Minimum wage strike nationwide in the states

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Tahiti
Paradise
Ship_Monster
I'm sure you've heard this by now but I'll link an article about it in here. This type of news gets me all excited inside. Why you might ask? Let's entertain the thought that these worker get their $15/Hour, great huh? Well sure, for a year maybe, until all the workers get laid off due to technological unemployment. This is again another issue where most are looking at the glass half full or empty and I think the glass is obsolete :) If workers get boosted to $30,00 a year plus sick days, toilet breaks, smoke breaks, maternity leave, holidays and HEALTHCARE. What you'll soon be looking at is a CEO's responsibility to reduce cost an increase profit, but how can you do that with expensive humans?

Bring on the automation.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/05/fast-food-workers-strike-minimum-wage





 
It was bound to happen.

Many people these days do not know bad it is.

If the president and all politicians lived on $8/hour and tried to make ends meet they may think about a new workers rights for the nation.

Australia has a thing called an "Award"

it basically is this
An award is a legal document that sets out minimum wages and conditions for an industry or occupation. Awards cover things like rates of pay, overtime, penalty rates and allowances. The conditions in awards apply on top of the minimum conditions in the National Employment Standards.

It means your minimum pay rate is this, your overtime rates are this, you get sick leave(if full time or part time) and you accrue annual leave hours based apon hours worked
 
It was bound to happen.

Many people these days do not know bad it is.

If the president and all politicians lived on $8/hour and tried to make ends meet they may think about a new workers rights for the nation.

Australia has a thing called an "Award"

it basically is this
An award is a legal document that sets out minimum wages and conditions for an industry or occupation. Awards cover things like rates of pay, overtime, penalty rates and allowances. The conditions in awards apply on top of the minimum conditions in the National Employment Standards.

It means your minimum pay rate is this, your overtime rates are this, you get sick leave(if full time or part time) and you accrue annual leave hours based apon hours worked

I wasn't aware of that. It sounds like a great idea, here in the states if you work at a minimum wage job most companies will not work you a full 40 hours a week just to keep from having to supply the employees with benefits. Hell, I don't get any at my job and I don't work for fast food, now everything is going to contracting work where the companies are not responsible for anything except paying the employee's contracting company. This allows them to not give sick days, vacation, holiday or health care. That to me is just brutal and in most cases leads people to work more than one job to support themselves or try to support families on it. Which then leads to crime and poverty in some instances. So yeah I agree with you, it was only a matter of time.
 
I can work 4 hours and get the same that a minimum wage chap would get if he worked 9 hours.

And i thought slavery was banned in the US.
 
I have been trying to process this since it was brought up last week. Depending on the area, there are jobs even with a college degree that don't pay $15.00 per hour. It seems like a great idea but would eventually be a financial disaster. $15.00 an hour at a fast food restaurant with no college degree, just wow. This would lead to MANY more strikes on a level you can not even imagine. Might be the straw that broke the camels back and send us from a recession directly into a depression.

In theory it would mean that everyone worldwide would need a raise. That's exactly how everyone will be effected if this happens. And yes I have worked in fast food many times, also my brother currently works in fast food as a manager. I still think this would be a disaster. Just my opinion.
 
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It's a vicious cycle; pay folks a greater wage without demanding more work from them, inflation goes up due to the increased wages and other associated goods/services, then those at the lowest levels desire more, and/or the potential to cut jobs also appears. The middle class wants a greater wage in return, and so on and so forth. So it's a feel-good measure of sorts; while I don't think a ten-cent per-hour raise is going to seriously cause waves of unemployment, a $2/hr raise probably would. If anything, the other employees have to work harder to make up for the marginal loss of an employee.

There is a problem when employees cannot afford basic needs like shelter, clothing, and food under a minimum wage, but there's not much of a way out except to really stretch one's income to the point of needing charity at that point. There should be a point where being on some sort of public assistance should be cut to the point where a full-time job on a minimal wage could conceivably take car of basic needs; otherwise, there is a problem. I'm not enough of an expert to know where wages should be set whereby there isn't a need of for public assistance for those that actually work full-time, but I suppose as long as there is cyclical unemployment and job destruction, it's always going to exist.
 
I can work 4 hours and get the same that a minimum wage chap would get if he worked 9 hours.

And i thought slavery was banned in the US.

Bingo mate. Nail meet hammer. Slavery has moved into debt slavery forcing people to work and pay off the crap they need to live on. And companies here in the states get away with all kinds of poor working conditions because people need the money.

There was a great quote I saw once that went something like "We're the only species that has to pay to live on the planet we were born on."

I might have to look into moving to Oz.
 
The difference is that money and work are used in exchange for offing your neighbor or brother because they are also hungry. And we don't legally kill people for refusal to pay or those who don't take care of their debts. So, we're a lot more civilized (at least, in our human view) than other beings on the planet.

One could also try their hand at living in the wilderness; problem is that the internet sucks, and the banking system is iffy. There's folks who do it, though...it's obviously not easy, and you live from meal to meal at the mercy of weather, nature, and disease.

I can work 4 hours and get the same that a minimum wage chap would get if he worked 9 hours.

And i thought slavery was banned in the US.

Really?

You either pay up in taxes in a socialized system or earn it on your own and pay a less in taxes in the American economy (I know, there's exceptions all over the map - your lobbyist may vary). Either way, you're only a slave to your own desires or addictions, it isn't 1860 anymore.

Now, if you want to compare a migrant worker who makes far less than minimum wage, there's a fair argument; many of them live in squalor, poor living and working conditions, and there's hardly a way out of that system if you're making a pittance.
 
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The difference is that money and work are used in exchange for offing your neighbor or brother because they are also hungry. And we don't legally kill people for refusal to pay or those who don't take care of their debts. So, we're a lot more civilized (at least, in our human view) than other beings on the planet.

One could also try their hand at living in the wilderness; problem is that the internet sucks, and the banking system is iffy. There's folks who do it, though...it's obviously not easy, and you live from meal to meal at the mercy of weather, nature, and disease.
Or we can put humans 1st coupled with the benefits of modern living... There's not strictly the two options above.

Meet the RBE
 
I dont fall under the lowest tax bracket as i dont earn that much a year.

But my pay rate is $18/hour and I work in retail

$18x4=$72
$8x9=$72
 
Or we can put humans 1st coupled with the benefits of modern living... There's not strictly the two options above.

Meet the RBE


You have even a derivative thought or personal practice of your own, or do you only communicate by YouTube videos?

Greed gets in the way of all idealism.
 
You have even a derivative thought or personal practice of your own, or do you only communicate by YouTube videos?

Greed gets in the way of all idealism.

you don't like source information? I can write out everything, however instead of writing a 400 page post like most others I try to work more efficiently and give you something that would help express an idea.

Interesting how you didn't watch, asked a very negative question then followed up with a truncated statement. I'm on a discussion board, if you don't want to discuss anything please refrain from commenting.
 
you don't like source information? I can write out everything, however instead of writing a 400 page post like most others I try to work more efficiently and give you something that would help express an idea.

Interesting how you didn't watch, asked a very negative question then followed up with a truncated statement. I'm on a discussion board, if you don't want to discuss anything please refrain from commenting.

A discussion forum actually involves discussion; posting a video isn't exactly stating much. 400 words is nothing if you genuinely feel for and stand up for a viewpoint; however, I see watching a ten-minute video extremely time and wireless resource-consuming while I plunder ancient shipwrecks off the Atlantic Coast. I could use my private jet to dispatch my responses, but the weather is not so nice. (Okay, I'm posting from my phone at an airport, close enough.)

After all, if you cannot understand my need for resources, then you probably cannot understand that which those are less fortunate than we are. Also, just because my tongue is firmly planted in my cheek doesn't make me a drooling idiot.
 
Don't forget we in the states pay to taxes to subsidize the welfare for the workers at the fast food restaurants. So with the pay higher they might not have to be on welfare until their unemployment slip comes when they replace them with machines.
 
I wonder where people got the idea that "You want fries with that?" was a way to earn a living?
 
That sucks, but we're not too far off with 30% tax. What's your national cost of living?

Can't find anything specific on that. Overall, most food products are slightly cheaper than in western countries. Labour is cheap compared to other counrties hence the low salaries. 95 petrol is 1.5eur/liter, most electronics products are really overpriced. Some statistics: personal income tax (15% + 6% health insurance contribution); value added tax (21%); corporate profit tax (15%); and social security tax on employers (31% + employee's contribution of 3%). The problem is that the gap between ther wealthy and the poor (the average as they're called) is huge. Politics care just to fill their pockets, as do employers, government workers and pretty much everyone at the expense of someone else's earnings.

At this point a lot of young people are emigrating to other countries and the society is getting older and fast. This introduces the problem where there isn't enough employed people to pay for pensioners' welfare and ofcourse everything is going downhill even faster.
 
I wonder where people got the idea that "You want fries with that?" was a way to earn a living?

Exactly.

If I knew I could make decent money flipping burgers and screwing up orders at a fast food joint, I wouldn't have wasted my time and money on an edumacation.
 
I can work 4 hours and get the same that a minimum wage chap would get if he worked 9 hours.

And i thought slavery was banned in the US.

...it is alive and well, but not in the form of enslaving minimum wage earners. Someone making minimum wage engages in that job freely, and the employer chooses to offer that job. There is no force present.

Slavery in the US occurs at the high income levels, where high wage earners are forced (at gunpoint) to give up much of what they rightfully earned to provide a welfare state for, largely, people who choose not to work.
 
While I agree the minimum wage should be raised, I also think $15/hr is asking for a bit much. It should realistically be in the $10-11 range and raised each year based on inflation.
 
While I agree the minimum wage should be raised, I also think $15/hr is asking for a bit much. It should realistically be in the $10-11 range and raised each year based on inflation.

...because.... why? What exactly do you cite as the reason why $10-11 is the perfect amount of legally mandated minimum that any individual should be allowed to employ any other individual for? What is your justification for preventing people who's time isn't worth that much money from working? Why do you feel that it is appropriate to infringe personal liberty and freedom of contract, but only by that amount?
 
...because.... why? What exactly do you cite as the reason why $10-11 is the perfect amount of legally mandated minimum that any individual should be allowed to employ any other individual for? What is your justification for preventing people who's time isn't worth that much money from working? Why do you feel that it is appropriate to infringe personal liberty and freedom of contract, but only by that amount?
Because if the minimum wage had kept up with inflation, like it should have anyway, it would be around $11 right now. Why is it that people think just because people work in fast food or in low-tier jobs that they don't work their ass off as hard as anyone else? I work a pretty steady job and only make what the minimum should be and I still struggle. I don't even want to know what it would be like if I was making $7.25/hr.
 
Because if the minimum wage had kept up with inflation, like it should have anyway, it would be around $11 right now. Why is it that people think just because people work in fast food or in low-tier jobs that they don't work their ass off as hard as anyone else? I work a pretty steady job and only make what the minimum should be and I still struggle. I don't even want to know what it would be like if I was making $7.25/hr.

I didn't say people weren't working hard, I said that their time wasn't worth $11/hr. You can work insanely hard and produce nothing of value. You could bust your ass digging a ditch and filling it back in for years and your time would be worth $0/hr. So why is it that jobs that aren't worth more than $9/hr should be illegal to offer again?
 
I didn't say people weren't working hard, I said that their time wasn't worth $11/hr. You can work insanely hard and produce nothing of value. You could bust your ass digging a ditch and filling it back in for years and your time would be worth $0/hr. So why is it that jobs that aren't worth more than $9/hr should be illegal to offer again?
Wait, what? I never said anything should be illegal. :odd:
 
An alternative way of looking at minimum wage is the government telling the worker "You must find job that will pay at least X dollars an hour or you are not allowed to work/make money."
 
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