BTW ...

[Being645]

Btw,

McDonald's President Jeff Stratton was interrupted during a speech by one of his employees, Nancy Salgado.
"Do you think this is fair," she asked, "that I have to be making $8.25 [per hour] when I've worked for McDonald's for 10 years?"

Stratton replied with a full order of annoyance and a side of contempt: "I've been there 40 years."
Salgado didn't get an answer, but did get arrested.

Stratton can afford to pay Salgado and all of his employees a living wage. He'd rather not, though.
He'd rather that McDonald's continue its binge of gobbling up oversized profits -- $5.46 billion last year.

Click here to tell McDonald's to pay $15 per hour or you'll be sure to stay away from McDonalds ...

[Izzy HaveMercy]

I do the latter. It's better for your own health as well.

IZ.

[Andie]

[Bartek]

i would be hypocrite if i sign some petition to McDonald, i'm not buy their plastic stuff called food, so i'm not their customer, so there's not even single 1 polish zloty from to to McD and their employees.

[eastmidswhizzkid]

i would be hypocrite if i sign some petition to McDonald, i'm not buy their plastic stuff called food, so i'm not their customer, so there's not even single 1 polish zloty from to to McD and their employees.

it's not hypocrisy at all., signing the petition when you aren't a customer. getting multinational nasties like mucky d's to pay their employee's more by threatening to boycott their produuct in no way obliges you to eat there if they capitulate- it's just using their greed and arrogance against them; their fear of losing custom that they assume you give them (when you don't) costs you nothing. probably most mcdonalds employees would think the food was tasteless s**t as well, if they weren't all braindead....however just because the staff are generally grossly retarded and unlikely to gain employment elsewhere doesn't mean that they deserve to be exploited.

[million voices]

If they get the wage award then won't McDonalds employ less staff to work even harder to keep the wage bill low?

[aims]

Seems like arresting workers for demanding a living wage is the in thing atm.

Petitions frustrate me as a tactic (the explosion of social media has made them lower impact because they're easier to pull off), but will respect whatever the workers themselves call for. If you don't feel you can support this particular struggle for lack of being a McCustomer, try to support similar ones in your own workplace or local area.

Momentum is building around the novel idea that if your company requires living workers, it better damn well be paying living wages. Solidarity across different countries and industries will help maintain that.

[Bartek]

fair point East, but i still don't feel it. i'm already boycotting McD. and in PL McD pays not that bad money (in compare to other, but not mythical average salary), at least as i know.
and i'm agree with Aims.
and about petitions:

When I was back there in seminary school,
There was a person there
Who put forth the proposition,
That you can petition the lord with prayer
Petition the lord with prayer,
Petition the lord with prayer
You cannot petition the lord with prayer!

[nowayjose]

If you don't pay your workers properly even though you can, you are a parasite on society.

[eastmidswhizzkid]

If they get the wage award then won't McDonalds employ less staff to work even harder to keep the wage bill low?

mcdonalds can afford to pay staff more ££/$$'s but it cannot afford to employ less than is necessary to serve the turnover of customers it enjoys. unfortunately there are too many people globally who are desperate for work so without any major coercion -ie mimimum wage laws- they can pay what they want. however that turnover of customers is important to them so widescale expressed disapproval of their practices by those very customers is something that they cannot become complacent about have to at least be seen to consider.

Petitions frustrate me as a tactic (the explosion of social media has made them lower impact because they're easier to pull off), but will respect whatever the workers themselves call for. If you don't feel you can support this particular struggle for lack of being a McCustomer, try to support similar ones in your own workplace or local area.

exactly my sentiment; especially as many people with a strong sense of social (in)justice often shy away from more er.. aggressive negotiations, whether out of pacifist beliefs or plain fear of the state's control methods, thus leaving peaceful-protest as the only other effective form of direct action. it's still better than doing sod all.
whatever we each do to register our dissatifaction with "the state of things" is up to ourselves at the end of the day.

always
Lee

[Being645]

fair point East, but i still don't feel it. i'm already boycotting McD. and in PL McD pays not that bad money (in compare to other, but not mythical average salary), at least as i know.
and i'm agree with Aims.
and about petitions:

When I was back there in seminary school,
There was a person there
Who put forth the proposition,
That you can petition the lord with prayer
Petition the lord with prayer,
Petition the lord with prayer
You cannot petition the lord with prayer!

Oh, I didn't know that McDonalds, Walmart and plenty others (including numbers of smaller companies)

all around the world are in total a new manifestation of The Lord ... ... Good Heavens !!! ... ...

Though, of course, that's what they want to make believe...

[markfiend]

There is power in a factory, power in the land
Power in the hands of a worker
But it all amounts to nothing if together we don't stand
There is power in a Union

Now the lessons of the past were all learned with workers' blood
The mistakes of the bosses we must pay for
From the cities and the farmlands to trenches full of mud
War has always been the bosses' way, sir

The Union forever defending our rights
Down with the blackleg, all workers unite
With our brothers and our sisters from many far off lands
There is power in a Union

Now I long for the morning that they realise
Brutality and unjust laws can not defeat us
But who'll defend the workers who cannot organise
When the bosses send their lackies out to cheat us?

Money speaks for money, the Devil for his own
Who comes to speak for the skin and the bone
What a comfort to the widow, a light to the child
There is power in a Union

The Union forever defending our rights
Down with the blackleg, all workers unite
With our brothers and out sisters from many far off lands
There is power in a Union.

[EvilBastard]

Maybe I'm stepping out of a capitalist closet here, but...if you worked for the same company for 10 years, and didn't get a salary bump, wouldn't you want to leave and go and find better-paid employment?

Salary increases for the sake of long service isn't how it works - if you increase your value to the company, perhaps by taking on more responsibilities, then the company pays you more. If you are content to do the same job year in, year out, then why should you expect to be paid more?

Minimum wage was never designed to be a long-term solution - it was introduced to make sure that a single person had enough to live on while they got themselves on and up the ladder. But that person has to want to get on and up.

Ultimately, McD's answers to its shareholders. Instead of signing a petition (which as has been pointed out, won't achieve very much), buy a share in the company(currently about $100). This entitles you to show up at the annual stockholders' meeting and make as much noise and fuss as you like about what the company pays its employees. Maybe you'll get some other shareholders who agree with you, and together you can get enough votes to get yourself a seat on the board. Then you can make whatever changes you can get enough votes for. That's how it works.

Alternatively, boycott the company. You and maybe 150,000 of your friends will make a difference. You'll bite into company profits, and force them to close locations and trim staff. And Ms. Salgado will likely be first against the wall when the firings come - after all, in 10 years she doesn't seem to have increased her value to the company. I'm sure she'll thank you for it.

[nowayjose]

Maybe you'll get some other shareholders who agree with you, and together you can get enough votes to get yourself a seat on the board.

The chances for that to happen are about the same as McD getting stars in the Michelin Guide.

[markfiend]

Maybe I'm stepping out of a capitalist closet here, but...if you worked for the same company for 10 years, and didn't get a salary bump, wouldn't you want to leave and go and find better-paid employment?

Salary increases for the sake of long service isn't how it works - if you increase your value to the company, perhaps by taking on more responsibilities, then the company pays you more. If you are content to do the same job year in, year out, then why should you expect to be paid more?

Minimum wage was never designed to be a long-term solution - it was introduced to make sure that a single person had enough to live on while they got themselves on and up the ladder. But that person has to want to get on and up.

I'm sorry but this "you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps" rhetoric is bullshıt. For most people the simple reality is that they have no alternative to the job they do (if they're lucky enough to have a job at all).

The purpose of capitalism, as it is increasingly becoming clear, is to make a tiny minority wealthy at the expense of everyone else. The companies want you poor so that you'll accept working for subsistence-level wages; they'd prefer you in debt (via student loans or failing that via your debt to private healthcare) so that you're too frightened to do anything that might risk your job. "Austerity" is not an attempt to ease "national debt", it's being done for ideological reasons for the benefit of the politicians' corporate owners.

It's no accident that the most profitable country for capitalism in the world right now is the one with the "communist" authoritarian government where the workers' choice is quite literally "do your job or die". This is where the naked profit-motive brings us.

[Being645]

Salary increases for the sake of long service isn't how it works - if you increase your value to the company, perhaps by taking on more responsibilities, then the company pays you more. If you are content to do the same job year in, year out, then why should you expect to be paid more?

... ...

Yeah, salary increases for the sake of long service was how it worked for the idiot generations of your Dad, but clearly not for the hero of you and your offspring!

You will surely increase your value to the company by taking on more responsibilities ... and that's great, because you might replace one or better two of your fat and lazy colleagues

and will fairly be honoured for your effort with a further load of responsibilities at the same pay and with one of the dismissed returning as a temporary for half the wage,

but hell, that's today's cool Darwinist entertainment, child ... ...

[EvilBastard]

I'm sorry but this "you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps" rhetoric is bullshıt. For most people the simple reality is that they have no alternative to the job they do (if they're lucky enough to have a job at all).

That's a fair point - but why is there no alternative? Is it a failure of the education system to equip these people with the skills? Is it a personal failure to take advantage of the opportunities on offer? Is it simply bad luck or poor judgement that have resulted in people being stuck in a destructive cycle? Increasing wages might solve the immediate problem, but it does nothing in the long run - so we wind up with another generation of workers either failed by the system or who lack examples that might help them to make better decisions.

The purpose of capitalism, as it is increasingly becoming clear, is to make a tiny minority wealthy at the expense of everyone else.

If we accept this to be true, what's the alternative? Yes, we could put laws in place that mandate that a CEO is only paid x times what the lowest-paid employee make, perhaps. But at that point you end up with governments running business, and the only thing worse than capitalism is the government getting involved in the business of money. That way lies British Leyland and nationalised industry, neither of which is very appealing.
So what are you proposing? What's a real alternative to capitalism? Everything that has been tried so far would suggest that capitalism is the worst system apart from all the others.
And in your analysis, how does this tiny minority make its pots of cash? It can only do it if people spend money to buy the things it makes. It can only do this if...people have the money to do so. So making the rest of the people poorer doesn't help the rich. Quite the reverse.

Yeah, salary increases for the sake of long service was how it worked for the idiot generations of your Dad, but clearly not for the hero of you and your offspring!

Nope, didn't work for my dad, or for his - they weren't lucky enough to work in an industry where people were paid without producing results. I'm thinking anything owned or run by a government, or where 1970s-style unions held sway. When long service is rewarded, and long-serving employees are overly-protected, you end up with a system like France's where senior employees who are not producing cannot be shunted out, which means that young people are forced into the very Mac-jobs that you object to, because employers can't afford to hire them.

There's a really good article in The Economist (November 9 edition) that looks at the issue of low pay. It argues that in times of economic prosperity an increase in the minimum wage is positive and doesn't increase unemployment. However, when the economic climate is as it is today,

Higher prices in the shops have not translated into profits for Britain’s firms. A host of input costs—from oil and plastics to cereals and meat—have risen. Small firms struggle with borrowing costs; big ones are bolstering balance sheets, not paying big dividends. Firms are not flush: the trade-off between pay and jobs is a real one.

That means making workers more costly would be dangerous. Unemployment is down because hiring is up, not because firing is down. Forcing wages higher and making contracts more rigid (another of the Labour leader’s plans) puts that at risk. Mr Miliband has spotted a problem, but his solution falls short. Britain needs stronger competition enforcement in cosy markets to lower prices. It needs investment, R&D and better education to lift productivity. If Britain’s political parties were to prioritise these, wages would rise.

Should people be forced to take jobs that leave them in penury? Of course not. Will throwing money at the problem solve it? I don't believe so. Bizarre though it may seem, you cannot solve the problem of poverty simply by giving people money.

[markfiend]

Is it a personal failure to take advantage of the opportunities on offer?

What opportunities on offer? The youth unemployment rate (those aged 16-24) in the UK is 21% (source). There simply are no jobs for young people.

I fail to see how proper regulation of business is "governments running business" as you put it. My mind boggles at the idea that "the government getting involved in the business of money" is, in your view, a bad thing. Can you tell me precisely what is wrong with (for example) SNCF? I'd certainly prefer a system like that to the UK's privatised rail network. And I'd certainly prefer a state-run NHS like the one we almost still have in the UK to the horror of the US's private health-"care" system, where a single injury or illness can leave someone bankrupt.

And in your analysis, how does this tiny minority make its pots of cash? It can only do it if people spend money to buy the things it makes. It can only do this if...people have the money to do so. So making the rest of the people poorer doesn't help the rich. Quite the reverse.

They get rich (at the moment) by having their government puppets start wars in the Middle East and profiteering from those wars. They don't need us to spend anything when their corruption buys them government "defense" contracts.

There's a really good article in The Economist (November 9 edition) that looks at the issue of low pay. It argues that in times of economic prosperity an increase in the minimum wage is positive and doesn't increase unemployment. However, when the economic climate is as it is today,

Interesting that they mention pressures on small business... but that's not the sort of business I'm talking about. The plutocracy doesn't care whether small busineses succeed or fail; it's the multinational megacorporations that matter.

Britain needs [...] investment, R&D and better education to lift productivity.

I wouldn't argue with that. On the other hand, why is the British government slashing spending on... investment, R&D and education?

Bizarre though it may seem, you cannot solve the problem of poverty simply by giving people money.

Nonsense.

[EvilBastard]

What opportunities on offer? The youth unemployment rate (those aged 16-24) in the UK is 21% (source). There simply are no jobs for young people.

Rather, there are simply no jobs for which the young people in question are appropriately qualified. A child leaving school at 16 with the minimal qualifications is going to be hard-pressed so find meaningful employment, and it's not going to be much better for the 18-year old. The days of jobs that offered long-term employment to masses of school-leavers is long gone. Docks, steelworks, mines, they don't need an army of strong backs any more. The jobs that these people can get (and we're back to McDonalds) are oversubscribed. I'd love to see the stats on what qualifications are present among youth unemployment (the article doesn't mention this). The British government (that organ which you would like to see responsible for proper regulation of business) has fucked people into a cocked hat, starting around the mid-80s when Britain's refusal to sign up to European employment legislation made it a magnet for employers who could pay people next to nothing, and offer no security. Not sure how keen I am on having them decide what proper regulation is.
Pick up pretty much any trade paper and you'll find a CEO complain that he can't find qualified people to fill the jobs that he's got. Even in skilled trades - carpenters, joiners, brick-layers - the government did away with properly-accredited apprenticeship schemes and now we're complaining about being awash with Polish plumbers. The government has abandoned education (teachers are poorly paid, the good ones get disheartened and leave, the bad ones stay because they're unemployable in the private sector, school facilities are impossibly overstretched, parents don't seem to care about the education that their children receive) and we wonder why youth unemployment is where it is. We're turning out kids that can barely read, write, or count.

They get rich (at the moment) by having their government puppets start wars in the Middle East and profiteering from those wars. They don't need us to spend anything when their corruption buys them government "defense" contracts.

And where does the government get its money from? You and me is where - through taxes. We make more money, we pay more tax (in theory), we finance more wars. Failing that, the government borrows to buy something upon which it cannot expect to make any kind of return (there are returns on investment in education, healthcare, even in public transportation, but armed conflict doesn't yield any returns apart from 6'x3' plots of foreign fields, and dead taxpayers). A business that borrows massively to fund projects upon which it will not get a return will find itself in the poorhouse sooner rather than later. But this is what the government is doing - do you really want them coming up with regulations to govern business? Christ, I wouldn't want them watering my hanging baskets.

Bizarre though it may seem, you cannot solve the problem of poverty simply by giving people money.

Nonsense.

Ok, let's take a look at this. We'll take our friend, Nancy Salgado - she makes $8.25 an hour, which this source says means she's in poverty (assuming she works less than 30 hours a week or so). So let's give her some money - $10,000? Is that enough? Ok, we'll give her $100,000. Then what? Does this mean she's not poor anymore? What happens when she's spent the $100,000, and she's still working her $8.25/hour job. What have we accomplished? Sweet FA - we've spend a lot of money and we've got bugger all for it. now we're in Government Thinking territory. So we'll spend more, and more, and more, and wonder why life doesn't get any better for these people. The solution to poverty is not to give money to poor people. The solution lies in providing people with the skills with which they can avoid poverty (it won't work for everyone, but it will certainly work for most). Equip them with skills, give them the opportunities to acquire education and training - this is simple economics. Spend $100,000 on training programs and assistance that will help Ms. Salgado find a better-paid job, and reap the benefits in higher tax revenues, better social cohesion, her kids (if she has any) will probably perform better in school (and so find better-paying jobs and pay more taxes).
But right now the government is too busy spending money it doesn't have on things it will get no return from - this is not the group of people we want telling business how to run themselves - and wringing their hands about poor people. The government loves poor people - it gives them a reason to pass misguided and badly-conceived social programs that will win votes in the near term but will leave the country in the crapper. What amazes me is that poor people still turn to the government for help when it's the government that f**cked them over in the first place.

[Being645]

When long service is rewarded, and long-serving employees are overly-protected, you end up with a system like France's where senior employees who are not producing cannot be shunted out, which means that young people are forced into the very Mac-jobs that you object to, because employers can't afford to hire them. .

Sorry, I just can't identify what you mean by "producing"? Senior employees were called uneffective in order to present a reason to get rid of them - for the sake of the obviously inalienable prescription to increase profits by a certain percentage each year, and the more the better. It's not about keeping a working system running, but about getting ever more out of all resources available at the preferrably least cost. That and nothing else is the logic of the market - competition. It's got nothing to do with necessities or needs or humanity. All that counts is who is first, who's the leader, who owns the most and who has the power ... a remains of humanity's animal inheritance and another side-effect of monotheism, IMHO ... what a poor outcome given we're in the 21 century ...

There's a really good article in The Economist (November 9 edition) that looks at the issue of low pay. It argues that in times of economic prosperity an increase in the minimum wage is positive and doesn't increase unemployment. However, when the economic climate is as it is today, .

... Minimum wages oughta to be established in law, and if only for one reason - otherwise employers had people (productive livestock or human capital [chose which term might suit you]) work for them even without any wage, if only that were possible, in order to raise profits. Minimum wages is the least a government can do to fulfil their job, i.e. protect their citizens from damage and hardship (which btw, is the proclaimed reason why we all allegedly had better integrate and surrender our lives to a certain degree to some sort of state. Basically it is THE justification of any political entity ruling a group of people, a people, a nation or whatever one might call it: security, protection, support, in short by delivering something in return for people's adhering to that state and law) ... Of course, nowadays governments are becoming ever more the corrupt cattle dealers of the markets, happy to make some profits for their cousins in the economy, anyway ... the rest is lie.

Higher prices in the shops have not translated into profits for Britain’s firms. A host of input costs—from oil and plastics to cereals and meat—have risen. Small firms struggle with borrowing costs; big ones are bolstering balance sheets, not paying big dividends. Firms are not flush: the trade-off between pay and jobs is a real one.

That means making workers more costly would be dangerous. Unemployment is down because hiring is up, not because firing is down. Forcing wages higher and making contracts more rigid (another of the Labour leader’s plans) puts that at risk. Mr Miliband has spotted a problem, but his solution falls short. Britain needs stronger competition enforcement in cosy markets to lower prices. It needs investment, R&D and better education to lift productivity. If Britain’s political parties were to prioritise these, wages would rise.

Oh hell, The Economist - always the propaganda paper of, yeah, the economy ... high prices and low wages will surely not result in profits, since poor people are forced into buying cheap products. It's a question of standards, and of international standards. Countries allow low-price products into their markets which are produced at the cost of the workforce and the environment, and in disregard of any international standards in the country of origin to have them sell to the poor in their own markets to avoid reasonable wages (and meaningful lives) for the ocean of productive livestock and to make way for domestic companies to sell their products to those very foreign markets. Profit is all that counts. Sometimes I wonder why in hell countries like Britain or Germany or the US or whoever ever signed human rights treaties stipulating rights like the right to an adequate standard of living, the rights to food, water, health, education, committing themselves to achieving standards - not abolishing them - which in the long run can't but counteract endless further annual increases of profits (if not all countries abide to these standards and can do so completely unobstructed)?

Should people be forced to take jobs that leave them in penury? Of course not. Will throwing money at the problem solve it? I don't believe so. Bizarre though it may seem, you cannot solve the problem of poverty simply by giving people money.

In Germany people ARE forced to take jobs that leave them in penury - and by law! If you reject, you are no longer entitled to any benefit at all, i.e. no more money at all, not for food, not for your flat or anything ... they can in fact send you into homelessness!!! So of course, people do take up such jobs, if they are offered to them (employer would surely tell if they didn't !) - and consequently receive state benefits (again) up to the subsistence level. Hah. There are two questions now: a) Who profits? and b) Who is productive here, by what means and at what cost ? ... oh, and yes there are a few minor further questions like What is a live worth living? and Does every "creature" have a right to it? The UDHR says yes, but hell ... paper is patient, markets are not.

[Nikolas Vitus Lagartija]

Am all for a living wage but always feel that McDonald's seem to come for a kicking as the unacceptable face of multinational global capitalism which seems a little unfair. In the UK at least they do seem to listen to criticism, changing their menu to include veggie food and healthier options for example and are able to move with the times. They raise cash for their own hospices and are one of the few "treat" options for a breadline parent. There must be more deserving companies for a boycott who treat customers and employees with equal disdain. Just saying.

[markfiend]

IIRC The Vegetarian Society has refused to classify any food in McDonald's UK as vegetarian. About the only thing they can guarantee is free from animal products is a black coffee.

[Nikolas Vitus Lagartija]

IIRC The Vegetarian Society has refused to classify any food in McDonald's UK as vegetarian. About the only thing they can guarantee is free from animal products is a black coffee.

Indeed that was the case for a while and as a veggie myself I was horrified to learn that the Spicy Veggie Wrap was not fully vegetarian ! However, they have made changes and now this, fries, and many other items (including Dairy Milk McFlurry and, less surprisingly, a bag of carrot sticks) are now approved by the VegSoc.

[aims]

On the original point, this is more than a bit surreal:

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/arc ... rs/281610/

[markfiend]

IIRC The Vegetarian Society has refused to classify any food in McDonald's UK as vegetarian. About the only thing they can guarantee is free from animal products is a black coffee.

Indeed that was the case for a while and as a veggie myself I was horrified to learn that the Spicy Veggie Wrap was not fully vegetarian ! However, they have made changes and now this, fries, and many other items (including Dairy Milk McFlurry and, less surprisingly, a bag of carrot sticks) are now approved by the VegSoc.

I stand corrected.