45 replies to this topic

[slimshadyinc]

I'm sure that most of you have heard of the mcdonalds workers on strike demanding a minimum wage increase. It's somewhat of a controversial subject with both it's pro's and con's. Post here what you guys think about the minimum wage increase. 

[Thrash]

I'm kinda torn on this issue. I'm gonna go ahead and say no though.

 

$15/hr for McDonalds is pretty ridiculous, although on the other hand I'd quit my job in a second and go work there if it happens. All these people who want the crazy money will be put out completely as robots take over the job of fast food workers and they are bringing it on quicker by doing this. You shouldn't complain about not getting enough money and then STRIKE and hence get NO money. I am kind of surprised they are not Unionized though, I thought they were. I was frigging unionized when I worked at Shop-Rite at 16 yrs old.

[slimshadyinc]

Yeah that is too much I agree with that, 15 dollars an hour to flip burgers? To me that's insane. But apparently the theory on this is that anyone who works in this country deserves to make enough money to make a living, no matter what job it is. Now I do see the idea in this, because anyone who tries to make a living on the current minimum wage knows that it is impossible, hence the walmart workers who where told to go on food stamps. Now this idea is all fun and all, but we all know that these companies would just raise the prices for everything they sell. So it's like what's the point? Raise the wages then just raise the prices, everything would just stay the same.  

[Justavictim82]

The problem isn't minimum wage, it is inflation and the rise of cost of living. Raising the minimum wage to $15 dollars only really impacts for as long as the rest of the market hasn't caught up.

[Jon32492]

Yeah that is too much I agree with that, 15 dollars an hour to flip burgers? To me that's insane. But apparently the theory on this is that anyone who works in this country deserves to make enough money to make a living, no matter what job it is. Now I do see the idea in this, because anyone who tries to make a living on the current minimum wage knows that it is impossible, hence the walmart workers who where told to go on food stamps. Now this idea is all fun and all, but we all know that these companies would just raise the prices for everything they sell. So it's like what's the point? Raise the wages then just raise the prices, everything would just stay the same.  

To me, jobs like this were not meant for you to live off of. This is date money and shit while you are living at home and getting an education. Then the real money comes when you get off your ass and get a real job. That's the money you will live off of.
 
 

The problem isn't minimum wage, it is inflation and the rise of cost of living. Raising the minimum wage to $15 dollars only really impacts for as long as the rest of the market hasn't caught up.

This exactly.

I don't care what anyone says, restaurant work is not easy. It's not particularly difficult. But it's not the easiest work. People in America, and I'm sure other places too, get really pissed off if you forget to put mustard or something on their sandwich. Then the customer yells, management yells, everyone is having a bad night. In the pizza business, it's even worse cause it takes time to remake a pizza. sometimes more time the customer is willing to wait. But all in all, they get mad.

Does this mean restaurant workers deserve more money? Hell no. If they want more money, they need to get a better job. And I'm one of them. This is coming from a minimum wage worker... (ok, I'm a shift manager, I get $9 an hour, but close efuckingnough, right?) My point is exactly what I said above. I think jobs like this are meant to pay your way through school, give you some weekend money and have some fun. You will never have a house and take care of a family off this money. And in my eyes, it's not meant for you to be able to do that.

Coming from a management point of view, I personally think it will hurt us more than it will help us. We already have problems with labor all the time and if the cost of labor goes up, we can't afford to keep as many people. Then we will have less people to do the work and our quality will go down cause we don't have the people we need.

Coming from a consumer point of view, the cost is going up. I've already seen it where I work. Hell, we have ALREADY raised our priced in anticipation for the increase in labor costs. It's already happened!! A month or so ago we had a thread about the price of a pizza, I said our prices started at $10 for a cheese and went up $1 per topping or $4 for specialty. Well now it's $10.49 for cheese, $1.35 per topping and $5 for specialty. It's already happening.

Coming from a worker's standpoint, yea I'll get more money per hour, but I'm gonna get less hours cause they can't afford to pay me that much. So it's gonna be the same money. And as I said above, we will have less people so I have to work that much harder to make up for those we don't have anymore.

All around I think it's a bad idea. If anything, we should be lowering minimum wage and working to drive prices down!

[Shokkou]

Oh boy, I get to address an amusing thing. I see a lot of stuff on FB about people being against raising the minimum wage. I agree with them, but I also really want to point out how flawed their logic is. The end result is I avoid the issue like the plague and finally get to post stuff about it here. :v

 

A lot of what I've been seeing has been to the effect of "soldiers make X, therefore minimum wage workers should be happy with what they get." The problem with this is all the calculations leave out the various benefits which a minimum wage worker would not be able to enjoy on, well, minimum wage. When I was in as a private, yes I made around $15/year. Factoring in healthcare and dental care, I would have had to make just over $30k/year in a civilian sector job to have an equivalent lifestyle.

 

On the other hand, I don't think people should be griping at the government to force companies to raise their wages. If they feel that they aren't being paid enough, then they should organize and fight for higher wages themselves. If they can't manage that, then the value of their labor clearly isn't as high as they'd like to believe.

[Jon32492]

Another note: if you just happen to love working at pizza hut or mcdonalds or whatever, show some fucking initiative and move up the ladder. Get a better job within the same business! Our salaried managers live comfortably. Not what I would consider to be a great living, but they are comfortable. 

 

I'm done ranting now.

[Von]

As Justavictim said the problem is inflation not minimum wage, I am not against minimum wage increase AS LONG AS THE COST OF LIVING REMAINS CONSTANT but unfortunately this is not how it works. the fact is it is a vicious cycle, corporates increase wages then raise prices to compensate and once the prices go up it becomes the new standard and everyone raises the prices then bang... the new minimum wage is not sufficient anymore because the value of the dollar just went down by a higher percentage, I am yet to ever see this cycle fail except in very few countries " such as France and a couple of Scandinavian countries) where the governments started using a heavier hand in the form of labour laws and regulating wages and prices of goods. However I do not see happening in the US anytime soon given the current economical policies in use. I believe the issue here is much bigger than  minimum wage and a few thousand workers, the issue is controlling corporate greed or in other words the issue is Citizen VS Corporate and who the Government favors?

[slimshadyinc]

 

Here's a weird ass video I watched some time ago and it kinda go's with what jon is saying.

 

There truly is just some jobs that just are not worth even paying 7.25 let alone 15 dollars an hour, sometimes it just doesn't make business sense to even do it. Another problem I find is that if everyone in this country was making a living wage off of any work that they did anywhere, then where is the drive to better yourself in life and get a better job? Many more jobs could be created if we indeed did lower minimum wage instead of increasing it, many more employees could be hired instead of fired and lets be honest, some money is better then no money at all. 

 

I haven't made up my mind yet on which side I should support on this issue, some say raising it to 15 bucks an hour will actually create more jobs since everyone will have more money to put back into the economy. Thus allowing business to hire more people with the amount of money they supposedly would be making. I can say though that the income disparity is enormous in this country, productivity of the average employee is up some 200 to 300 percent of what it was some 30 or 40 years ago. But all of that money has flooded to the top 1 percent in this country, the middle class is shrinking and more and more people are being pushed into poverty. Like what Von said, the only way this could work is if the businesses weren't allowed to mark up their prices then they where before, people would be lifted out of poverty. Then again, many jobs would be lost as a result since paying someone 15 dollars an hours who makes you 10 dollars an hour when you where paying him say 8 dollars an hour, you where making 2 dollars an hour in profit from that guy, now you would have to pay him 15 dollars an hour you would be losing 5 dollars an hour on that employee rather then making any profit from him at all. So the only solution would be to fire him....

 

I believe that we do indeed need to raise people out of poverty in this country, and the way to do that is to provide more jobs so we can get more people off of welfare and make them tax paying citizens who help the economy rather then hurt it. But paying people who already work at the minimum even more money seems like it would just make us lose even more jobs, unless this 15 dollars an hour thing actually somehow creates more jobs with the extra spending it supposedly would produce. But I just can't see that happening with every business increasing it's prices to match the new wages, perhaps if that could be controlled then maybe it could work. But this is America and things just don't work that way so it looks like 15 dollars an hour would just be the new poverty level. 

[Jumbo]

Yeah that is too much I agree with that, 15 dollars an hour to flip burgers? To me that's insane. But apparently the theory on this is that anyone who works in this country deserves to make enough money to make a living, no matter what job it is. Now I do see the idea in this, because anyone who tries to make a living on the current minimum wage knows that it is impossible, hence the walmart workers who where told to go on food stamps. Now this idea is all fun and all, but we all know that these companies would just raise the prices for everything they sell. So it's like what's the point? Raise the wages then just raise the prices, everything would just stay the same.  

To me, jobs like this were not meant for you to live off of. This is date money and shit while you are living at home and getting an education. Then the real money comes when you get off your ass and get a real job. That's the money you will live off of.
 
 

>>>>>>>The problem isn't minimum wage, it is inflation and the rise of cost of living. Raising the minimum wage to $15 dollars only really impacts for as long as the rest of the market hasn't caught up.

This exactly.

I don't care what anyone says, restaurant work is not easy. It's not particularly difficult. But it's not the easiest work. People in America, and I'm sure other places too, get really pissed off if you forget to put mustard or something on their sandwich. Then the customer yells, management yells, everyone is having a bad night. In the pizza business, it's even worse cause it takes time to remake a pizza. sometimes more time the customer is willing to wait. But all in all, they get mad.

Does this mean restaurant workers deserve more money? Hell no. If they want more money, they need to get a better job. And I'm one of them. This is coming from a minimum wage worker... (ok, I'm a shift manager, I get $9 an hour, but close efuckingnough, right?) My point is exactly what I said above. I think jobs like this are meant to pay your way through school, give you some weekend money and have some fun. You will never have a house and take care of a family off this money. And in my eyes, it's not meant for you to be able to do that.

Coming from a management point of view, I personally think it will hurt us more than it will help us. We already have problems with labor all the time and if the cost of labor goes up, we can't afford to keep as many people. Then we will have less people to do the work and our quality will go down cause we don't have the people we need.

Coming from a consumer point of view, the cost is going up. I've already seen it where I work. Hell, we have ALREADY raised our priced in anticipation for the increase in labor costs. It's already happened!! A month or so ago we had a thread about the price of a pizza, I said our prices started at $10 for a cheese and went up $1 per topping or $4 for specialty. Well now it's $10.49 for cheese, $1.35 per topping and $5 for specialty. It's already happening.

Coming from a worker's standpoint, yea I'll get more money per hour, but I'm gonna get less hours cause they can't afford to pay me that much. So it's gonna be the same money. And as I said above, we will have less people so I have to work that much harder to make up for those we don't have anymore.

All around I think it's a bad idea. If anything, we should be lowering minimum wage and working to drive prices down!

 

 

 

I make 8.25 hr and this and i make this stuff   I hate Eucalyptus spearmint turn my skin red.

 

If the they want 15 dollars an hour to flip burgers I want 25$ just to put up this this stuff I make. We all know that a pipe dream.15 dollars an hour to flip burgers Fail.Do you know how much these stuff cost try 11$.

 

 

And this is 1.75$ any increase of minimum wage these stuff will go up.

 

Edit I was thinking the 3oz ones and that 5.50$.

Edited by Jumbo, 29 September 2014 - 11:43 PM.

[Daniel P]

 

Jumbo that is $1.75 not $5 (it only 5 if you buy it in a bundle). It used to cost 1.25 a few years ago.....

 

Jumbo should know that I work at the same plant as him (sometime he works right next to me   ).

Edited by Daniel P, 29 September 2014 - 11:50 PM.

[Jon32492]

This!

[KiWi]

I voted yes, but $15 is a hella jump from the current minimum wage.

Questions is US government though.

I think we need to focus on inflation over other shit, as that's the real issue, but noooooo. whateve~s.

[ᗅᗺᗷᗅ]

I love the judgmental responses. $15 to flip burgers?!? Guess what? People who flip burgers need to live, too.

 

The minimum wage should be raised and pegged to inflation so that it stays constant with increases in cost of living.

[Justavictim82]

I love the judgmental responses. $15 to flip burgers?!? Guess what? People who flip burgers need to live, too.

The minimum wage should be raised and pegged to inflation so that it stays constant with increases in cost of living.

It is unskilled labor Jorost. A 16 year old could easily do the job an adult does and still go to school. While I agree people need to have some betterment in standard of living, these people can either advance in their company or find other means of employment. I know an assistant manager of a Mcdonalds in my area who makes more than I do doing manual labor.

[Jon32492]

I love the judgmental responses. $15 to flip burgers?!? Guess what? People who flip burgers need to live, too.

The minimum wage should be raised and pegged to inflation so that it stays constant with increases in cost of living.

It is unskilled labor Jorost. A 16 year old could easily do the job an adult does and still go to school. While I agree people need to have some betterment in standard of living, these people can either advance in their company or find other means of employment. I know an assistant manager of a Mcdonalds in my area who makes more than I do doing manual labor.

This.

[Jon32492]

I love the judgmental responses. $15 to flip burgers?!? Guess what? People who flip burgers need to live, too.

The minimum wage should be raised and pegged to inflation so that it stays constant with increases in cost of living.

I disagree with you here Jorost. And I am one of these minimum wage workers fighting to scrape by. But I'm going to college, about to graduate and when I do, I'll be leaving and going to a better job.

Work like this is not meant for you to raise a family with. You shouldn't ne able to. This is to help pay your way through school or have some date money for the weekend. Maybe help your parents out a little. Not to live your life off. Nobody retires as a team member(lowest level) from Pizza Hut. If they want to get more money, they either move up or find a better job.

[ᗅᗺᗷᗅ]

Unskilled or skilled, people still need to live. Everyone is living under the delusion that it is teenagers living at home with their parents who do these jobs. It isn't. It's adults trying to make a living. There are no more high-paying factory jobs and other ways for people without college degrees to earn a living. Hell, even people WITH college degrees are working at Starbucks. Bottom line: These are the jobs there are. People need to paid a living wage to do them.

[Shokkou]

No one has said it is those people doing these jobs. What they have said is that those are the people those jobs are for, and people not in that demographic should not plan on making a living wage selling their labor in a field in which the value of their labor is, well, below a living wage.

[ᗅᗺᗷᗅ]

The value of all labor is declining. Simply put: there is not enough work for everyone to do. But since that's the basis of a capitalist system, we hobble along with make-work jobs.

 

Once upon a time, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, shop clerks made a living wage. These kinds of jobs were legitimate careers at which you could spend your whole life. It's only in modern times that we have devalued tasks that we consider easy or of low "value." If they're of such low value, why is McDonald's making billions?

 

Not everyone is college material. Not everyone is capable of landing a high-paying job. For a lot of people this is it. Whatever your idea of who these jobs are "for" makes no difference. These are the jobs there are. And as we coalesce more and more into a two-class system, it's only going to get worse. This is unfettered capitalism. God bless America.