How restaurant lobby blocks living wage for fast food workers

by Michele Simon @MicheleRSimon January 2, 2014

The other NRA, with its campaign to keep wages down, defies both democracy and common decency

If you ask most Americans about the NRA, they will think of the National Rifle Association. But another powerful industry trade group bearing those initials, the National Restaurant Association, conducts its own campaign of duplicitous lobbying and outright deception at the expense of the public interest.

Restaurants employ more than 13 million workers, so it is no surprise that industry lobbyists are paid a lot of money to ensure this workforce remains disempowered. The NRA, which has a staff of 750 people, spent more than $4 million in 2012 alone currying favor in Washington, D.C. But with recent fast-food strikes and restaurant workers increasingly speaking out against low wages and other forms of labor exploitation, the mask of the other NRA is slowly peeling away.

You have to hand it to an industry that has figured out how to keep the federal minimum wage at $7.25 an hour, where it has been stuck since Congress approved the last increase in 2007. Before that, the minimum wage languished at $5.15 for a decade. (Congress has raised the rate just three times in 30 years.) For someone working full time, the current minimum equals $15,000 a year — about the poverty level for a family of two. According to federal labor statistics, fast-food preparers make $9 an hour on average. By way of example, in Los Angeles, a living wage for an adult with one dependent is about $23 an hour.

Even more shocking is the so-called tipped minimum wage (for workers who rely on tips), which has been frozen at $2.13 since 1991. Women are especially affected by these low wages. While 52 percent of all restaurant workers are women, 66 percent of tipped workers are female, essentially creating a legalized form of gender discrimination, as the Restaurant Opportunities Center United points out. (Be sure to watch ROC United’s videos of restaurant workers explaining their plight.)

full article
http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/1/how-the-restaurantlobbyblocksalivingwageforfastfoodworkers.html