Dessa
Fangtaku
I see a lot of jackasses in this thread who have no clue the conditions people actually are required to work under, spouting their mouths off.
Seattle is one of the cities that is having protests. Why? Because many fast-food workers are being forced to work under illegal conditions, for a minimum wage that, even at 40-50 hours a week, is far below a living wage. There have been many reports out lately, that lay out the average McDonalds' employees budget. For full-time employees (40 hrs/wk), they need to spend an average of NEGATIVE $25 a day to be able to even pay their bills, let alone anything else. And that's not counting if there's children involved, and the associated costs of that.
Additionally, people are being forced to work long hours outside of their scheduled shifts, often off the clock, in addition to having the unpaid wages of their illegally scheduled breaks (I myself went through this, sadly, it was my word against the owner's, so I wasn't able to sue). They're not "forced"? Legally, perhaps not but with my state's unemployment rate of 8% (and that's just the percentage that are collecting unemployment. I myself was unemployed for most of 3 years and unable to collect), passing up on a job is the difference between being on the streets or not, if you're lucky.
Reporting people? Most states are at-will employment. Unless you can prove explicitly that you were fired for blowing the whistle, you're out of a job, because you can be fired at any time for any reason. And most businesses will ignore the law that says you can only confirm or deny that someone worked there and not release how or why they were let go, or say anything about how they worked.
Get a degree? Lol. I have a degree. I went to college to get two pretty little letters after my name on official documents, that I'm still paying off, 10 years later, and I work at a fast-casual restaurant, making less than $1 over minimum wage*. Heck I was working as a shift-lead at a Subway, and only making minimum wage because it's illegal in WA for workers to get paid less.
People don't want a "high minimum wage." They want minimum wage to be a living wage. In NY's case, the math has been done, and earning less than $15/hr for 40hrs/week is not enough to survive on.
The gall of you people to basically be saying that people deserve to starve or not have a place to live just because you don't consider the likely only job they can get "worthy."
*The reason I don't have a job in the industry I went to college for? No experience. College doesn't count as experience, and the last job opening(s) in my area required at least 2 years of experience before they'd even look at your portfolio. Move to another area? With what money, I can't even pay off my student loan.
Seattle is one of the cities that is having protests. Why? Because many fast-food workers are being forced to work under illegal conditions, for a minimum wage that, even at 40-50 hours a week, is far below a living wage. There have been many reports out lately, that lay out the average McDonalds' employees budget. For full-time employees (40 hrs/wk), they need to spend an average of NEGATIVE $25 a day to be able to even pay their bills, let alone anything else. And that's not counting if there's children involved, and the associated costs of that.
Additionally, people are being forced to work long hours outside of their scheduled shifts, often off the clock, in addition to having the unpaid wages of their illegally scheduled breaks (I myself went through this, sadly, it was my word against the owner's, so I wasn't able to sue). They're not "forced"? Legally, perhaps not but with my state's unemployment rate of 8% (and that's just the percentage that are collecting unemployment. I myself was unemployed for most of 3 years and unable to collect), passing up on a job is the difference between being on the streets or not, if you're lucky.
Reporting people? Most states are at-will employment. Unless you can prove explicitly that you were fired for blowing the whistle, you're out of a job, because you can be fired at any time for any reason. And most businesses will ignore the law that says you can only confirm or deny that someone worked there and not release how or why they were let go, or say anything about how they worked.
Get a degree? Lol. I have a degree. I went to college to get two pretty little letters after my name on official documents, that I'm still paying off, 10 years later, and I work at a fast-casual restaurant, making less than $1 over minimum wage*. Heck I was working as a shift-lead at a Subway, and only making minimum wage because it's illegal in WA for workers to get paid less.
People don't want a "high minimum wage." They want minimum wage to be a living wage. In NY's case, the math has been done, and earning less than $15/hr for 40hrs/week is not enough to survive on.
The gall of you people to basically be saying that people deserve to starve or not have a place to live just because you don't consider the likely only job they can get "worthy."
*The reason I don't have a job in the industry I went to college for? No experience. College doesn't count as experience, and the last job opening(s) in my area required at least 2 years of experience before they'd even look at your portfolio. Move to another area? With what money, I can't even pay off my student loan.
