Posted on 05/11/2013 12:02:04 PM PDT by mdittmar
Fast food workers at more than 60 restaurants in Detroit walked off the job Friday. This may be the largest fast food strike in American history, involving more than 400 workers from McDonald's, Long John Silver's, Burger King, Popeyes and KFC. Some locations were forced to shut down. At issue is workers' right to form a union and an increase in base pay to a minimum of $15 per hour.
Pastor W.J. Rideout III, a leader in Detroit’s Good Jobs Now coalition, said the organic action was a result of a long history of mistreatment of fast food workers:
“They’ve been wronged in so many ways, it really doesn’t take much coaching to say, hey, we’re going to organize together, we’re going to stand up together,” he said.
“There are 50,000-plus fast food employees in the Detroit metro area…and they’re not even giving them the proper amount of hours,” Rideout said. “At 40 hours a week, they’re making about $15,000 a year, and they’re not even getting 40 hours a week.” Instead, managers hire many employees on an exclusively part-time basis. “Some of them are getting between 15 and 20 hours a week, and that’s barely enough to pay a cellphone bill.”
Reports are coming in that one McDonald's called in replacement workers, some of whom then joined the strike.
The strike in Detroit follows on the heels of similar actions in New York, Pennsylvania, Chicago and St. Louis.
The AFL-CIO must be losing members big time.
wouldn’t it be nice of those businesses just pulled out of the Detroit area all together? I wouldn’t cry
My response?
You’re either fired or the restaurant is closed permanently.
No mention of Obamacare being the main reason for the switch to part-time hours, reverend?
If they raise meal costs by $2 each...the public will go into a huge fit. The lowest cost of living standard in the US...I think...for a city of its size...is Detroit. You can still buy a house for $50k in the inner city.
They probably won't be out front picketing, though, if they expect those KFC and Popeye's-lovin' inner city tribal parasites who use their food stamps and EBT's for their fast-food-feasting not to do some drive-by complainin'......ROFL
So, does “organic action” mean “illegal strike”? If so, fire the lot of them and hire some new people. Pretty sure that even in Detroit there’ll be about 100 people to apply for each newly opened position.
The quickest way to destroy the “fast food” industry is to make the teenagers who work there a bunch of lazy union thugs. That would just about do it for McDonalds and the gang.
Detroit just got healthier.
20K
Think this is the afl-cio trying to recruit,making promises that they can’t keep.
Don’t support these clowns.
My kid dropped out of college, then went on to become a Ford certified technician which took 18 months of schooling, he started at $15.00 an hour.
His girlfriend has her BS degree and is making $16.00 an hour to start.
They should just fire these morons and get on with it.
It took unions 40 years to destroy the American auto-industry.
It will take less than 6 months for them to kill every food-service job in Detroit if they get their way.
$15 per hour?
I think the AFL-CIO should make public how much their higher ups are making. I bet the “little people” don’t make near as much as they do.
“Some of them are getting between 15 and 20 hours a week, and that’s barely enough to pay a cellphone bill.””
I don’t know whether to laugh or go find a high bridge and jump off.
$15/hour minimum? What’s the current minimum? And how much is a Quarter Pounder going to cost if they get what they want? Will anybody pay that much?
I still can’t understand why the Republicans won’t pass a $20/hr min wage bill in the House and dare the Senate and Barag to pass it through.
Don't forget your parachute... lol
My son is graduating next week with his degree in Arts and Technology, and he just landed a job at $17.50/hour.
Fast food workers starting at $15/hour is exactly what Obama and his ilk mean when they talk about “economic justice”. Never mind that the economy doesn’t work like that.
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