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posted by CoolHand on Wednesday November 11 2015, @02:50AM   Printer-friendly
from the rise-of-the-proletariat dept.

Hundreds of fast food workers are striking nationwide Tuesday, joining other workers in pressing for a more livable wage. But while some say $15 is a minimum needed to survive, some business owners say dishing out more pay would leave them struggling to keep their doors open.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/fast-food-workers-strike-again-nationwide-for-15-an-hour

In New York City, rallies are being held in Harlem, the Financial District and Brooklyn in support of efforts to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, reports CBS New York.

In Los Angeles, the local protests are organized by Service Employees International Union, and include fast-food, home-care and child-care workers, along with other "underpaid" employees, reports CBS Los Angeles.

"Is this the America we believe in? When someone works all day long and they still can't get by," New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said during an early-morning rally in Downtown Brooklyn. "Does anyone believe that it's easy to get by in New York City on less than $15 an hour?"

Critics say a $15 minimum wage would obliterate opportunity and usher in higher taxes, but de Blasio said the opposite is true -- with more money to spend, low wage workers contribute more to the economy.


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  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday November 11 2015, @03:34PM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday November 11 2015, @03:34PM (#261767) Journal

    I agree - CEO's are overpaid, astronomically. That needs to be curbed.

    I wasn't expecting "sympathy" for the corporations, I was just pointing out the facts of life. Mickey D has gotten used to exploiting people at a certain cost, and if those costs go up, Mickey is going to look harder at automation. That's just the way it is.

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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday November 11 2015, @05:30PM

    by bzipitidoo (4388) on Wednesday November 11 2015, @05:30PM (#261831) Journal

    Management uses change and events as pretext for their agendas, which, sadly, are them first. They know very well that they are going to automate more and employ less, regardless. Humans cannot compete with machines at simple, repetitive, automatable tasks. Lowering the minimum wage will not save any of those jobs, and suggesting otherwise is little more than a cynical attempt to manipulate and scare the public into accepting lower minimum wages.

    The money saved by beating down pay tends to go to upper management in the form of even bigger bonuses, for reducing labor costs of course. That's what Crandall, CEO of American Airlines, did many years ago. He persuaded the unions to accept lower pay. Argued eloquently that the survival of the airline (and their jobs) depended on getting costs down, and they agreed. Then he was awarded a huge bonus, that was pretty close to the amount of money saved. The employees and unions were furious when they found out, as they did shortly after. There was even a political cartoon about it, showing Crandall at a podium giving a speech about labor costs, while reaching into a cookie jar he was holding behind his back. "Watch what we do, not what we say." But that's so typical. Could hardly have better demonstrated the routine greed, selfishness, and hypocrisy of upper management. They need keepers or something, to stop them from behaving so foolishly. They're like Icarus, flying too close to the sun.