FAST FOOD WORKERS VOW CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE
Source: AP
VILLA PARK, Ill. (AP) Comparing their campaign to the civil rights movement, fast food workers from across the country voted Saturday to escalate their efforts for $15-an-hour pay and union membership by using nonviolent civil disobedience.
More than 1,300 workers gathered in a convention in center in suburban Chicago to discuss the future of a campaign that has spread to dozens of cities in less than two years. Wearing T-shirts that said "Fight for $15" and "We Are Worth More," the workers cheered loudly and said they would win if they stuck together.
"People are just fed up," said Cindy Enriquez, 20, of Phoenix.
The $8.25 an hour she makes working for McDonald's is not enough to go to college and become a police officer and barely enough to pay her rent, Enriquez said.
Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/fast-food-workers-vow-civil-disobedience
"People are fed up"......no pun intended?
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)Can Congress get off their stupid, selfish pogrom against everything decent in America and raise the FEDERAL minimum wage already? That IS their JOB!
America is now 20 years behind other first world countries because of these selfish, slacker politicians!
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)they are doing exactly what their masters want them to do.
Snarkoleptic
(5,998 posts)The meeting took place just 6 miles from McDonalds world headquarters, where CEO Don Thompson took home total compensation of $9.5 million in 2013.
It's time these uber-profitable mega-corporations either pay a living wage or incur a "Bad Boss Tax".
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025272785
July 21, 2014
by Sarah Jaffe
TakeAction Minnesota, a network that promotes economic and racial justice in the state, wants to make that fee a reality. Its developing the framework for a bill that it hopes will be introduced in 2015 by state legislators who have worked with the network in the past. As conceived, the bad business fee legislation would require companies to disclose how many of their employees are receiving public assistance from the state or federal government. Companies would then pay a fine based on the de facto subsidies they receive by externalizing labor costs onto taxpayers.
TakeAction Minnesotas plan is one prong of a larger national effort. As progressive organizations grapple with how to turn years of public outrage over income inequality into policies for structural change, a network of labor and community organizing groups has seized upon the bad business fee as a solution that might take off.
...
Just how much money are low-wage businesses draining from local, state and federal coffers? A study released in April by Americans for Tax Fairness, a coalition of more than 400 organizations that advocate progressive tax reform, estimated that Wal-Mart alone costs taxpayers $6.2 billion annually in public assistance. That report draws from a 2013 study by the Democratic staff of the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce, which estimated that Wal-Mart cost taxpayers, on average, between $3,015 and $5,815 per worker. For a hypothetical 300-person Wal-Mart Supercenter in Wisconsin, that added up to as much as $1.75 million in public subsidies per year. Those taxpayer dollars come in the form of joint federal-state programs such as Medicaid and the School Breakfast Program, as well as federal ones such as the National School Lunch Program, the Section 8 Housing Program, the Earned Income Tax, Low Income Home Energy Assistance and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, also known as food stamps).
Americans for Tax Fairness used the House Democrats study to extrapolate Wal-Marts public-assistance burden on each state. In Minnesota, for example, where Wal-Mart has 20,997 employees, the public burden totaled $92.7 million per year. Thats $92.7 million Wal-Mart isnt paying in wages or benefits, but that instead is being borne by taxpayers taxpayers who, of course, include Wal-Mart workers.
lunasun
(21,646 posts)Last edited Mon Jul 28, 2014, 12:25 AM - Edit history (1)
Whole different world (class wise) away from Oak-brook where MC D is. But yes only 6miles away
If I knew this was going on I would have gone to say thank you for organizing
. I am way above the proposed minimum wage being sought but I support their efforts so much because this is so needed for all of America to be a better place to live for everyone.
How can folks in Oakbrook be comfortable knowing fellow citizens ,some serving them, are living with out decent wages for their hard work?
Good news
K&r
jamzrockz
(1,333 posts)But I think it order for their protest to succeed, they should lower their demand to maybe $12 and the negotiate it down to 10-11. $15/hr for entry level job is the best way to lose the public on this very populist policy change.
GOLGO 13
(1,681 posts)This is how "negotiations" work. You ask for more, wait for the other side to answer with their offer. Then you counter and wait for response. In the end, you settle for something in the area of what your asked for and claim victory because it's still a raise. The other side "stood up" to the unions and they get to claim victory because they didn't give into their crazy demands.
In the end both sides save face and get back to work.