On top of the customary musical accompaniment to their Happy Meals, customers at the McDonald’s on Williston Road in South Burlington were serenaded on Thursday with a noontime chant of “Hold the burgers, hold the fries, make our wages supersize!”
About two dozen protesters brought their demand for livable wages into the busy fast-food eatery as McDonald’s workers looked on silently — and seemingly stunned. It was unclear how much those workers make; local managers also declined to comment on the local manifestation of a nationwide day of walkouts and solidarity demonstrations at fast-food restaurants in support of a $15-an-hour wage.
The demonstrators weren’t at all reticent. One of them led several others in the “mic check” call-and-response popularized by the Occupy Wall Street movement.
“On this day …” the leader shouted.
Her fellow protesters joined in with this chant: ” …Workers in 100 cities/are going on strike/and people like us/are standing with them/to demand McDonald’s respect the right/ to work with dignity.”
A South Burlington police officer rushed into the restaurant at that point and told the protestors they had to leave. They filed out a couple of minutes later, resuming their chant and sign-waving on the sidewalk for half an hour as several passing motorists honked in response.
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“The vote was taken at once, and it was agreed by an overwhelming majority that rats were comrades. There were only four dissentients, the three dogs and the cat, who was afterwards discovered to have voted on both sides.”
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/A…
Holy Smokes. It’s painfully obvious from the photos and the text that none of these preppies who are protesting, with their North Face and L.L. Bean and Carhart clothing, are fast food workers or have anything in common with them.
While I understand the demand for higher minimum wage, nearly doubling the current minimum at once would create major compression issues within the economy – if fast food workers suddenly make $15 an hour, many jobs currently requiring a college degree would be paying equal to, or less than, your first-day-on-the-job McDonald’s employee. If $15 per hour is the goal, I think it would need to be accomplished over several smaller increases over multiple years.
Seems to me, though I’m not prepared to keep up with Kelci, the economist, that the increased income from millions of these workers would go directly into the economy.
it’s painfully obvious you don’t stereotype enough
Yeah! bunch of free loading commie rats those people are, the ones who work full time and need the government to subsidize half their living. Damn pinkos.
It’s fair enough to deduce that companies such as McD’s have the revenue stream to increase the minimum wage of their workers to $15 an hour. But for many small businesses who treat their employees well but can only pay a lesser wage (such as my first job out of college with a non-profit, paying about $11/hr), such an increase could lead to the end of their business. Money doesn’t just magically appear in the economy… it has to come from somewhere.
Hmm. Howbout the stereotyping by the preppie protesters, who just assume that the unsophisticated workers in South Burlington must want or need their help? Who assume that the unsophisticated workers can’t decide or speak for themselves? None of the protesters even talked to the workers on whose supposed behalf they were protesting. No stereotyping there . . .
Nonsense, in Vermont there is always money everywhere, just ask the Socialists in Burlington. If we just all pooled our money together and then distributed it back out evenly we would all be super happy, no crime, nobody feels sad and world peace would be achieved.
Sorry not at all. Two guesses left.
Not really Paul, the higher wages would cause a dramatic spike in prices. Instead of paying $7 for that value meal you’re going to pay $15. Are you going to pay that much for a Big Mac? Nope and neither are a lot of other people. Business will plunge and half the workers will be laid off leading to no increase, and certainly not millions, going back into the economy. In fact you’d probably find that some of the McD’s shutter.
Lets hypothetically say that a given McD’s brings in $15000 / week, $7500 goes to payroll, $5000 goes to supplies, $1500 goes to benefits and $1000 goes in the company coffers. So you double wages, obviously payroll can’t double, something has to happen. More revenue is needed through higher prices (that is regressive because it leads to decreased sales) or payroll must be maintained, to do that less employees work.
What is never spoken about at these protests or in any discussion about wages is that wages themselves are irrelevant. They need to be compared to the cost of living and the two are inherently dependent on each other. An increase in wages leads to an increase in the cost of living. A decrease in wages leads to a decrease in the cost of living. In stead of focusing on increasing wages maybe it would behoove the protesters to try and focus on decreasing the cost of living. If I didn’t pay $1000+ / year in gas taxes I wouldn’t need a raise, if I didn’t have to cough up $5000 for property taxes I would need to make as much money as I do now, and if I didn’t have to pay a ridiculous amount for beef at the grocery store because all the corn is being used for freaking ethanol I could make a lot less money. Raise wages and you will raise the cost of living, the problem will never go away it can’t be solved. That’s why this is an issue the Socialist jump all over, their leader Comrade Sanders has mastered the art of railing and rallying people on an unsolvable issue. Since it never gets better he can always bring it up to rally support and get re-elected.
I don’t think socialists even pay attention to Bernie anymore: the guy’s a populist first and any connection to actual socialism is accidental.
It doesn’t matter what Sanders actually is… He’s the figurehead. Greyhound sold their bus company decades ago… hardly anyone knows and those that do dont’ care. Same with Sanders, even if he isn’t a socialist anymore those who know don’t care because he is still popular as hell in this state…
Wooooot! Next step: build and train for deploying the “proxy strike” tactic pioneered in the French general strike of 2010: shut down targets by mobbing them with hundreds of sitters, so workers don’t risk retaliation but economic damage is done. Wonder if FightFor15 would get behind this tactic nationally, cause obviously it’s a waste of bail unless it’s big and coordinated…
So, comrade, explain to us your analysis of how wages drive taxes and biofuels subsidy policy? I’m genuinely intrigued.
I know, certainly the major division within the working class is outerwear brand loyalty! And clearly anyone making enough to wear Carhartts must run a hedge fund, no doubt heavily invested in McD stocks, too! Clearly there’s no such thing as class interest transcending pay grades and brand choices, and of course you’ve read all about how the fast food workers striking all over the country are REALLY preppies in disguise, nay more, they’re agents of the Bolshevik-Muslim-Illuminati plot to destroy America!
Just a few points of view on the question of wage hike effects. pro-increase piece in Bloomberg contains links to recent research. http://mobile.bloomberg.com/ne…