16 instead of $5.  The flat-brim douche hat sets him back $45.  He's got more money, but can buy less. 

Idiot.

This guy gets it. ^^^^

It really is that simple.

[Kaos]

This guy gets it. ^^^^

It's really is that simple.

It's not how much you make, it's the purchasing power of that amount. 

And it really is that simple. 

My first job I got paid $3.35 an hour.  Seems like slave wages! How did I survive? 

Stamp cost .18 cents.
Gas cost $1.20 a gallon
New cars cost $6-10k
A nice house might set you back $50k
Movie tickets were $3
Could get a pair of Levis for $15 (Wranglers/Lees for much less)
Pair of Nikes were $20 (and couldn't afford them)

If I could scrape together $20 I could take my girlfriend to dinner and a movie and have some pocket change left over. 

I thought then that if I could ever get to where I made 20-30k a year I'd be set for life.  Rich, I tell ya. 

It's all relative -- something these idiots just can't understand.