The Briefing Room
General Category => Economy/Business => Topic started by: happyg on October 19, 2013, 05:16:09 pm
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By Caroline May
Have the fast food workers demanding higher pay been coached?
A conservative employment think tank says there has been a striking similarity in the media interviews with fast-food workers demanding $15 an hour: they cannot seem to afford shoes.
Employment Policies Institute research director Michael Saltsman told The Daily Caller that the group was spurred to investigate the trend after reports about a recent confrontation over wages between a McDonald’s employee and the CEO of the company “rang a bell.”
The employee who confronted McDonalds’ president Jeff Stratton, Nancy Salgado, said she “can’t provide a pair of shoes like everybody else does” for her children.
“There are a lot of examples out there of people using this exact same thing, of people not being able to afford shoes,” Saltsman told The Daily Caller.
And past articles reveal there are a number of fast food workers who do struggle to buy shoes.
“It’s a struggle. $7.25 an hour, I can barely afford a light bill, or rent, or shoes for my kids,” McDonald’s employee Victoria Price told an NBC News affiliate in Dallas.
“I can’t afford my shoes or afford my rent. Is that how you’re supposed to be living?” Brooklyn-based McDonald’s employee Kareem Starks told MSNBC.
“I can’t afford to buy my kids shoes,” Milwaukee Burger King employee Tessie Harrell told USA Today.
“Terrance Wise has two jobs in Kansas City — one at a burger joint, a second at a pizza restaurant — but he says his paychecks aren’t enough to buy shoes for his three daughters and insure his 15-year-old car,” The Associated Press reported.
“This year I could only buy two of my three kids shoes for school. That feels awful,” McDonald’s employee Daisha Mims said, according to Memphis’ Commercial Appeal.
“I’ll be able to pay my bills and buy my kids clothes at the same time and not have to divide — ‘do I get the kids shoes or what are we going to eat or how am I going to get to work?’” fast food worker Terrell Bullock said to Kansas City’s KCTV.
“McDonald’s makes billions off of our work, but I can’t even buy my daughter new shoes. We need to be making $15 an hour to get by,” Aunyetta Crosby who striked with workers at a McDonalds in Detroit said, according to the Michigan Chronicle.
With a raise, “We won’t have to run out of here and beg for shoes for our children, or backpacks so they can go to school,” Darlene Battle, president of the Delaware Alliance for Community Advancement, said according to Philly.com.
Many of the examples took place over the summer during the nationwide fast food strike pushed by groups like the SEIU and United Food and Commercial Workers.
Saltsman said that while there is no coaching “smoking gun,” the fact that the public relations firm Berlin Rosen represents such of labor unions does make the effort appear less “grassroots.”
The SEIU, United Food and Commercial Workers, and Berlin Rosen did not respond to requests for comment.
Diana Furchtgott-Roth, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, writing at Real Clear Markets in August also noted the oddity of a public relations firm representing low wage food workers.
“Some fast food workers on radio and TV are trained by union PR firms. I had the honor of appearing on National Public Radio with Terrance Wise, a 34-year old fast food worker, who was represented by publicist Berlin Rosen. The firm has an impressive list of union clients, including the SEIU,” Furchtgott-Roth wrote.
And to Saltsman — who explained he spent a lot of time working in the food service industry — while a diverse range of people work in the food service industry he has never met a shoeless one.
“I think this just goes to this idea that the SEIU doesn’t want to have a serious policy discussion about $15 an hour, they just want to put examples out there that make their case, even if they are misleading,” he said.
http://dailycaller.com/2013/10/19/many-fast-food-workers-say-they-struggle-to-buy-shoes/
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Ok, not to sound cruel, but they made their life by screwing around...
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Fast food restaurant were set up to hire young people, or to supplement the spouse's income. Even now, if people work hard enough, they are most likely eligible for raises and promotions. With that said, a ff franchise owner cannot afford to pay $15 per hour, or even $10.
Most of the workers who have children are on some kind of welfare program such as WIC or Food Stamps, along with getting reduced house rent and utilities. If they were get what they want, they would be worse off, and so would everyone. I sure as heck won't pay $6 for a burger that is not a burger!
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SEIU tells them what to say, and they say it.
Meanwhile, there are innumerable local charities providing shoes to those who (truly) can't afford them for their children.
FWIW, I know a minimum wage-earning fellow who just replaced his old 36" TV with a brand new 48" model. Shoes are not a priority item for him. If he needs shoes, I suspect he gets them at the Dollar Store, the Salvation Army or some such discount store. The options are there.
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Only in America do the poor have the latest iPhone, a new 60+ inch LCD/LED TV, and rims on their SUV which cost more than the vehicle.
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Fast food restaurant were set up to hire young people, or to supplement the spouse's income. Even now, if people work hard enough, they are most likely eligible for raises and promotions. With that said, a ff franchise owner cannot afford to pay $15 per hour, or even $10.
Most of the workers who have children are on some kind of welfare program such as WIC or Food Stamps, along with getting reduced house rent and utilities. If they were get what they want, they would be worse off, and so would everyone. I sure as heck won't pay $6 for a burger that is not a burger!
I do see a lot of jobs getting away if the minimum wage goes up. They are being used by the unions.
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Or in the famous words of Marie Antoinette,
"Let them eat shoes."