Editor’s Note: This post has been updated.
A day after the nation celebrates the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, fast-food workers from 50 cities – including Charlotte – are expected to walk off their jobs as part of a strike calling for $15 an hour wages and the right to form unions without retaliation.
According to a release:
In North Carolina there are 124,660 fast-food workers. The median wage is $8.56. An adult with one child needs to make $20.07 an hour working full time in the Raleigh area just to afford the basics, according to a model developed by a professor at MIT.In addition to Raleigh, Durham, Greensboro and Charlotte, strikes will hit cities all over the country, including Boston, Chicago, Denver, Hartford, Houston, Los Angeles, Memphis, New York, Oakland, and Tampa.
Charlotte’s strike begins Aug. 29, 10:30 a.m. at 5400 South Blvd., at the corner of Grover Road and South.
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This article appears in Aug 28 – Sep 3, 2013.
In 1968, the minimum wage was $1.15, which was the equivalent of the “melt value” (i.e. silver content) of four pre-1965 (i.e. 90% silver) quarters.
In 2013, the melt value of four pre-1964 quarters is $17.
The plight of low-wage earners can be laid 100% at the feet of the government’s and the Federal Reserve’s debasement of the US dollar.
Government is force. Fast-food work? voluntary. Your move.
Wow, for an editor Ana is having trouble with the facts concerning this strike. Either she genuinely doesn’t know anything about the strike, or refused to express the facts in an interview with Keith on WBT 1110 AM just a few minutes ago. Tell me something, how do you equate this with student organized strikes during the Vietnam. Wow , you should be embarrassed with how you presented yourself. I
*during the Vietnam era.
A lot of people are going to be looking for a new job if they strike tomorrow. There is no way these people deserve $15 per hour for flipping burgers. They are easily replaced. If they want higher pay they need to get some skills that pay better.
Fast food workers demanding 15 dollars an hour? What a joke.
Tell me, why should I have to pay taxes to support the welfare state? Why should I HAVE TO PAY FOR YOUR MISTAKES???
If you cannot afford to have children, THEN DO NOT HAVE CHILDREN!!!!!!!!!!
Sterilize all people on welfare. Problem solved immediately.
When did the right wing develop such a mean streak? Most of the right wing posts are just overflowing with anger, hate, and contempt for anyone whose politics are left of John Birch.
Just curious DLP,
Are you Archiguy from the Observer?
Licensed Practical Nurses, Certified Nursing Assistants, and some entry level RN’s barely make $15.00 an hour. Nursing Assistants are usually paid around $10 per hour and they’ve been to school and received a certificate in order to do their much needed job. I started as a CNA years ago and am now an RN. Why do people in fast food think they need to be paid the same amount when they are working in a job that requires no continuing education? The solution to their probems isn’t to go on strike. The solution is to further your education so you can work in a job with better pay and benefits. I have a feeling a lot of peope are going to be unemployed in the next few days.
You want more $$ get another job. Fast food is not a career unless you strive for management. Stop waisting my time and get another job if you cant make ends meet.
Sounds like Democratic operatives have found another group of poor feckless people to manipulate and exploit for their own political advantage.
If we had a president who really cared about restoring a robust, resilient economy that rewarded industriousness, hard work, and pluck…instead of carping inanities about “fairness” while pillaging the treasury to reward his friends…we would have growth and better job opportunities for those who start on the lowest rung of the economic ladder. The free enterprise system is the best way to improve everyday American’s economic condition and increase upward economic mobility.
But no, we’ve got a president who believes we should all live under a government like that of Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron!”
Ana has come across very badly the last two days. Is she a journalist or an activist? Two very different things. She got completely demolished on Keith Larson’s show. It was cringe worthly. Basics of journalism: Who What When Where Why. She couldnt answer any of them.
Why is she an editor here?
worthy*
Right wingers kill me. You get so upset about people on government assistance, but when they ask for a living wage from their employer so they can get off it, you get upset about that too. McDonald’s can afford to give its employees raises! Perhaps the CEO should come off his sky high yearly salary just a bit to make it happen. It is so odd to me you guys don’t mind your tax dollars subsidizing his gigantic paycheck by allowing him to keep his employees on welfare and medicaid.
Oh and Isabella Wright, you stay classy!
Ms. Tracy-Blackwood,
The CEO of McDonald’s is Donald Thompson. Mr. Thompson’s salary is $9.88 million. McDonald’s has 440,000 full-time employees. So if Mr. Thompson gave up his entire salary and distributed it amongst his workforce, each employee would receive…
…twenty-two dollars.
A man who believes he deserves $9.88 million on the backs of thousands of workers who are below the poverty level is totally amoral. Right wingers don’t understand the difference between success and greed.
Well, aren’t you the class warrior with your moralizing judgments on what you think the value of someone’s labor should be!
People aren’t paid based on their moral worth or social importance…they’re paid for their productivity and CEOs are paid big bucks by shareholders to cut costs, boost sales and deliver big profits…profits that create jobs…that’s a rare skill set not many have. Nobody complains about the salaries of pro athletes or movie stars. Nobody complains when auto workers get big bonuses if the company’s cars sell well, but it’s a scandal if a CEO, on the same principle, increases corporate sales and shareholders reward them for it.
Nobody has to work in a fast food restaurant if they don’t want to. Its an entry level job. Obviously, fast food workers wouldn’t be working there if some other employer were willing to pay more for their skills. But since their low skilled labor is plentiful, workers are paid for the value their productivity adds to a company’s earnings. Increasing a government mandated minimum wage and making it illegal to pay less…or in this case raising a worker’s wage to $15 doesn’t suddenly make that worker’s productivity worth that amount…and because it isn’t, a lot of these people are going to be unemployed. Your favorite combo will be $10.50 and after a few months the property will probably become vacant…all because a bunch of economically illiterate liberals didn’t give a damn about the consequences their misdirected compassion had on the people they allegedly were trying to help.
Isn’t that the story of the last 50 years and the liberal welfare state? The beneficiaries of liberal “compassion” are no better off today than they ever were when they first fell for Democratic promises and society has very little to show for the 10 trillion dollar cost except the permanent maintenance of what has now become intergenerational poverty.
DLP,
Ah I see. As soon as the reality comes out ($22 per worker if the CEO gives up his entire salary) you have to trot out the BS rhetoric like “on the backs of”.
You still haven’t confessed that you’re Archiguy either.
Tony:
I love listening to the moronic claim that the overpaid executives are “creating jobs” when they are, in fact, doing just the opposite. Businesses are taking their massive government tax breaks and other handouts and doing everything in their power to eliminate jobs. Perhaps you have noticed that retail outlets would really prefer that you check yourself out instead of giving your money to a cashier. Have you ever tried to get through to a human being when telephoning a large company? Banks are in the process of replacing tellers with ATMs. BOA even tried to charge you a fee for bothering a teller. Manufacturing is being done by robots, and jobs that robots can’t do are being sent to the third world. Most of those overpaid CEOs did not build those huge companies, they are just employees, like the people who deal with the actual customers. NO ONE is worth ten million dollars a year. You are not honoring success, you are worshiping greed.
…and you’re accusing me of being full of hate and anger? I thought you guys prided yourselves on being called “progressives,” but it sounds like you’re more of a luddite.
I’m just as opposed to corporate welfare as you are because it isn’t fair competition.
But c’mon…Of course CEOs help create jobs…Business owners and investors are the primary source of jobs in this country. Jobs are continually coming in and out of existence like winking protons in a super collider. New and innovative jobs in a vibrant, growing economy help create new wealth for more people and expand opportunity for those wanting to get out of the entry-level job market. Higher paying jobs in newer and more productive sectors attract workers and force others to adapt with new skills. Likewise unemployment forces people out of jobs that have become no longer useful and shift to new sectors. Jobs are always taking advantage of new and developing technology, creating new sectors, expanding existing ones and making some obsolete…It’s called efficient allocation of resources. China and India’s economies have seen dramatic growth merely for making more use of free markets and the better allocation of their resources, the result is that more people in those countries now have a higher standard of living.
But for the last 4.5 years we’ve had a president who doesn’t understand economics. The best way to alleviate poverty is to increase total wealth, but he takes existing wealth as if it were a fixed pie and transfers it to the poor without understanding the dynamics of why people are poor. His policies kill free market principles for growth and make government the central driver of the economy. He talks about equal opportunity for everybody but he isn’t interested in it because he then uses government to guarantee equal outcomes for people he favors…it has never worked. Look at Greece, Italy, Spain or Portugal. The collapse of the welfare state in progressive Europe is not due to greedy fat cat CEOs, its due to policies like President Obama’s…Look at Detroit!
Some of the things you mention are the natural evolution of an advanced economy. I prefer efficiency and convenience. I bank online and through an ATM. I haven’t seen a teller in over a year and I handle many tasks with my smart phone. What’s wrong with that? Does that make me selfish because it might put somebody out of a job?
You seem to think workers own the job they have and the company owes it to them to keep forever. Businesses aren’t social agencies. Stop trying to turn them into one.
” The best way to alleviate poverty is to increase total wealth”?
What an interesting statement. How does a CEO “create more wealth”? Does he print more money? Large corporations are just as guilty of wealth redistribution as the government is. The difference is corporations redistribute it up instead of down the food chain.
Those workers that you hold in such contempt are the first step in directing your customers’ money into your pocket. Your business could not function without them. If it could, you would eliminate them in a heartbeat. Everyone knows they will never reach that $15 level they are dreaming of, but they deserve to be able to live. Perhaps if they were allowed to work full time. But then, you would have to grant them the protections that full time employees enjoy. Their complaint is not unique to the fast food industry. Very few workers in the retail industry are full time workers.
Greed of large business owners was the cause of Union formation. It is what keeps unions strong. Just look to the past to see what unregulated greed does for the work environment.
These workers are up against powerful players. $15 an hour is obviously a bargaining chip. Anyone would have to be willfully obtuse not to see this.
With the exception of DLP, Erin Tracy-Blackwood and few others, the comments on this story read like Orwell’s ten minute hate. Isabella Wright advocates a return to NC’s dark and shameful experiments with eugenics.
The thing is, there are issues on which people across the political spectrum can agree. A lot of people agree that criminal and unethical Wall Street bankers crashed the world economy, and that they should face consequences for their actions. Right wingers who believe that social and public programs are breaking the bank in NC should be appalled by Governer McCrory’s profligate spending on cronies and plutocrats.
Solutions are hard. Hate is easy.