Workers Are Striking For Higher Wages and the Right to Unionize



French Fries - IllustrationThousands of fast food workers are set to walk off the job this week across the United States.

According to Bloomberg.com (link below), thousands of workers at restaurants such as McDonald's and Wendy's are striking in order to receive a "living wage" and the right to form a union without retaliation.

According to protest organizers, fast food workers across the nation are looking for an hourly wage of $15/hour. $15/hour, they say, would constitute a "living wage" and allow fast food workers to live above the poverty line.

The average worker in the fast food industry has gotten much older over the past decade or so due to the struggling economy. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the age of the average fast food worker was 29.5 in 2011, up from 22 in 2000. Fast food jobs are no longer the exclusive domain of teenagers who are still living at home - many American adults have been forced to take fast food jobs in the past decade, as there is just nothing else available, especially to people with little to no education.

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This issue has bubbled up over in the past month or so due to a much ridiculed "minimum wage budget" that was produced by McDonald's.

The budget tried to show how somebody working two minimum wage jobs could discover the key to "financial freedom". The "financial literacy" plan was panned due to the fact that it dramatically underestimated the cost of certain things (such as health insurance) and assumed that the person would be working their primary full-time job in addition to another minimum wage job.

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Bloomberg.com points out that a "living wage" of $15/hour per hour would represent a 66% increase over the $9.02/hour that the average fast food worker currently earns.

Good luck with that.

Source: Bloomberg.com - Fast-Food workers strike for higher wages in U.S. cities

Filed under: General Knowledge

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