$20 minimum wage for fast food workers in California….thoughts?
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Anonymous
What overtime? What a joke. There are no breaks during 10-12 hour shift, no paid training, no paychecks for years, paychecks that bounce, and no employer paid extra to meet the minimum wage. I ended up in ER few times from work. Another co-worker collapsed on the street and caught a cab to ER; all work related. This was in the late 90s and early 2000s in DC in restaurant business. Right after 9/11 I made about $30 a night after 10 hour shift in tips. No employer was required to make up the difference to meet minimum. I remember crying and making a martini as he owed me 40 h a week x $2.17 an hour x 10 weeks. My very first job never even paid me a penny from the house and kept most of the credit card tips. That's what you get when there's no contract, no punch in machine, you too poor to get a different job or the different job is just as bad. All those small business owners were applauded as such heroes/pillars of the community. One went on to open a second restaurant while not paying any of us the $2.27-$2.77 an hour. He saved 100s of thousand of dollars over the years. Not sure how he ran a restaurant without paying workers. He and his buddy were probably the only servers/bartenders on paychecks. I probably already wrote on this post. Poor people are not even poor because of the lousy pay, but because they don't even get the minimum while ruining their health. They also have poor friends/co-worker around them who constantly need help paying bills. So, poor are in negative as they work and all this without credit cards. Extremely hard to come out of it. I had two jobs that cost me more to go to work than to stay home. How can this be? Completely normal as the owners don't care. Those I quite in two months, but two months too late. |
Anonymous
The way to deal with that is to mandate a ratio between executive and hourly worker pay. Raising to the minimum wage without doing so is not going to work, as we are seeing in CA. It will just either make the consumer pay for it, or the business will either shut down or let go of more employees, as we are seeing. |
Anonymous
| It’s going to backfire. Prices are going to go sky high and businesses are going to cut human jobs and put up more kiosks and automated processes. Some will also end up closing up for good. Ultimately people will end up losing jobs. |
Anonymous
| All for it. Corporations have huge profits and they simply aren't sharing them with workers unless forced to. Time to force them. |
Anonymous
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Possibly stupid question: why do they make the distinction between minimum wage for "fast-food" and minimum wage for "other low-skill/high turnover" jobs? Why is fast food worth more than, say, retail or factory work?
In any case, the result will be predictable: fewer fast-food jobs (leaving many former employees worse off), more automation, fewer fast-food restaurants, and higher prices (because not all work can be automated). |
Anonymous
Corporations are in business to make profits. They aren't charities. They also don't take money away from employees when they lose money. You are welcome to start your own employee-owned fast food restaurant, but that is not what McDonalds, Wendys, Burger King, and the like do. |
Anonymous
Setting a minimum wage is the job of the state and the federal government. The government did its job. If McDonalds wants to close restaurants in response, they are free to do so. |
Anonymous
Fast food jobs are low quality jobs generally in companies that are large. Good sector to target in this labor market where opportunities are many. |
Anonymous
A kiosk that is cheap than a $20 an hour worker is probably cheaper than a $13 an hour worker. |
Anonymous
| If the wages are too low then people won't work the jobs but then the govt props those people up with unemployment and welfare, so the govt created a problem of people not wanting to work |
Anonymous
Of course they do. They may not be literally stealing it from their bank accounts but they'll happily slash your hours or let you go with zero notice or severance. If you don't consider that taking money away from employees when they lose money you need to lay off licking the corporate boots. |
Anonymous
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA I have a bridge to sell you too. |
Anonymous
Not stupid as I have the same question! Why did they single out one sector--food service--and then one specific sub-sector within that sector--fast food? Note that restaurants were not included in this legislation. Is this some subsector by subsector strategy? First health care workers, then fast food workers, then ???? |
Anonymous
| Well, this is how inflation happens. If you're in favor of fast food workers making $20 an hour, you're also in favor of inflation. |
Anonymous
Are you for real? You don't think working 40 hours / week should be enough to afford basics of life? |