Sunday, September 7, 2014

Fast-Food Worker Strikes Aren't What They Appear To Be

By Diana Furchtgott-Roth

Americans today will see photos of fast-food worker demonstrations on national news and think the employees themselves are going on strike.

Americans will conclude that the demonstrations are a spontaneous display of employee dissatisfaction with wages. In fact, the strikes are being organized by unions and unelected worker centers that are desperate to attract new members, even at a cost of leaving millions of Americans unemployed.

The Service Employees International Union’s worker center, Fast Food Forward, also known as Fight for 15, is calling the nationwide strike to demand $15-an-hour wages and a union. Most fast-food workers make more than the hourly minimum wage of $7.25.

Speaking in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Labor Day, President Obama said of the Fight for 15 movement: “All across the country right now there’s a national movement going on made up of fast-food workers organizing to lift wages so they can provide for their families with pride and dignity.”

The push for a $15-an-hour minimum wage, an increase of over 100%, shows the strikes are more about style than substance. Few people go on strike to double their pay. Why doesn’t the SEIU target the retail or agriculture sectors? Don’t those workers deserve $15 an hour too?

Read the rest here.

1 comment:

  1. If they are somehow successful in their "protest" most of these people are going to be out of work within a year because employers will cut back on their work forces.

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