Why should a McDonalds employee make $15 an hour?

[Incompl]

Its not fair, I work hard and got my degree (and with it student loan debt) but these McDonald employees want as much money as a dental assistant!

My girlfriend started out as a nurse making $20 bucks an hour, worked her ass off in school to get that job. But even taxes and loans she isn't making even $15 an hour.

People should learn how to live frugally, getting more money is not an entitlement or a right.

No one is entitled to big screen TVs or cars. If you can't afford a car take the bus.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

I think, for one, you're directing your frustrations in the wrong direction. Why should a person need to accumulate debt to acquire socially useful skills? Education ought to be free - not reserved for those who can afford it.

Secondly, what is particularly more valuable about a dental assistant than a McDonald's employee? Do dental assistants not eat hamburgers? I've certainly - as a minimum wage employee without a dental plan - found myself benefiting far more from the labour of service workers than I have from dental assistants. In fact, if dental assistants (and for that matter, dentists) dropped dead en masse tomorrow, it would make absolutely no difference in my life. The same could not be said of minimum wage workers.

Now, I by no means want to denigrate the labour of dentists or dental assistants. Rather, I simply want to demonstrate the ridiculous character of wages as an organizing principle of labour in society. In an economy that made sense, I would benefit from the existence of dental assistants, minimum wage wouldn't be a sentence to shitty tooth problems, and nobody would would have to fight pointlessly over which bit of the "whole" of what society makes is "more valuable".

[Rafiq]

Its not fair, I work hard and got my degree (and with it student loan debt) but these McDonald employees want as much money as a dental assistant!

All this demonstrates is the fact that dental assistants would be paid more inevitably - because the labor market would decrease for them. To add, most dental assistants, like interns, aspire to move up in their respective jobs. That's how it works for professionals.

Meanwhile, a minimum wage of 8 dollars, or even 10 is *simply* not livable. It's not a matter of affording flatscreens: this isn't money you can actually live on, which is why it usually takes more than one minimum wage job to. And to be clear, it is POSSIBLE. So what do you have to say? Why should anyone care about your standard of fairness, when people have the opportunity to greatly increase their quality of life? Certainly, even 15 an hour isn't THAT much for most people anyway, especially if they're raising kids. It is, however, a living wage. To add, the point isn't only about minimum wage workers, who compromise around 3% of the work force, but strengthening the power of labor in general (i.e. better pay for workers in other fields would inevitably follow).

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

Have YOU ever worked a ten hour day in a hot kitchen, working a fryer or a griddle?

Because I have, and lemme tell you, it is VERY intense labor. Oh sure, it may not be quite as complicated as dentistry, but the labor can still be especially grueling...even during 'slow' days!

[#FF0000]

Its not fair, I work hard and got my degree (and with it student loan debt) but these McDonald employees want as much money as a dental assistant!

You know that a raise in the minimum wage would raise the wage floor, putting upward pressure on wages in general, making it easier (and more likely for people on the 15 an hour level already) to get raises? You realize this, right?


People should learn how to live frugally, getting more money is not an entitlement or a right.

First, the poor live more frugally than you'll ever know. People are not poor because they spend too much on luxuries -- they're poor because they are not paid enough to cover basic expenses to survive. Secondly, we're of the opinion that labor is entitled to everything it creates. All value comes from labor, and profits are stolen wages.


No one is entitled to big screen TVs or cars. If you can't afford a car take the bus.

You're pretty out of touch if you think people want cars, actually.

Ultimately it comes down to this -- nobody who gives their time to an employer should be in poverty, and what you're saying is that fast food employees don't deserve shelter and food. Beyond this, fast food workers getting this raise helps everyone because, like all wage increases, it puts upward pressure on wages across the board. Especially when it's workers in such a large industry.

[#FF0000]

No one tell OP that people who used to shovel coal into furnaces, a job less "skilled" even than fast food" got 13 an hour though. His little heart couldn't take it.

[Q]

The OP is quite obviously a troll. I mean, seriously.

But hey, good replies nonetheless. Well done community.

[cyu]

An anarcho-syndicalist might ask, why shouldn't McDonalds employees show up to work holding shotguns, and run it themselves?

http://www.uncanny.net/~wetzel/workit.JPG

[A Revolutionary Tool]

I can never understand people like this. They look around at the world, see how messed up it is for them and then when they see other people fighting back complain about how they shouldn't make any gains because they're also getting screwed over by the system.

Instead of looking at an example of people fighting back trying to make their lives better, they look at it and say "hey that's not fair, I live almost as shitty, these people need to learn their place, they're below me."

If you don't want fast food workers making $15/hour just stay away from fast food, maybe the market will "correct itself". Also stay away from Walmart and restaurants that pay at our below minimum wage most of the time, gas stations, don't take your girlfriend to the movies either. I'm sure your life will be just as easy once you take the labor of those making less than $15/hour to provide services for you out of your life, I mean it's so easy right?

[Counterculturalist]

Assuming the OP isn't a troll...

This is a far-left board. Of course we support increasing the minimum wage. But I would guess that the majority of us look forward to abolishing the wage system, and capital in general, altogether.

What do you think of the idea of nobody getting paid for anything?

What if people could make it their life's work to do what they love?

OK... Nobody loves to work in a fast-food restaurant, but some people love to cook for others.

I spent years in an automotive factory, and hated every minute of it, and so did everybody else there. But some of my coworkers loved tinkering with cars in their garage in their free time.

I wouldn't last ten minutes as a landscaper or gardener, but I have a friend who loves the spring because it gives him a chance to catch up on yardwork, which he absolutely adores doing.

There are enough resources to go around, and there are enough different kinds of people in the world for most any job to get done, by people who would enjoy it.

You'll probably dismiss all of this out of hand, but it's another way to look at things.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Its not fair, I work hard and got my degree (and with it student loan debt) but these McDonald employees want as much money as a dental assistant!

My girlfriend started out as a nurse making $20 bucks an hour, worked her ass off in school to get that job. But even taxes and loans she isn't making even $15 an hour.

People should learn how to live frugally, getting more money is not an entitlement or a right.

No one is entitled to big screen TVs or cars. If you can't afford a car take the bus.

God, young spetsy (or people who pretend to be young spetsy) are the worst. Life is not a morality play where everyone gets what they "deserve", measured by some average of how wealthy their parents were and how much they've ruined their social life and health working for other people's profit. The bourgeoisie want material wealth, so they use their social power to extract profit from the workers and ensure their possessions. The proletariat wants material wealth, so it uses - not nearly enough - its social power to fight for reforms and eventually to overthrow the bourgeoisie (and the bloody spetsy). If you find this outrageous, rest assured that one of the first acts of insurrection is the workers' denying their labour to the unnecessary classes. Then you'll see that you can't eat this Protestant work ethic bullshit, and how important workers in the food industry are.

[Ele'ill]

Its not fair, I work hard and got my degree (and with it student loan debt) but these McDonald employees want as much money as a dental assistant!

ok so you and your girlfriend made bad personal business decisions and instead of getting a job in fast food you wasted a huge part of your life entertaining a fantasy that isn't real. Maybe go on craigslist and search for fast food jobs?

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

People should learn how to live frugally, getting more money is not an entitlement or a right.
You do realize that this is a revolutionary leftist board and not a conservative board, right? There should be no objection to any worker getting more money under the existing system, even as we work to abolish that system.

[MarxistWorld]

From a pure humanist, compassionate, christian-progressive, point of view, not only Mcdonalds, workers should earn a lot of money so that they can take their children to Disney World in summer, go to movies on weekends, and live a life with pleasures. But the 7 billion human souls should all enjoy wealth and pleasures. That's from a humane, compassionate loving point of view.

And we as leftists should be humane, loving and compassionate with the 7 billion humans, and with all living species.

And by the way if fast food workers get 15 dollars per hour, and many other workers will not get a raise to 15 dollars per hour. The problem is the capitalist system as a whole. In capitalism things are not universal (100% of the population). Because capitalism is a system of favoritism, of only benefiting isolated sectors of society and not the universal 100% population.

And that's why in America which has a capitalist system, baseball players, celebrities, doctors, lawyers and some other sectors live like kings. While many other sectors which are important (like cooks, drivers, etc) live like slaves.

So the solution for your worries (about Mcdonalds and fast food workers being able to earn 15 dollars per hour, while many other workers will not get that raise, and will probably be forced to keep earning 7 dollars per hour, or the minimum wage), the solution is the overthrow of the dictatorship of the capitalist class we have in America, to be replaced by a dictatorship of the working class




Its not fair, I work hard and got my degree (and with it student loan debt) but these McDonald employees want as much money as a dental assistant!

My girlfriend started out as a nurse making $20 bucks an hour, worked her ass off in school to get that job. But even taxes and loans she isn't making even $15 an hour.

People should learn how to live frugally, getting more money is not an entitlement or a right.

No one is entitled to big screen TVs or cars. If you can't afford a car take the bus.

[Bala Perdida]

Is this a restriction? They haven't come back so it looks like they made the account specifically for this and only this, not even a good troll. Although if nothing happens to them I won't care, just seems like a waste of a profile.

[RedMaterialist]

Its not fair, I work hard and got my degree (and with it student loan debt) but these McDonald employees want as much money as a dental assistant!

My girlfriend started out as a nurse making $20 bucks an hour, worked her ass off in school to get that job. But even taxes and loans she isn't making even $15 an hour.

People should learn how to live frugally, getting more money is not an entitlement or a right.

No one is entitled to big screen TVs or cars. If you can't afford a car take the bus.

Now that you have your degree you can go up to clerks at towing companies and tell them how shitty their lives are. Although I don't recommend you do that to a McDonald's worker.

[John Nada]

Its not fair, I work hard and got my degree (and with it student loan debt) but these McDonald employees want as much money as a dental assistant!I know. It's fucking bullshit!:rolleyes: McDonald's workers AND dental assistants should both get paid more. $15 ain't enough, take the whole damn office and restaurant!:grin:
My girlfriend started out as a nurse making $20 bucks an hour, worked her ass off in school to get that job. But even taxes and loans she isn't making even $15 an hour.Damn, all that studying and paying for her own training. Almost as bad as living off $7/hr, or $2 a day in the rest of the world.:lol:

Capitalist are exploiting the fuck out of every worker! You and your partner should join the fastfood workers, other exploited medical workers and the workers of the world, and take the stole profits back from the capitalsts!
People should learn how to live frugally, getting more money is not an entitlement or a right.Yes, taking surplus value from workers isn't a right from God. The capitalist parasites must learn to live like a worker.
No one is entitled to big screen TVs or cars. If you can't afford a car take the bus.No one's entitled to shit under capitalism except the rich. If the bourgeoisie won't let the workers have cars and TV, they'll seize them and the fucking bus too.

OP may be a troll, but I've seriously heard some workers say almost the same thing. Why they don't think we all should have more, instead of everyone else getting less?

[Mr. Piccolo]

Most of the posters have covered the relevant territory on this issue, but I will say that one of the objectives of higher education in capitalist society is to create a group of hardassed people who think that just because they went through "X" amount of schooling they are better than "lowly" fast food workers and similar folk, and God forbid if any of these lowly people demand more pay or better working conditions, because "I suffered through school!" This, of course, works out great for the capitalists because they can pit different types of workers against each other.

Yes, school can be difficult and arduous, but is it any more arduous than trying to raise a family on minimum wage jobs? I know it is a shocker to many people, but some people cannot go to school and become doctors or lawyers because they have immediate, pressing needs, so they have to sell their labor power immediately. They are not going into low-paying jobs or internships with the hope of moving up the professional ladder at some point. For many people fast food and similar jobs are what they do as a livelihood. Its not just a stepping stone to a better job; there is no ladder to move up. So it makes perfect sense for fast food workers to demand pay raises and superior benefits, because for many these just aren't temporary positions to be discarded eventually.

[cyu]

OP may be a troll, but I've seriously heard some workers say almost the same thing.


http://meetville.com/images/quotes/Quotation-Karl-Marx-age-ideas-Meetville-Quotes-141859.jpg

Marx's observation will even be true in the post-capitalist world. The only way to prevent the indoctrination of the past would basically be a classless society.

[MarxistWorld]

Mr: You are right, there is a lot of psychologic sociologic oppression of high-wage workers who have college degrees and/or drive better cars, have better physical appearance, and live in middle class neighborhoods against lower-class people, workers and unemployed who are poorer, drive older cars and have lower living conditions. I live in a neighborhood of lower class people mixed with lower-middle class people. And the problem is that both the lower layer of the middle class and the lower-class people around where I live are forced to buy grocery in the same supermarket. And when I shop at the supermarket of my neighborhood, I've noticed by observing their facial expressions, their body language and physical attitude of how self-absorbed, stuck-up, and unfriendly are the lower-middle class people (like nurses who by the way love to do their groceries with their nursing uniforms (in order to get a sense of superiority compared with poorer shoppers), bank workers who seem to mee stuck-up and self-absorbed, and last but not least white blonde thin women, who think that just because they are anglosaxon, white and blonde and thin are superior over blacks, latinos and white poor shoppers.

I am poor, and that's why I've noticed and experienced the deep hatred that lower-middle class people and middle class people have against me (an irrational hatred, maybe it is an automatic behaviour script learned from bourgeoise middle class movies, of Adam Sandler, Ben Siller, George Clooney, Tom Cruise etc, you know movies that depict and paint the upper classes and middle classes like wonderful moralist real loving people.

Specially nurses, hospital workers like nurses and other clinics employees who shop at Wal Marts and grocery stores with their uniforms behave like if they are real famous people. Like if they are Tom Cruise, Justin Biber, Paris Hilton and Jennifer Lopez

There is a lot of that type of oppression in USA. There are too many categories in USA, lots of group-narcissism, lots of sectarianism, and that excess of categories, divisions, sub-divisions etc is what makes USA a hell of hatred where the general population lives within a cold war hating people who do not belong to their specific group






Most of the posters have covered the relevant territory on this issue, but I will say that one of the objectives of higher education in capitalist society is to create a group of hardassed people who think that just because they went through "X" amount of schooling they are better than "lowly" fast food workers and similar folk, and God forbid if any of these lowly people demand more pay or better working conditions, because "I suffered through school!" This, of course, works out great for the capitalists because they can pit different types of workers against each other.

Yes, school can be difficult and arduous, but is it any more arduous than trying to raise a family on minimum wage jobs? I know it is a shocker to many people, but some people cannot go to school and become doctors or lawyers because they have immediate, pressing needs, so they have to sell their labor power immediately. They are not going into low-paying jobs or internships with the hope of moving up the professional ladder at some point. For many people fast food and similar jobs are what they do as a livelihood. Its not just a stepping stone to a better job; there is no ladder to move up. So it makes perfect sense for fast food workers to demand pay raises and superior benefits, because for many these just aren't temporary positions to be discarded eventually.

[Mr. Piccolo]

Mr: You are right, there is a lot of psychologic sociologic oppression of high-wage workers who have college degrees and/or drive better cars, have better physical appearance, and live in middle class neighborhoods against lower-class people, workers and unemployed who are poorer, drive older cars and have lower living conditions. I live in a neighborhood of lower class people mixed with lower-middle class people. And the problem is that both the lower layer of the middle class and the lower-class people around where I live are forced to buy grocery in the same supermarket. And when I shop at the supermarket of my neighborhood, I've noticed by observing their facial expressions, their body language and physical attitude of how self-absorbed, stuck-up, and unfriendly are the lower-middle class people (like nurses who by the way love to do their groceries with their nursing uniforms (in order to get a sense of superiority compared with poorer shoppers), bank workers who seem to mee stuck-up and self-absorbed, and last but not least white blonde thin women, who think that just because they are anglosaxon, white and blonde and thin are superior over blacks, latinos and white poor shoppers.

I am poor, and that's why I've noticed and experienced the deep hatred that lower-middle class people and middle class people have against me (an irrational hatred, maybe it is an automatic behaviour script learned from bourgeoise middle class movies, of Adam Sandler, Ben Siller, George Clooney, Tom Cruise etc, you know movies that depict and paint the upper classes and middle classes like wonderful moralist real loving people.

Specially nurses, hospital workers like nurses and other clinics employees who shop at Wal Marts and grocery stores with their uniforms behave like if they are real famous people. Like if they are Tom Cruise, Justin Biber, Paris Hilton and Jennifer Lopez

There is a lot of that type of oppression in USA. There are too many categories in USA, lots of group-narcissism, lots of sectarianism, and that excess of categories, divisions, sub-divisions etc is what makes USA a hell of hatred where the general population lives within a cold war hating people who do not belong to their specific group

Yes, I have friends who are like this, so I know what you are talking about. I think it is the socialization of people in certain education and occupational settings. From what my friends in healthcare say, healthcare is an especially tough field with a lot of educational and job related stress and strict hierarchies, so it seems like a breeding ground for this type of labor aristocratic snobbishness. I don't want to pick on healthcare workers, though, because I see it in other professions too.

I would guess that for many workers, being able to lord it over poorer workers is one of the benefits they expected to get from their education, along with a higher wage. Capitalist education and media fuels this thinking with its constant barrage of propaganda that sets workers against each other.

[Rafiq]

The problem, ultimately boils down to the insistence that the demand for higher wages should be done in consideration of the holistic well being of society as a whole. But alas, we don't live in a society where the economic relations, and their implications, have holistic considerations to the slightest. The capitalist maximizes profit without any considerations whatsoever for any abstract ethical values, or any holistic societal conditions whatsoever. Why should wage-earning workers? The point is that an established hierarchy is in place, wherein fast food workers are "losers" who by default should be forced to live in humiliation and degradation, so that you, presumably, a 'successful' yuppie can have a caste of people to scold at. The bourgeois scum think that we're doing precisely this - taking stupid holistic moral considerations in account, but they fail to realize that the working people make the majority - they literally are acting on behalf of no one but themselves.

Why should this hierarchy be respected? No one has any illusions that the minimum wage laws, if successful, will succeed out of fear or pressure, not convincing capitalists of its moral superiority. The most compelling arguments against the minimum wage concerns the fact that a sizable portion are teenagers still dependent on their parents, many of which already come from wealthy backgrounds. While they might be a sizable minority, they don't make up the majority which do have to support themselves and furthermore, as already mentioned, the point is strengthening the power of labor all together.

I mean, the universal, unconditional basic income was something that many were willing to fight for - which would essentially give people a means of life with or without a job. I think that fifteen dollars an hour, in comparison, is a rather modest demand.

[MarxistWorld]

Mr Piccolo: You know maybe I guess that another reason of why high-wage middle class workers have an irrational hatred against lower class workers, and lower class people in general. Might be that because high-wage workers are still oppressed (nurses, white collar office workers, etc), just like Mcdonalds low-wage workers, they still feel psychologically, physically and emotionally oppressed (because they are still slaves wage-slaves). Which leads to a feeling in most high-wage workers of pessimism by indignation, a sort of feeling of feeling miserable (because high-wage workers are still oppressed), so instead of pointing their blame and anger against the upper capitalist class (which is armed and more powerful) and harder to attack, what many middle class workers and people do is to point the blame of their miserable and oppressive feeling against the economic class that is more vulnerable, weaker, is not armed and easier to attack. Even the philosopher Homer considered vengeance as sweeter than honey.

I think that happens a lot not only within the working classes and different economic oppressed classes, for instance Israel is an example of that. The Israeli jews have been economically and politically oppressed for hundreds of years, but since they have risen in economic power in the last decades, and maybe because the israeli jews still feel miserable and oppressed. The Israeli government along with a high percentage of the Israeli population, are now pointing their pessimism by indignation against the palestines. Who are weaker and easier to blame

One might think that middle class workers and lower-middle class workers, because of their higher standard of living (like nurses, bank workers, white collar office workers) are supposed to be friendlier, less violent and more loving. But I've noticed that the higher the standard of living, the wealthier the working class is, the more anti-social, more introverted, the more narcissist, the more violent, the more hateful that they are. As opposed to lower class workers and lower class people, who live a stressful life, and even though they live a more painful life, they behave in a friendlier way than middle class professional high-wage workers.

That's why you never see a doctor, or lawyer yuppie with friendly faces in Wal Marts, they behave like psychorigid zombies, like Christian Bale in the movie American Psycho, haha


Yes, I have friends who are like this, so I know what you are talking about. I think it is the socialization of people in certain education and occupational settings. From what my friends in healthcare say, healthcare is an especially tough field with a lot of educational and job related stress and strict hierarchies, so it seems like a breeding ground for this type of labor aristocratic snobbishness. I don't want to pick on healthcare workers, though, because I see it in other professions too.

I would guess that for many workers, being able to lord it over poorer workers is one of the benefits they expected to get from their education, along with a higher wage. Capitalist education and media fuels this thinking with its constant barrage of propaganda that sets workers against each other.

[Armchair Partisan]

I think the question is not "Why should a McDonalds employee make $15 an hour". The question is: "Why not?" Does it hurt you if they do? If so, why aren't the people making $150 an hour bother you a lot more?