Fast-food workers in Detroit walk off job, demand $15 an hour

[aGameOfThrones]

(Reuters) - Hundreds of fast-food employees in Detroit walked off the job on Friday, temporarily shuttering a handful of outlets as part of a growing U.S. worker movement that is demanding higher wages for flipping burgers and operating fryers.

The protests in the Motor City - which is struggling to recover from the hollowing out of its auto manufacturing sector - marked an expansion in organized actions by fast-food workers from ubiquitous chains owned by McDonald's Corp, Burger King Worldwide and KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut parent Yum Brands Inc.

Fast-food workers, who already have taken to the streets in New York, Chicago and St. Louis, are seeking to roughly double their hourly pay to $15 per hour from around minimum wage, which in Michigan is $7.40 per hour.

Organizers said more than 400 people turned out for the Detroit event, the most to date.

They also said the walk-outs forced the temporary closures of two McDonald's restaurants, a Burger King, a Subway, a Long John Silver's and a Popeyes in Detroit - a claim some chains disputed.

Outside a Burger King on 8 Mile in Detroit, employee Claudette Wilson said she's tired of poor wages, especially at a time when the fast-food industry continues to grow.

"I make minimum wage, which is what I made when I started working in fast food three years ago," the 20-year-old college student said. "I can't understand how the industry is growing but our wages aren't."

"People can't make a living at $7.40 a hour," said Rev. Charles Williams II, a protest organizer. "Many of them have babies and children to raise, and they can't get by with these kind of wages."

http://news.yahoo.com/fast-food-workers-detroit-walk-off-job-disrupt-200200722.html

 

[Warrior_of_Freedom]

I don't blame 'em. $7.40 an hour is nothing. I'd rather collect welfare. Oh wait, that's what millions already do!

 

[FrankRep]

lol, Detroit


Detroit Takes Top Spots On List Of Most Dangerous Neighborhoods In America

CBS
April 30, 2013

 

[bolil]

Wanting more of a dwindling pie. What happens when only fast food jobs exist?

I wonder how many taco bell tacos would be worth a Big Mac on the coming Detroit Free Market.

 

[pcosmar]

I would love to make $7 an hour.

Hell..$5 an hour. but no one will hire me.

 

[DamianTV]

I would love to make $7 an hour.

Hell..$5 an hour. but no one will hire me.

Its not just you, the jobs simply dont exist because Employers cant afford to hire any Employees due to continued Govt meddling in everything.

Socialism is the Great Lie where everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else.

 

[Rocco]

I'd give em about 3 hours to get back to work and then fire all of them. Like hell you deserve $15 an hour to work a drive through. You think they can't find someone else who will accept $7.15? Morons.

 

[MoneyWhereMyMouthIs2]

I would love to make $7 an hour.

Hell..$5 an hour. but no one will hire me.

Call me crazy, but I bet you could make more than $7 an hour by making quality message board posts.

 

[Keith and stuff]

The irony is that Detroit is 1 of the least expensive places to live in the US by the numbers. I know, that excludes the cost of crime. It is an extremely dangerous place by rent is very little and there are tons of community gardens. I can totally see people in NYC complaining about only making $8 an hour. In Detroit though, you can live on that just fine.

 

[Michigan11]

Well I think Detroit has become a damn embarassment just like most of this country has become, due to this centrally controlled economy, in which todays wages are literally peanuts, and the people should be raising some hell to be honest, but directed towards this government. I think we could all agree on that.

$7.40 an hour is meant for teenagers, but when I think back, I was making $120 per day when I was a teenager working at a hunt club, and it was cash. I don't know how anyone even works at a job for $7.40 an hour. It's like the person would be showing up like in a Mad Max movie begging for a couple gallons of gas to get back home with. $7.40 with not taxes taken out is exactly well not even 2 gallons of gas. Think about that, this all relates to our fiat currency people, but these protestors and the masses don't know it yet.

 

[MoneyWhereMyMouthIs2]

Well I think Detroit has become a damn embarassment just like most of this country has become, due to this centrally controlled economy, in which todays wages are literally peanuts, and the people should be raising some hell to be honest, but directed towards this government. I think we could all agree on that.

$7.40 an hour is meant for teenagers, but when I think back, I was making $120 per day when I was a teenager working at a hunt club, and it was cash. I don't know how anyone even works at a job for $7.40 an hour.

The problem is that they can make almost the same amount of 'take home pay' by doing nothing. It's not that the wages are too low. It's that the subsidies for not working are too high.

 

[tod evans]

Detroit only survives due to free fed money, cut it off!

 

[Michigan11]

The problem is that they can make almost the same amount of 'take home pay' by doing nothing. It's not that the wages are too low. It's that the subsidies for not working are too high.

It is the subsidies, but it is also the regulations and taxes put on businesses, keeping them from hiring. It's goes even deeper. The subsidies were always there for at least the last couple decades, the free market wage price has been steadily dropping. Therefore we are now at this point where most are sitting at home, sucking up food stamps and getting their big tax refunds at the end of the year for not even paying any taxes.

 

[NorfolkPCSolutions]

Okay, I gotta chime in here.

I looked for full-time work, with benefits, for two years without success. Worked three shitty jobs at the same time for that span of time. I worked three times as hard as the next guy, and earned less than dick for my efforts. Found a great job that ticked all the boxes - good wage, good benefits for my family - and the plant closed 45 days or so after I came on board.

What's the point?

I thought outside the box. Instead of turning over everything in the plant that wasn't bolted down upside down, I went to the press. I went that afternoon and broke the story, because the plant wanted to keep it quiet. They didn't deserve that luxury, so I made it loud...the AP even picked it up. It went worldwide, including Philly.com, the paper of record where these corporate cocksuckers that bought out the company I worked for, live. It landed on the doorstep of the CEO; he likely read it over his morning coffee.

I received job offer after job offer, as did all my coworkers. I've kept tabs; all save one have found equal, if not better, new jobs. I settled on one that offers better compensation and cheaper benefits. One by one, nearly everyone thanked me for my "courage." Granted, Detroit is a smoldering hole in the Earth (Sorry, Kid Rock & Eminem, Detroit fucking sucks) but we each have a responsibility to improve our lot in life. In the end, only the individual has the power to make that change. Furthermore, the options for those referenced in the OP are extremely limited, for various reasons not worth expanding on in this post, not least of which, simple geographic location.

Life sucks. Get a helmet. I hope they're successful in their endeavor; I know what it's like to earn $7.40/hr in your thirties. I learned from my experience that a lot of folks who find themselves in that situation - and stay there - do so by choice. Some folk choose that life as a consequence of personal choice. Most don't. Those who don't, won't - they find a way out. I'll pray for these folks, but I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.

 

[Falcon63]

There's a reason they get paid so little: their jobs require zero skill and anyone can do them.

Want more money? Get a better job, improve your skills.

 

[matt0611]

I don't blame 'em. $7.40 an hour is nothing. I'd rather collect welfare. Oh wait, that's what millions already do!

This.

Sooner or later they will have to start raising wages or else people will just go on welfare and stay home. Then they will start raising prices.

Our system is effed.

 

[luctor-et-emergo]

They walk off because they want 15$ an hour ?
Sure, whatever they want.

Just as long as they don't complain if somebody else takes over their job after they walked out.
If nobody else wants that job ? Then you can bargain.

 

[Henry Rogue]

employee Claudette Wilson said she's tired of poor wages, especially at a time when the fast-food industry continues to grow.

Yeah, it would not be fun to live on 7.40 an hour, Claudette. Claudette do you think the fast food industry will continue to grow if you and your fellow employees make 15.00 an hour, you may end up with no job when the restaurant closes or maybe it remains open, but you're not the best worker so you are let go. There are no easy answers, you were never given the fundamental tools to work at anything other than a fast food restaurant. You were enslaved from the beginning by your parent or guardian's reliance on public education. Hope you figure things out, but I doubt it. Peace.

 

[Michigan11]

I think alot of us are missing the point here in the discussion. Those poor bastards working at these shit jobs, are idiots for trying to double their wage, and probably have no hope of any better job. To be honest I would never go thru a drive thru in Detroit, just because I wouldn't trust the food in the first place. The point here is that people in this country are trying to strike at fast food jobs for Christ Sakes. This would have been considered a pretty far out there joke by any comedian just 5 years ago. It's a reminder of how far this country is slipping, when something like this is happening and in the news.

Go back a few years in time, and imagine how ludacris an idea this would sound like. Today it's just another goofy story were driving by but, it's a tell tale sign of the reality we live in and what is coming down the road. Detroit should have been bulldozed a couple decades ago, but it wasn't. It's still there, sort of like that anchor dragging along the bottom while trying to set sail.

In 1991, when I was in high school still, as a teenager we all wanted to work, and there were jobs, yet you wanted to work even at that age in order to buy things you wanted or go places with your friends. In 95', when I had my own trade business, I was hiring new hires at $14 per hour, more experienced at $20 per hour. The $14 per hour was for college aged workers working while going to school. The idea of just working to pay bills to survive is a strange thought. There has to be an incentive in order to work, to save, or get ahead.

As the 90's roared on, I noticed the price of workmans comp insurance and taxes becoming too expensive to be able to just hire people. Won't talk any further about that, but at a roofing company I was managing and selling for down in Florida.... I noticed they are all paying under the table, hell a growing number are. The workers down there are from Guatemala and Mexico, and they were getting $12-14 per hour, working on hot ass roofs in hot ass weather, but they did want some of their hours on their checks so they could get their big $6,000 to $8,000 tax refund CREDITS at the end of the year when they filed tax returns.

The point here is this, this is not capitalism in this country any longer and its giving capitalism a very very very bad name which is working against us. We have fake money that is running it's end course, an over bearing government at all levels on business, and it's all catching up at this point in time. To expand this movement we need to instead reword our arguments, otherwise people are going to continue to point their anger at business, not the government where it rightfully belongs.

 

[oyarde]

Ahh , I see , they want the Australian minimum wage, ok , but remind them the dollar menu is $10 now.....