Despite Hundreds of Arrests, Striking Workers Remain Undaunted in Fight for $15

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Hundreds of service workers were arrested while striking for a $15 minimum wage and the right to form a union in cities across the county on Tuesday, organizers said, but the strikers remain undaunted.
#FightFor15 Tweets"We won't back down until we win an economy that works for all Americans, not just the wealthy few at the top," said Naquasia LeGrand, a McDonald's worker from Albemarle, North Carolina. "Working moms like me are struggling all across the country and until politicians and corporations hear our voices, our Fight for $15 is going to keep on getting bigger, bolder and ever more relentless."

"We work at O'Hare, one of the biggest airports in the world, but we still live in poverty. I'm fighting because I'm not afraid," said one airport employee in Chicago.Independent outlet Unicorn Riot captured footage of the arrests of 21 striking workers in the early morning hours in Minneapolis, with some workers even being arrested in the middle of interviews with reporters. Another video in Los Angeles shows riot police surrounding workers on strike. - source​

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[HR][/HR]
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The company I work for hires part-time, semi-skilled temp labor at $11.00/hr. We specialize in filling unique niches for certain kinds of customer needs. We just started hiring some unskilled, part-time temp labor at $9.50/hr. We include some benefits. We charge a premium cost but even with that, our profit margin fluctuates. Our own yearly research tells us that at $15/hr, passing such an increase along to our customers is not an option. We would be forced to discontinue our temp services.

I'm speaking for myself but I know of other businesses who employ a lot of unskilled, part-time labor, that at $15/hr, would fold. As much as I respect the workers in the restaurant, custodial and service industries, $15 an hour is way too much in this economy, especially for smaller businesses. McDonald's right now is working full-time on switching over to mechanization and robotics. This is turning into an industry wide trend.

My opinion? $15/hr would be a death knell for many companies and lead to the general replacement of non-skilled labor by automation.

 

And yet you would get more than that picking fruit here

 

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Your point?

 

She lives in a fruit oriented land I guess....

 

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I live on 56 acres of land, mostly wooded. Roughly half of it is surrounded by farms. Farms all over the place here. I live off a secondary road which was built (at the time) primarily for harvest season. (it gets plowed last during winter). There is an old abandon group of homes and buildings which were used at one time for migrant labor, during the summer. They just don't use that kind of labor anymore. It's all mechanized. Yes, there are some what we call here as hobby or gentleman farms which have to be harvested by hand but these are your non-gmo fruits and veggies which actually taste excellent and you generally have to pick your own.

My point is that even at the prevailing minimum wage, hand harvesting vegetables and fruit is becoming a thing of the past. A $15/hr an hour wage for non and semi skilled labor is going to kill off the need for such labor.
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Yep....Technology and mechanization has always been the farmer's friend from tractors to GPS controlled harvesters which significantly limits the number of human beings needed. Some countries are not that advanced I guess.

 

So what. My mother used work with 30 ladies in a room, copying letters with their typewriters. Today you just go to a copy machine, press 100 and have a sip of coffee.


You're standing in the way of progress and demand that people live horrible meaningless low wage governmental subsidized jobs. Subsidized cause they need foodstamps to make ends meet... or in other words: we're subsidizing corperations to pay extreme low wages. Time to cut back taxes and let the corperations pay a honest days wage for a honest day work. Time long overdue.

 

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The corporations will eventually phase out non-skilled labor but many small business will just fold up. Ten years ago I might have agreed with you but now, I've had to much experience in business that has wiped away any naive notions I might have had of what constitutes social justice. I'm a little more pragmatic these days.

 

Temp service companies should be illegal. Pimping out workers in order to make a profit is immoral.

 

So. Supermarkets already killed most of the small businesses. Never hear people cry over that one. Besides that this new age also creates new types of jobs... as in people making apps, and internetsites to sell our stuff online.

10 years ago, the US still had something called a middle class. It wasn't big, but it was there. It is as good as gone today! You're either working for practically nothing and get governmental aid, or earn a rediculous huge amount of money. To end that cycle, we must end that subsidized work force and let companies pay a honest day wage for a honest day work. Also, when you look at the GNP of the US, you can clearly see there is PLENTY of money that goes around. More than enough. To claim the US is unable to pay this, is not based on anything but ill will.

If you talk about social justice, than I do wonder if you believe the status quo of today without a middle class and just either low wage with governmental aid or bucket loads,... is something you want to protect. I really fail to see that point.

 

Of course is the Internet a job killer for the normal shops too. Why shall I move my ... ehm ... stern out of my apartment to buy something when I need only to click on Amazon etc. to buy the stuff and here often cheaper?
Sure, this creates new jobs at Amazon etc., but mostly lesser good paid due to some tricks and due to reduce costs to sell things cheaper. But this is the general disease we have with such things...

Then you have some things to do and to force as politician with strict laws and orders and hard penalties for all who do not hold it!
Otherwise you will not end this disease of outsourcing jobs to low cost countries and to force people to make low paid jobs with wages from which you can't live at least!
It is always one of the bad jokes in media when the new un-employed digits are reported and when governments on this planet announce with all proud that situations are improved because lesser people are un-employed. Sure ... but in which jobs are they working now with what wage please? Ehm ... no comment and uninteresting!

 

That gimp at the counter of a supermarket earns a lot more than a dude driving around in an Amazon wearhouse to find the stuff I bought? Well I'm totally not convinced.

Last time I checked, the US earns a heck of a lot of money. To say higher wages are unable to be paid, is founded on exactly what argument?

 

Temp services exist for a reason. I've worked for one of them and was damn glad to have a job. What's 100% of 0? It's 0, which is what I had coming in before I took the job. You are paying for the service of them finding you a job. If you don't want to pay don't take the job.

 

Ehhh I don't know about that, the service they provide is in demand and beneficial to both employer and employee.

Small business can go to an employment service firm and say "I need X number of workers do Y task on Z date and time" and the firm will deliver.

Workers can go to an employment service firm and say "I have X skills, I can work Y days, and I'm seeing Z pay" and the firm will try and place them accordingly.

Those firms are paid for doing that match making but also to handle all the other HR overhead costs such as payroll taxes, workers comp insurance, background checks, etc.

I've worked with companies that depend on employment service firms to staff for lower positions that they would have otherwise had to turn to help wanted ads or hoping for walk-in applicants.

Its also good for the employer because they can say "I don't want this person anymore send me somebody else" and good for the employee because the employer could say "I like this person and want to hire them full time on my payroll".

 

There is an Amazon warehouse in my area. They pay $11.50 an hr to start and people are lined up out the door wanting a job. $15 an hour is more than a lot of places top out around here. But then you can still buy a decent house for less than $100,000 especially in the county.

The problem is all the people who made more than minimum wage suddenly makes minimum and the price of everything has drastically increased. The government will basically put a bunch of people back into poor house. Do you think a person making $14.50 today will get a raise to $20 or just $15 if the minimum wage were raised?

 

it is not how much you make it is what you can purchase for the money. $600 a week is a pretty good wage where I live. However in other areas of the country it is barely living wage. In 3rd world countries you could live like a king on it.

Why do Australians and Europeans seem to feel like anything they think is relevant to the US anyway. You have already crapped up your own countries with your liberal politics, still not satisfied I guess

 

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You are talking idealistic nonsense sans any experience or non-political facts. You need facts, not teary eyed, pathos ridden rhetoric. - Column: Why a $15 minimum wage should scare us

 

If I take look on Amazon behavior in other countries I have heavy doubts that they get in the USA more. Amazon is a trading company or not?
So ... for example in Germany Amazon is not willing to pay the wages of the union agreement for retail shops, but only the lower wages of logistic business for all employees of them! Also are about 1/3 to 50% of the employees working there not being an employee of Amazon but of a sub-contractor who is paying is people with further lower wages!

A miss-understanding maybe?
Higher wages are able to be paid, but wanted by the corporations and companies with their pure profit thinking to have lowest costs as most as possible?
Why are they outsourcing jobs to low cost countries where people get for the same job only a 1/4 of wage as an US employee gets?
Why is not a single product of Apple build in the USA, but sold in retail shops with a price as being produced in the USA?

This has to be fought by politics and they have ways to fight succesful, but are they willing to take this fight?

 

that is all they have and it worked for a while

 

And can an employee in the USA live with this wage of 15.00 USD ...?

 

This kind of logic is the reason we have such bad trade deals and the reason we have a shrinking middle class and the reason we are moving more toward socialism. When the system does not work for all people then the majority will reject it.

I am glad you were happy to get paid peanuts while a vulture company made a profit on your back but not everyone is that gullible.

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Wrong. A middle man is never beneficial. This is why wages are low to begin with.

 

Most people work and live cities. The option: move to the country... is most of the time not a valid one at all. I rather discuss this issue what applies for the bulk, than read argument that you can compensate the lack of income by going out hunting in the woods for food as if we all can migrate there.

This entire argument is founded on the opinion that the US doesn't make enough money to pay for this. And I indeed dispute that when I eyeball numbers like the GNP.

 

The fact is the US makes bucket loads of money, hence I say there is plenty of money around to pay for a 15 bucks an hour wage. That this means others need to earn less so that the product they make will not be more expensive is than obvious. I fail to see a problem in this, except ill will.

I also have yet to read your opinion about this day and age where the US doesn't really have a middle class, and you're either rather poor or rather rich. There is no social justice in that one. And you claimed to support social justice. Obviously things need to be shaken up slowly one way or an other, instead of protecting this social injustice where companies can pay rediculous low wages because the government helps out with foodstamps.

 

So what. Wages are wages when minimum wage is set to 15 bucks an hour. Sub-contractor or not.

That the US makes bucket loads of money, is a miss-understanding?
Sorry. I'm not buying it.

 

Who said anything about hunting? The county is not the wilderness. Around here I would guess, most people in cities and the county make less than $15.00 an hr. Not all of us live in ridiculously expensive locations.

If the minimum wage is raised to $15 a lot of people will be (*)(*)(*)(*)ed. People will be fired and others will see gains they have worded hard for whipped out over night. And the neoliberal response is the US has plenty of money. It will cause more harm than good.

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Let me guess you'd rather sit home and starve or take a check from the government. They were perfect for me at the time. I got to work a high paying job in the summer to supplement my low wages and one time no wages during the school year.