Comments

1
Indeed, union leaders get huge salaries that rival average CEO salaries. I'd provide links, but the main stream media prefers to keep such things quiet and I only feel it my duty to oblige.
2
@1:

Union members have the ability to fire union leaders if they don't like the job they're doing.

Also, Mr. Rensi, I don't think that word (fascist) means what you think it means...
4
When are the burger flipping robots arriving?
5
@1: No they don't, the highest paid Union officials in the U.S. are the Unions that represent professional athletes,film directors, and movie actors.

Richard Trumka makes a little over 300,00 per year, a good salary for sure, but not unreasonable considering the responsibilities of the position.

The highest paid Union official in the U.S. is G. William Hunter, of the National Basketball Players Association (around 3 million per year)

The President/Secretary-Treasurer of my Union (Marine Firemen, Oilers, Watertenders and Wipres) makes less than I do.

Of course no need to dig for this information the AFL-CIO makes it public:

https://www.unionfacts.com/employees/AFL…

In the future you may wish to know some facts before posting.
6
@4: By the middle of this century about half of all jobs will have been replaced by automation, so by then we will need to have a guaranteed basic income (or there will be no customers for businesses)
7
The obscenely wealthy will always talk about minimum wage and small business because they want to distract everyone away from the fact that CEOs and shareholders of giant corporations make profits that dwarf the middle class.

CEO salaries have skyrocketed in the past several decades. Middle class income has gone nowhere. But let's ignore that and talk about how raising the minimum wage means you have to pay more for your hamburger.

Fuck them. Cut the salaries and profits of the already obscenely wealthy and you can easily afford to increase minimum wage AND keep prices low.

Don't allow them to distract you from the REAL problem.
8
@7: Working class wages have been falling since the early 70's.
10
I thought @1's "obliging the mainstream media" was imitating dumbness for satire? Not sure.
11
@9: Raindrop isn't stupid, he's ignorant, there's a difference.
13
@9 ftw.
14
@12: "Stupid" is a condition that can't be helped, dishonest and ignorant are both choices, a person who honestly lacks the mental capacity to learn or understand does what they can, a person such as Raindrop choose to ignore facts, to be uninformed, and to lie.

Just like all trump voters
15
@14

Yeah, but he's still stupid.
17
@6, there's gotta be a way we can speed that up!
18
@16: Don't wish to get into semantics, but if he's choosing it, then that's ignorance, "stupid" is a pejorative term for a person with a learning disability..

Raindrop (and those like him) has the full capacity to learn, they may not be smart enough to be Millwrights, or QMED's, but they could at least get a BA, therefore his ignorance and bigotry are entirely his own choice.
19
@17: We can have a guaranteed basic income any time we like, the first step will be removing ignorant and bigoted people from office, and then bringing the 1% back to their knees and taxing then fairly (which means increasing their taxes)
21
Meanwhile, the real fascists are occupying the White House.
@6 & @19 Merchant Seaman: I like your thinking.
22
@5: I do, but since you asked for specifics, Investors.com:
That means union bosses make $60,000 more in wages than the average private-sector CEO. And they make 7 times as much as the average worker.


We have to evaluate facts, then we can form opinions. Not the other way around.
23
@22: Try and learn some facts instead of just googling antilabor sights to confirm the ignorant crap Faux News fees you.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=…
24
@23: Discordant data sources require evaluation before further commentary.
26
@25 re: “The minimum wage is an ‘entry level’ compensation construct....not a living wage, nor was it meant to be such.”

Then business owners should be limited to offering this wage only to teenagers and other first time job holders or to workers with less than a couple years of job experience.

But we all know that employers have long been using the minimum wage as an excuse for paying less than a living wage to people who really need one ...
27
@20:

Unionization and the minimum wage are the "spur" to businesses maximizing efficiencies and minimizing costs, thereby increasing profits? Um, no, dumbass, that's what businesses DO by definition.

Your arguments re: working at McDonald's not being intended as a career might have held some weight, oh a couple of decades ago, but not anymore. Today, 40% of workers in the industry are 25 years of age or older, with the largest segment of the industry by-age (36%) being in the 25-54 year old demographic; 30% of workers have at least some college education; more than one-quarter of them are parents with children; half work a second job to make ends meet, and that's probably another low-wage job as well; 21 states still use the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour; some 20.6 mm workers (roughly 30% of all hourly, non-self-employed workers over the age of 18) earn at or near minimum wage, that is, less than $10 an hour; about half require some form of public assistance to stay afloat; 87% lack any kind of employer-sponsored health care; and just for shits and giggles, nearly 90% of entry-level jobs are "dead enders" with little to no chance for stepping up to higher paying, more advanced work such as management.

As for buying your own franchise - forget it if you already work in the industry. Only about 1% of workers own franchises, which can cost anywhere from $750,000 to over a million dollars; try saving that on minimum wage. Fact is, most franchise-owners didn't "work their way up" from lower-paying jobs in the industry; they bought into the industry because they had access to the not insignificant capital assets needed from the start.

Finally, let's not forget that fast food work is inherently dangerous: in a Hart Research survey conducted in 2015 87% of fast food workers reported suffering from a variety of injuries, such as repetitive-stress, slipping on wet or greasy floors, and burns from hot oil or hot surfaces, and 78% reported experiencing multiple injuries while at work. In this same survey approximately one in eight workers had reported being assaulted on-the-job in the previous year.

So yeah, keep that fantasy of some pimpley-faced 16 year old flipping burgers for pocket change in your head; I'm sure it'll share a lot of company with all the other antiquated notions that have no basis in current reality stored up there.
29
The man's an ignorant ass. Small business are closing their doors in Seattle because the property they either own or rent is worth more than the business or the rent received. When real estate developers/investors start piling up money on the table until a property owner can't see over the top of pile, you can bet your ass the business will close in favor of selling off the property. It's not only happening in Seattle, but all around the Seattle metro area as small businesses make way for huge developments.

Besides, who eats at MacDonald's anymore anyway?
30
@29 Purris: Good points.
As for those who still eat at McDonald's anymore (I sure as shit don't, knowing what's IN all that toxic crap!), I'll willing to guess they're the solid majority of dumbed down working class who believe Trumpzilla's idea of Making America Great Again starts with fattening up, then forfeiting their affordable healthcare and voting rights a minute too late once they wake up to what's going RepubliKKKan Nazi-fascist WRONG.
31
You know who was in favour of a $15/hr minimum wage? HITLER, that's who. We're letting our society be destroyed by socialist fascist libtards terrorists rhubarb monkeybutterarrrrrglihgesalzkdjbf.
32
@31 Did you know that eating anything from McDonald's and trolling from your mom's basement are bad for your health? You're letting your brain rot by spewing Trumpzilla-fueled idiocy. Hope you know a good cardiologist; you're going to need one--provided you don't get screwed by a "pre-existing condition" first.
33
Hey, Let's support living wage and acknowledge that a luxury apartment building can replace a minimum wage restaurant because the restaurant owner isn't making as much profit and either wants to sell or can't make an increased lease. But let's not pretend that gentrification is just wiping out that restaurant without any connection to the economics of the restaurant itself. Our environment idoesnt work that way and neither do economics. There is a conundrum driving the total costs of living and operating a business. We just put people over profit. But profit drives many of the outcomes.
35
A minority of the public could make a higher minimum wage happen without unions or government. We could simply refuse to patronize any business that doesn't publicly state it pays a minimum wage with adequate benefits. Perhaps we should start with a public pledge to not walk in the door of any business not displaying an adequate minimum wage logo in its window and website. It would take a business losing only five to ten percent of its business to get the message.

As far as a thriving minimum wage putting small businesses out of business, let them go out of business. If the public won't pay for goods and services that include the cost of an ethical wage, then the public shouldn't get them and the business shouldn't exist.

$15/hr isn't enough. It is enough for young, healthy people to get by, but it is not enough to insure that people can live adequately for their entire lives. The GOP sabotage of health care, education, a thriving minimum wage, safe housing, and ethical immigration policy, while promoting racism, hate religions, sexism, and classism all adds up to giving them a cheap work force that dies 20 years sooner than rich people, about the time they become less productive and more expensive.
37
@32, most of the people who eat at McDonalds are poor, and likely POC. Thanks for confirming the limousine liberal still has as much loathing for them as they always have.
39
@38 is an idiot who doesn't understand how capitalism works.
40
@32 Uh...auntie griz...you do know that I was being sarcastic, right? Unless that comment was intended for someone else.

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