I think they could impart invaluable insights into strategies for success in today’s new world order and answer the question: “What World Are You Living In?”
Standing with other protesters on Chicago’s storied State Street, Charde Nabors, 21, said she’s fighting for better pay and more opportunities for workers like her.
Nabors said she earns $9 an hour at Sears and would like to work full time, rather than her current 20 hours a week. She relies on food stamps to help feed her two children, ages 2 and 5 months.
“Food stamps help but they don’t pay the rent,” Nabors said, acknowledging the difficulty of searching for work and taking public assistance. She and other fast-food and retail workers flocked to downtown Chicago on Wednesday to make a public pitch for higher wages. Their “Fight for $15 campaign” seeks $15 an hour for employees. It is supported by a coalition of local community, labor and faith-based organizations — including the Workers Organizing Committee of Chicago, a group of downtown fast-food and retail workers that launched in November.
The group has been working with others to stage protests and push for a boost in Illinois’ minimum wage, which has remained at $8.25 since 2009.
Wednesday’s action came just weeks after hundreds of fast-food workers walked off their jobs in New York City, also in a push for higher wages. Late last year, Wal-Mart workers in select cities staged protests, seeking higher wages and benefits as well as pushing back against the retailer’s decision to open on Thanksgiving.
The protests have been gaining steam in the fast-food and retail sectors — which have generated the most jobs since the recession, labor experts said, but are among the lowest paid.
The rolling protests began at 5:30 a.m. as workers walked off the job at some McDonald’s restaurants and Dunkin’ Donuts, organizers said. The protesters, who were scattered around several Loop locations, continued the day with a rally at St. James Cathedral.
“I’m fighting for 15,” Robert Wilson Jr., 25, who makes $8.60 an hour at McDonald’s at Navy Pier, told the crowd. “I don’t see the point of people having full-time jobs that don’t pay enough to cover their basic needs.”
Katelyn Johnson, executive director of Action Now, one of the rally’s organizers, said the idea for the event was borne out of protests last year over CTA fare hikes. Johnson said conversations with protesters there revealed the bigger priority of low wages.
Conversations with protestors revealed the bigger priority.
aimai
“Conversations with Protestors” What a crazy idea!
Kay
@aimai:
Dialogue, aimai. It’s so important for success in the 21st century :)
CorbinDallasMultipass
I would be happy to donate money for either this person or someone from Balloon Juice to attend.
Cacti
The end result of a largely successful, decades-long war on unions.
In 1970, America’s largest employer was General Motors. In 2012, it was Wal-Mart.
Certified Mutant Enemy
@Cacti:
In 1970, America’s largest employer was General Motors. In 2012, it was Wal-Mart.
“Mission Accomplished”
— GOP
GregB
This service economy is great as long as you aren’t a server.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Cacti:
I saw something yesterday which said that 80% of Wal Mart’s workers receive food stamps, while the CEO gets paid $20 million. I think we need to rebrand food stamps as Wal Mart Welfare.
aimai
@Litlebritdifrnt: Wal-Fare is Un-Fair. We all pay for WalMart’s CEO to have an inflated salary. He steals from his worker’s paychecks and the taxpayers taxes.
Butch
I just got back from a trip to Australia, where I learned that the minimum wage is $18 an hour. What a concept – a living wage.
Morzer
This to me is a big part of the story of our national failure. The talking-heads and the right-wingers yap about getting people off welfare and how welfare dis-incentivizes people – and fail miserably to ask just where those people are going to go. Where’s the incentive to work a shitty job that doesn’t provide even the basis for a half-decent life?
jamick6000
nice post Kay, these fast food strikes are giving me some hope.
Mike in NC
Conservatives think people should be thankful for having a shitty demeaning job that pays three bucks an hour with no vacation or medical benefits. We seem to be heading in that direction.
rikyrah
@Litlebritdifrnt:
tell me about it.
rikyrah
Say it over and over and over again.
Mnemosyne
@Butch:
Given today’s exchange rate, the Australian minimum wage is actually slightly more in USD than the protesters are asking for — $18.57.
Litlebritdifrnt
@rikyrah:
I really do not understand the disconnect on the part of the Tea Party freaks, I mean if they thought it through (which obviously they don’t) they would be up in arms and brandishing pitchforks because their tax payer dollars are subsidizing a corporation that is making massive profits and paying its CEO 20 million. I just don’t get it.
Li
Even tech workers doing difficult and sophisticated jobs aren’t being paid a living wage now. After years of searching for a genetics/biology/agricultural job after the biotech bust, I’m working for 13 bucks an hour doing work I was being paid 40 for out of high school. And of course, no security, no retirement, no vacation, no benefits, no sick leave.
If it wasn’t for the largess of my friends and parents I would be starving right now, since my salary barely pays my rent! Not exactly the shining future I expected after graduating from the top of my class with multiple MS degrees.
USA! USA! USA!
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Mnemosyne:
Just think of what the Aussie minimum wage might have been if the evil Australian gubmint hadn’t taken away all their assault rifles.
Johnny Coelacanth
@Butch: Eighteen bucks an hour? Wow. I had no idea Australia was such a communist hell hole.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
These are the Conservative solutions to this problem:
1. Work 2 or more full-time jobs, you lazy slacker! Woo-hoo, back to the Gilded Age: We can haz repeal the 40 hour work week!
2. Redefine “basic needs” down to ca 1880s sharecropper’s level of basic subsistence. You don’t need a roof over your head or anything other than rags to cover your naked flesh, much less a phone or a car, you just want those things. Need and want are different things, deal with it. If you don’t like that, see option #1.
Kay
@Morzer:
I think that’s really, really important. They’ve devalued work, then they complain no one wants to work. What are you really saying when you pay people so little? “Your work doesn’t matter.” All the bullshit about the inherent dignity of hard work and self-support can only go so far. It keeps butting up against 8 dollars an hour.
The first national politician who figures this out can save a lot of money on ads :)
MikeJ
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
It’s incredibly common for them to say that people aren’t really poor in the US because they have a $50 microwave oven from Wal Mart.
Linnaeus
If you look at it from the perspective of TPTB, the point becomes very, very clear.
gogol's wife
@Kay:
Similar to the big “teacher problem.”
Roger Moore
@Morzer:
We can’t get people off the welfare rolls by rewarding them with good paying jobs; we have to force them off welfare by making it as obnoxious and worthless as possible. It’s part and parcel of the Conservative worldview. Rich people only respond to rewards and have to be enticed into behaving properly, while poor people only respond to punishment and have to be forced to obey.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@MikeJ:
And cell phones.
That cell phones are now ubiquitous even in Third World countries which are the poster children for endemic poverty does nothing to dent the “cell phones = living in luxury” meme.
aimai
@Litlebritdifrnt:
But their attitude is exactly the same as the people bitching about the FAA cuts–FAA is a straight up government/taxpayer funded subsidy to the airlines and the fliers. As someone pointed out on that thread in Canada the fee for the CAA is rolled into the ticket price. In other words its the equivalent of a fee-for-service approach to flyer’s needs even if the service is administered by the government. Tea partiers don’t perceive the subsidies to the upper classes and CEO’s to be subsidies at all. Its simply invisible to them. As far as they can see the cost of labor to the CEO should be ZERO just like the cost of the flight to the flier should be as low as possible, even if that means that the pilots, safety, ground crew all can be screwed over. They just have no concept of the necessity for the “replacement value of the worker.” or of the idea of the value of the worker’s labor.
Kay
@gogol’s wife:
Don’t get me started. I’m obsessed with that. I’m joining organizations in Indiana, and I don’t even live in Indiana. The “pockets of resistance” to privatization are so weird. You’d expect Chicago, but maybe not Ft Wayne Indiana, yet Indiana is a bit of a hotbed.
MikeJ
@Kay: Since you’re an Ohioan, I’ve got a completely off topic question. I have a google news alert for “state legislator” to catch the stupid things they do. This morning there were all sorts of stories about Ohio wanting to ban internet cafés because they’re actually gambling dens. Huh?
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Roger Moore:
It appears to me that our Galtian Douchelords subscribe to a theory of behavioral economics (for the lower orders only, it must be noted) which can best be summarized as Economic Legalism:
“Punishment produces force; force produces strength; strength produces awe; awe produces virtue. [Therefore], virtue comes from punishment”
Just strike out virtue and substitute productivity and there you are.
Morzer
@Kay:
I often think that a major problem with our politicians is that so many of them came up from a business world in which companies don’t invest in training, customer service is dumped overseas and there’s no longterm vision beyond pile it high and sell it cheap. The result is that our elite now believe that this is the way the world works – and they try and impose that view on the national economy and society. When their ‘vision’ doesn’t produce results, they don’t rethink, because the recipe worked for them. Instead, they double down and rewrite or dismiss the facts in order to ‘prove’ that their theory worked all along. That’s why you don’t see business-politicians working seriously on job creation – because they don’t know how to do it and they don’t believe they should change their ways in any case.
Morzer
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
No, because the Legalists believed in reward as well as punishment. What our GOP/Blue Dog politicians have to offer is behavorial sadism.
bemused
Anyone know how many americans or percent of working population are “living” on minimum wage?
schrodinger's cat
@Morzer: Its called focusing on core competence by management gurus.
Morzer
@schrodinger’s cat:
Is it just me or is a management guru someone who has never actually managed anything and who makes a living telling the corporate kleptocracy what they want to hear?
Morzer
@bemused:
I don’t know the percentage of Americans overall, but this is interesting:
http://rt.com/usa/college-graduates-minimum-wage-174/
Omnes Omnibus
@bemused: The BLS has a bunch of stats you might find interesting.
Maude
@Morzer:
Re: job creators, they say, let’s not and say we did.
schrodinger's cat
@Morzer: This is what is taught in Business Schools across the country. The management guru who came up with the concept of core competence was a professor of management at the University of Michigan, Prahalad. He is dead now. His idea makes some sense, basically specialization helps, if you want to be a successful business, focus on one thing and do it well.
ETA: He probably never ran a business in his life. IDK for sure, just guessing.
MikeJ
@Omnes Omnibus: Here’s more stat porn: The Bush regency in 24 charts. Hard to believe WaPo put it together.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@schrodinger’s cat:
So he’s focusing on his core competency of being a stiff, then eh?
schrodinger's cat
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: From his name my guess is that he is a Hindu, so he was most probably cremated. He is probably helping Ceiling Cat manage his core competency of messing with us.
schrodinger's cat
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: From his name my guess is that he is a Hindu, so he was most probably cremated. He is probably helping Ceiling Cat manage his core competency of messing with us.
bemused
@Morzer: @Omnes Omnibus: Thanks. Omnes, I’ll have to do some searching to see what the number was for 2012. I would think it must be higher than in 2010.
@Morzer:
I’ve come to think that the conservative economic ideology isn’t so much a true belief as just an excuse for being as greedy and selfish as they can get away with or they have convinced themselves they believe it. I also think there is a cruelty/punishment component in their personalities that go hand in hand with the greed. IGMFU. Me, me, me folks.
True Story
I make $8 an hour. I work 24 hours per week. It’s been that way for a decade. I’ve pretty much given up any hope I’ll ever be able to pay off my student debt.
Morzer
@schrodinger’s cat:
Ah, that sounds like an old-fashioned real world approach, derived from Adam Smith. I was thinking of the more “contemporary” management gurus who don’t have any ideas of their own, but just write articles recycling glibertarian platitudes.
schrodinger's cat
Sorry for the double post, comment editor is not working as it should.
Morzer
@bemused:
I think it’s all part of the same self-reinforcing feedback loop. Greedy, selfishness and cruelty work for them, so they go back to that well every time. That they get a thrill of pleasure from it just reinforces their belief that they were right the first time.
bemused
@Morzer: @Omnes Omnibus: Thanks. Omnes, when I get some more time, I want to search to see what the numbers were for 2012.
I wonder how many fiscal conservatives truly believe in their economic ideology. I’ve come to think it’s simply an excuse to be as greedy and selfish as they can get away with or they have convinced themselves they believe their “free”market ideology but are in denial. I also think that there’s a cruelty/punishment component in their personalities that go hand in hand with their greed. Me, me, me folks that feel only they deserve to thrive or succeed and those “others” are stealing their just rewards.
Morzer
@schrodinger’s cat:
Posting comments has suddenly become as slow as Andrew Sullivan dealing with reality.
bemused
@schrodinger’s cat:
Same here.
bemused
@Morzer:
Evidence clearly showing when their policies not only don’t work but are disastrous has no effect on them at all. Self-interest trumps all. I fully expect they will continue to quote the Reinhart-Rogoff study. Their base is cut from the same cloth so they will go happily go along.
quannlace
No joke. There are more than a couple of politicians who want to do just that. Along with getting rid of minimum wage and child labor laws. Because depending on employers and corporations to do the right thing simply from the goodness of their hearts will work out just fine!
Chris
@Morzer:
This. While they might just have enough shame to avoid being cruel for the sake of cruelty, give them a justification that explains that it’s good to be cruel and they’re off like a shot.
Scotius
And in New Mexico, a state GOP official does some of that patented outreach to labor and women that is sure to win them some more votes:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/24/steve-kush-new-mexico-gop-radical_n_3148039.html?utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false#sb=547997,b=facebook
Kay
@MikeJ:
My husband knows about this. He either has a case or had a case. All I remember about it is the patrons buy pre-loaded cards, like a phone card, and that allows them to play. The odds are pre-determined, which is what the owners are relying on to claim the game is a sweepstakes and not gambling (legal definition).
A couple of years ago we had a local dispute over that same distinction, I think in a Moose club.
I am too cheap to gamble, so that’s all I know :)
MikeJ
@Kay: I had simply never heard of gambling at internet cafés, outside of someone making use of the computer to go to a gambling website.
Reminds me of the poker machines the bowling alleys had when I was a kid.
PurpleGirl
@bemused: This may be a good point at which to remind people that waiters and waitresses in their favorite diner/restaurant makes below the federal minimum wage. They are exempted from the federal standards. Tips are expected to make up the difference between the wage rate they are paid and the federal standard. For example in NYS, wait staff’s minimum wage was $2.35, IIRC. (I forget what year this was.)
Mnemosyne
@Kay:
I actually do think that most people prefer to work and get a paycheck — they like the relative independence it gives them, as opposed to all of the hoops you have to jump through to get welfare.
But what we’ve been doing for years is making it difficult for people to leave welfare because we do things like take their Medicaid away as soon as they’re making minimum wage, which forces people to choose between having a paycheck and having healthcare because most minimum wage jobs don’t offer healthcare benefits, or make them stupidly expensive for what you get (high deductibles, etc.)
Republican policies have basically created perverse incentives for people to stay on welfare, and then blame those people for the choices they make. It’s one of the things that pisses me off most about them.
Kay
@Mnemosyne:
I do, too. That’s why I get so impatient with what I consider an obsessive focus in Democratic and liberal circles on social insurance and tax policy. The safety net is fine. Tax policy is fine.
People actually DO want to work, though. What about wages?
RaflW
It’s certainly not just WalMart that is milking gov’t welfare for elite gain.
The latest corporate-government ripoff: private prisons being restructured as “Real Estate Investment Trusts” to avoid paying income taxes.
Yep. Taxpayer funds go in, but they don’t come out. 100% public prisoners, 100% private profit, sukahs.
Form the Forbes-reprinted article: “CCA [Corrections Corporation of America] is expected to make an initial estimated dividend distribution of $700 to $750 million to shareholders once it converts to a REIT”
RaflW
@Kay:
Say what?
Yes, we should focus on work and it’s rewards. And that most people want to work, want to contribute. But the safety net is decidedly not fine. And via sequester, is rapidly getting worse: section 8 vouchers, which already often have multi-year waiting lists, are being slashed.
Head Start? Slashed.
Maternal & Child health programs? For example, just in Minnesota, 14,239 fewer women, children, and families will be served. Mississippi will cut loose more than twice that many.
The safety net is decidedly not fine.
Edit: maybe you mean: it’s fine to work on the safety net? But also on work? I hope that’s what you mean.
Bubblegum Tate
@Morzer:
More to the point, they insist that welfare de-incentivizes people because welfare is too cushy. At no point do they consider the realism-based alternative: The real de-incentivizer is that most jobs simply don’t pay a living wage anymore.
EDIT: Boy, am I late to the pointing-this-out party.
Another Halocene Human
@MikeJ: The only “huh” is how Ohio got suckered so bad. The crooks were based in Florida and also were established up the East Coast in SC and were trying to get into NC.
They are basically slot machine gambling in violation of state law under cover of being charity raffles. Maybe 3% went to charity, just like those 1%er “charitable” trusts. And there are allegations of money laundering going on in Florida, too.
catclub
@MikeJ: @Kay: That was what was behind the Florida Lt Gov
quitting, involvement in just such ‘internet cafes’.
The peculiarity of that case was it was trying to associate with Iraq(?) veterans and call itself a non-profit.
Another Halocene Human
@Morzer: It’s believed that this has something to do with the “labor unrest”.
These workers have benefited from a good education and they don’t come for the GOP kulak class that is shielded from some of these market forces, incurious, and liable to blame Democrats/moochers/takers/environmentalists for the family drycleaning biz hitting hard times anyway. So they see the shit they’re in and it pisses them off, and they have enough outside family support to take a chance, unlike your typical impoverished hourly worker who is too scared to strike.
Another Halocene Human
@catclub: It’s actually something that started as bingo. The Miami and Tampa papers had a good breakdown.
The Jax paper sucks BUT the Lt. Gov was posting on every single article that mentioned her name, complaining about the reporting. Comedy gold! And she claimed to run a PR firm!
Kay
@RaflW:
I mean it’s fine to work on the safety net.
But. There’s nothing wrong with talking about work. How much do people make? What do they do? How do they live? I just despair sometimes, listening to Democrats and liberals.
No one (really) wants to talk about the tax code. No one. They should stop saying “tax code” completely, as a matter of fact :)
D.H.
@Morzer:
And they said income inequality was at its highest ever! What could those liberals be complaining about?
Bullsmith
Some guy named Henry Ford had a lot of crazy ideas. One of them was to double the wages of all his workers. Sure he wanted to control their personal lives in return, but the core of his idea was that if he paid his workers enough to buy the cars he was selling, he would get a good chunk of those wages back in sales.
It’s a very basic idea. If you want a service economy, it would help if people could pay for service. If you want to sell shite, you need people to be able to buy it.
The current model seems to be all workers should make the bare minimum to keep them alive (in order to compete with third world sweat shops) and any money they don’t need to live (which employers should only be forced to pay a portion of, actually. Competition and productivity and all that) should accrue to the billionaires who work SO MUCH HARDER than you loafers with two “full time” jobs. (Like you don’t have plenty of time to sleep on the bus, reprobate.)
Long story short – When the free market triumphs and the lords are secure in their gated communities and the rabble are safely caged in their work camps, who’s going to buy the stuff our masters have to sell?
jake the snake
@aimai:
Some communities have attempted to block the opening of additional Walmart stores because of the burden their employees put on the safety net, mostly food stamps and Medicaid.
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Wal-Mart-foes-detail-costs-to-community-Public-2822045.php
jake the snake
@True Story:
It drives me crazy when reports about minimum wage always multiply it by the 40 hour week. There is probably not one person in the US making the MW or close to it who does work
40 hours. Most work the 24 hours you mention, or at most 32.
jake the snake
@Bubblegum Tate:
The exact answer I got to that was, “they should work harder, find a higher paying job and better themselves.
Li
@Bullsmith: No one. The workers are to be replaced by robots.
The work camps are death camps.