Chicago Fast Food, Retail Workers Go On Strike, “Fight for $15″

shortlink here: http://wp.me/p2w2NH-mQ  mnemonic here: http://urlet.com/anyway.too

Chicago Fast Food, Retail Workers Go On Strike For Higher Wages

Photo credit: Ryan L. Williams
Hundreds of retail and fast food workers went on a coordinated strike this morning to call for a living wage of $15 an hour and the right to unionize without interference.

http://chicagoist.com/2013/04/24/chicago_fast_food_retail_workers_go.php

Workers Organizing Committee of Chicago issues new report:  A Case for $15:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/115415149/A-Case-for-15

Workers Organizing Committee of Chicago / Fight for 15 – Lucha por 15 WOCC: https://www.facebook.com/Fightfor15

Fast Food Forward (NYC):  https://www.facebook.com/FastFoodForward

#strikefor15, #fightfor15, #fastfoodforward

Occupy Oakland Brings Fast Food Workers “Fight for $15″ to Oakland

shortlink here:  http://wp.me/p2w2NH-mJ   mnemonic here:  http://urlet.com/gamblers.purely

Recently hundreds of fast food workers participated in a wildcat strike in New York City to demand $15/dollars per hour. Now it looks like workers in Chicago are going for it as well. We need to Fight for Fifteen in Oakland!

Rampant gentrification and exploitation abounds in Oakland, with stores run by massively profitable corporations thriving off the labor of workers barely making minimum wage or more, but we know we can’t survive in this town on $8/hr. Bring this class tension to the forefront by fighting for a livable wage!

The May Day Fight for Fifteen assembly is planning for and publicizing a noise demo through downtown Oakland on May 1st aka May Day, the traditional holiday to commemorate workers’ struggles.

http://occupyoakland.org/ai1ec_event/on-may-day-fight-for-15/?instance_id=253364

Fight for 15 – Lucha por 15 WOCC: https://www.facebook.com/Fightfor15 Workers Organizing Committee of Chicago

Fast Food Forward (NYC):  https://www.facebook.com/FastFoodForward

Online Petition: Raise the National Minimum Wage to $10.10 and Index It.

Raise the Minimum Wage   By Roger Hickey (Contact)

To be delivered to: The United States House of Representatives and The United States Senate   Petition Statement

We, the undersigned, urge the leaders of the House and Senate to allow an up-or-down vote on the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2013, which would raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour and then index it to inflation.   Petition Background

4.4 million Americans currently earn the federal minimum wage of $7.25, or less. 284,000 of them are college graduates. Worse, the minimum wage has not kept up with the cost of living. After adjusting for inflation, the minimum wage is lower than it was in 1956.   Raising the minimum wage would not only help the working poor, but also the economy as a whole. According to the Economic Policy Institute, raising the minimum wage to $10.10 would grow the economy by increasing consumer spending, resulting in approximately 140,000 net new jobs over three years.

There are currently 18,575 signatures

http://signon.org/sign/raise-the-minimum-wage-18

Rep. Jason Metsa Lives on Minimum Wage for A Week

For minimum-wage earners in Minnesota, ‘a constant juggling act’

By Michael Moore, St. Paul Union Advocate

April 12, 2013

The state legislator spending a week on minimum wage met Thursday with three Minnesotans for whom the minimum-wage challenge is an everyday reality. Four days into his five-day walk in the shoes of the state’s lowest-paid workers, Rep. Jason Metsa listened as three minimum-wage earners related the experiences Metsa wouldn’t have during his five-day experiment.

Things like health care, housing costs and the unpredictable nature of most low-wage jobs – those are the challenges Avita Samuels, Janiece Watts and Robert Schiff shared with Metsa, the DFLer from Virginia, Minn., who accepted Working America’s challenge to live a week on Minnesota’s minimum wage of $7.25.   A bill in the Minnesota House would boost that minimum wage to $9.95 per hour. Seeing it become law, Samuels said, would mean more than a bigger paycheck; it would mean respect for the work she does.

“I take pride in my job. I want to do the best I can,” the 23-year-old retail worker told Metsa. “I don’t want to have to ask for a higher minimum wage, but I have to.”

40-hour week no guarantee

Metsa’s minimum-wage budget of $290 assumes a 40-hour workweek, but that’s rarely a reality for retail workers like Samuels and Watts.

Samuels, a student at the University of Minnesota, juggles work with school. Watts, who works in a grocery store, found herself in a similar situation until she graduated last year.

Now she juggles work with trying to find another job. “Every so often I pick up some extra hours, but most of the time I work 24 hours per week,” the 24-year-old said.

 

http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/news/2013/04/12/minimum-wage-earners-minnesota-constant-juggling-act

Answer To An Abusive Anti-Worker Post on A Blog

The below is my personal expression of opinion, it is not an official statement of the Eureka Fair Wage Act.

Bill Holmes

shortlink here:  http://wp.me/p38Pt0-7W  mnemonic:  http://urlet.com/mend.graveyard

Anonymous Coward: “You can train monkeys to run equipment these days. They work for bananas, and are probably smarter than most unskilled workers.”

You just keep thinking that way.  Go ahead, go on dissing young workers.  The Republican Party and its war on workers is now below 20% in statewide registrations.  The GOP is California’s newest third party. Decline to State is the new second party.  Demographics – and time – are on my side.

Meanwhile back in Realityville I can tell you that young workers – and I have talked to a shitload of them in the last year – like the idea of making more  money, and they know how hard they are working and under what conditions.

Forty years ago when I was young working in a convenience store was a pretty shitty job.  I did it.  Lots of people do it.  I don’t hold myself above people who are forced to or who choose to work at these kinds of jobs.   These days these kinds of jobs are far shittier than they used to be, to the point of abuse.   For one thing, as technology has progressed, the productivity of each worker has multiplied over the last few decades, thus each dollar paid in wages is producing more wealth for the owners of businesses.  What this means in Realityville is that each worker is now doing the work of five people.   Walk into CVS, each employee there wears many hats.   Checker.  Shelf Stocker.  Janitor.  Manager.  Assistant Manager.  Photo processor.  Health consultant. beauty consultant,  Banker.  Security. oh and my favorite one of you gets to wear a headset and answer phone calls from the public while you are doing your other stuff.  You can multitask can’t you? Oh and be sure to be helpful and pleasant or we’ll can your ass.

And the scheduling is inhuman these days.   Back in the day you would get hired for one of these jobs they would give you a full time schedule – which back then mostly meant 5 days and 40 hours – or they would give you a part time schedule if that was the agreement and that would usually be static.  Same hours and days every week.  Now this is where technology comes into it especially about 10 years ago.  People developed scheduling software to optimize crew sizes for all kinds of businesses, but especially for large fast food and retail employers.  This software enables an employer to statistically estimate future business expectation in the near future on a day by day and hour by hour basis, whiich enables the employer to optimize her crew size (and wage expense) by use of part time workers and the use of split shifts, double shifts and double backs.  It is a practice that is efficient for the employer but one that has no regard for the human workers.  Constant change in working shifts can have severe effects on the physical and mental health of the workers.  Constantly changing shifts make it impossible for even the ambitious worker to go out and find a second job, as they cannot commit to any hours with a second employer.

And of course even full time employees are often scheduled for 6 days a week, but only  5 or 6 hours a day.   Does any reader here need to ask why?

I often hear the labor movement celebrate the 40 hour workweek.  But the 40 hour week  has come and gone.  It is time to either mourn it or bring it back to life.

have a peaceful day, Bill

http://humboldtherald.wordpress.com/2012/11/26/eureka-fair-wage-act-what-do-people-think/#comment-194350

NYC Fast Food Workers Strike for $15, Smeared by Fox & Friends

Fox Smears Striking NYC Fast Food Workers While Pushing Minimum Wage Myths Blog››› April 5, 2013 11:17 AM EDT ››› REMINGTON SHEPARD

Fox News campaigned against New York City fast food workers who are striking to secure higher wages by attacking their work ethic and pushing falsehoods about the minimum wage that they are paid.

On April 4, hundreds of fast food workers in New York City walked out of their workplaces, striking against their current wage of $7.25 an hour and pushing to be paid a livable wage of $15 an hour. The New York Times reported that many of the striking workers “say they can barely get by on the $7.25, $8 or $9 an hour that many receive.”

On April 5, Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade responded to the strike by claiming that the minimum wage many fast food workers are paid was never supposed to be a “career wage” and if workers wanted to earn more, they need to get an additional job or work harder in order to earn a pay raise or promotion. Co-host Steve Doocy followed by hyping a restaurant industry group claim that raising the minimum wage would prove ruinous for the industry and for workers:

Despite the restaurant industry’s position that Doocy read on-air, increasing the minimum wage would not kill jobs. According to a February CEPR report, most of the evidence from recent studies on the subject show that there is “little or no employment response to modest increases in the minimum wage” because employers shift the cost of the pay increase and the pay increase would decrease costs associated with high turnover in low-wage jobs.

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/04/05/fox-smears-striking-nyc-fast-food-workers-while/193491

284,000 College Graduates Had Minimum-Wage Jobs Last Year

284,000 College Graduates Had Minimum-Wage Jobs Last Year

shortlink here: http://wp.me/p2w2NH-mj  mnemonic here:  http://urlet.com/gamblers.purely

Posted: 03/31/2013 4:27 pm EDT | Updated: 04/01/2013 10:27 am EDT

A college degree doesn’t guarantee anyone a big paycheck anymore.

About 284,000 Americans with college degrees were working minimum wage jobs last year, according to the Wall Street Journal. That’s 70 percent more college grads working for the minimum wage than 10 years ago. Still, the number is down from its 2010 high of 327,000.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/31/college-graduates-minimum-wage-

Basic Math on the Minimum Wage

shortlink: http://wp.me/p38Pt0-6I  mnemonic:  http://urlet.com/charm.marked

People say that a minimum wage increase to $12 an hour in 2014  is a “massive increase” but in fact it represents a mild 4.48% annual rise over the 46 years since 1968 when it stood at $1.60. At $10 an hour the “mass” is reduced to 4.07% annually. At today’s $8.00 an hour that increase is a decidedly mild 3.56% over a 46 year period, including the massive inflationary periond we endured post-Vietnam War. (See WIN, ie “Whip Inflation Now”)

You can do the math yourself, just massage the figures, 46 periods, set the interest and the future value and try it til you get it right. Its an estimation technique familiar in numerical analysis.

Really at this point the issue that the raise has gone unaddressed for so long overshadows the interest rate. Because although these are numbers on a screen, it is our brothers and sisters who are feeling the pain in real life. And they will go on suffering until we raise their wages.

hxxp://www.calculatorpro.com/calculator/present-value-calculator/

Right Wing Dark Money Steps into California Minimum Wage Fight

By Adolfo Flores, Los Angeles Times   March 27, 2013

shortlink here http://wp.me/p2w2NH-m5   mnemonic:  http://urlet.com/similarly.ax

Proposed legislation to raise the state minimum wage could eliminate tens of thousands of jobs and harm the California economy, a small-business advocacy group said.

The measure, AB 10, could wipe out more than 68,000 jobs over 10 years and cost $5.7 billion in lost production of goods and services, according to a study released Tuesday by the National Federation of Independent Business.

The bill, introduced in December by Assemblyman Luis Alejo (D-Salinas), would increase the minimum hourly wage to $8.25 in 2014 from $8 now. The legislation would further increase it to $8.75 in 2015 and $9.25 in 2016.

In 2017 and annually thereafter, the minimum wage would be adjusted to keep up with inflation.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-nfib-minimum-wage-20130327,0,5034816.story

Huffington Post:

WASHINGTON — The same group that exposed the previously little-known American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) as a dominant force advancing corporate interests at the state level has now turned its sights on exposing the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB).

NFIB is hardly operating in near-secrecy, like ALEC was. The organization, which describes itself as “the voice of small business,” was the lead plaintiff in the ultimately unsuccessful lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act, taking it to the Supreme Court.

The left-leaning Center for Media and Democracy has posted on  NFIBexposed.org, its new website, a study that reveals how consistently the NFIB lobbies on issues that favor large corporate interests rather than small-business interests; its thoroughly partisan agenda; and the millions it receives in secret contributions from groups associated with Karl Rove and the Koch Brothers.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/26/nfib-exposed_n_1917262.html

wikipedia:

On its website, the National Federation of Independent Business states that it is a “nonprofit, nonpartisan organization founded in 1943″ and “represents the consensus views of its members in Washington and all 50 state capitals.”^[2] Its PAC is called Save America’s Free Enterprise Trust (SAFE).^[3] The organization’s donations tend to strongly favor Republicans.^[4]

In 2010, 25 of its members, all Republican, were elected to the 112th Congress.^[5] A number of them, such as Rand Paul, Jeff Duncan, Paul Gosar and Kristi Noem, are affiliated with or endorsed by the Tea Party movement. The same year, the NFIB opposed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act health care reform legislation while some other small business advocates supported the measure.^[6] The organization joined 26 states in the lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Act. The case was picked up by the Supreme Court, which issued its ruling on National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius on June 28, 2012, upholding most provisions of the Act.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Federation_of_Independent_Business

Sourcewatch:

National Federation of Independent Business

The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) is a lobbying group that calls itself “the voice of small business.”[1] However, the group has been shown to lobby on issues that favor large corporate interests and run counter to the interests of small businesses.[2][3] News reports have also found that NFIB, which claims to be non-partisan, engages in partisan politics, and receives millions in hidden contributions.   Small business owners run the gamut politically. For instance, 33 percent identify as Republicans, 32 percent as Democrats, and 29 percent as Independent.[4] However, NFIB accepted a $3.7 million gift in 2010 from Crossroads GPS, a group affiliated with Republican political operative Karl Rove that overwhelmingly endorses and financially supports Republican candidates.[5] According to new data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), in 2010 the NFIB Small Business Legal Center (SBLC) received $1.15 million from “conservative 501(c)(3) conduit group” Donors Trust, a major contributor to the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity Foundation. Other contributions include the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, which gave to a wide range of conservative groups including the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).[6][7][8][

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Federation_of_Independent_Business

crossposted to:  http://wp.me/p38Pt0-6x or:

http://humboldtactivist.wordpress.com/2013/03/27/right-wing-dark-money-steps-into-california-minimum-wage-fight/

 

My Word: Workers’ pay should be tied to inflation: Back the Fair Wage Act

Kimberly Starr and James Decker/for the Times-Standard

Posted: 03/20/2013 02:39:27 AM PDT

We are long overdue for a raise in the minimum wage. Working class people  of Eureka need a victory that will improve their lives — and the Fair  Wage Act will be that victory. The minimum wage must be indexed to  inflation to insure that those at the bottom share in the growth of our  economy. We must reverse the trend of 2 percent of the people in the  U.S. solely capturing all the benefits of improved productivity and  innovation. It is theft of peoples’ time, labor and ideas.In  Eureka, we cannot rely on politicians. We’ve come together and created  an ordinance to strengthen our community by giving the lowest paid  workers a long overdue raise.

The federal minimum wage was  first established in 1938 when FDR signed the Fair Labor Standards Act,  which also established the 8-hour day, paid overtime, and child labor  protections. The FLSA emerged, over the violent opposition of  businessmen, due to strikes, pickets and other actions of brave working  people. In 1938, and with every worker-benefiting amendment to the FLSA  since, politicians, business leaders, and think tanks have opposed the  minimum wage, claiming myriad suffering the “minimum wage horror” would  cause the fall of the American empire, devastation of businesses, “more  misery and unemployment than anything since the Great Depression” (Ronald Reagan, 1980). However, the minimum wage and its increases  improved economies of all sizes, holding only benefits for employers and workers alike.

From 1938 to 1968 , the purchasing power of the minimum wage increased by  over 140 percent. Minimum wage workers saw a positive upgrade in their  living standards as wages rose in step with productivity growth.

If the federal minimum wage kept pace with improved productivity of  workers it would now be over $20 an hour. Had it increased with the  rising cost of living, even by conservative calculations, it would be  over $10.50. California is a high cost-of-living state with the lowest  minimum wage on the west coast, $8 an hour. It’s time to raise wages and tie them to inflation.

As we circulated the Fair Wage Act  throughout Eureka, the responses were no surprise: People want and need  to bring home decent pay. People know their time and labor are valuable. Corporate profits are at record highs; it is past time for those  profits to be shared with the workers who produce them.

Forces  that oppose higher wages say they’re concerned about job loss — never  considering job loss when it comes to raising CEO pay. Increasing the  minimum wage, especially during high unemployment times, has been found  throughout various geographical areas and time periods, to either have  no effect on employment or, more often, stimulate job growth. We have 75 years demonstrating that as wages rise, employment rises.

Humboldt folks might find relevant a study by Princeton economists comparing the effect on employment in New Jersey to employment across the river in  eastern Pennsylvania, after New Jersey raised the minimum wage and  Pennsylvania did not. The border there is slight, neither a barrier to  commerce nor employment. Employment rose in New Jersey when wages rose.  Employment stayed the same in Pennsylvania with the stagnant minimum  wage. This pattern happens throughout the U.S. where one county raises  wages and the neighbor county does not. Employment improves where the  minimum wage is higher.

Recently, calling for too small a  raise, the president nevertheless spelled out a strong case to the  nation for raising the minimum wage: “ … our economy is stronger when  we reward an honest day’s work with honest wages. But today, a full-time worker making the minimum wage earns $14,500 a year. … still liv[ing] below the poverty line. That’s wrong. Tonight, let’s declare that in  the wealthiest nation on Earth, no one who works full-time should have  to live in poverty … . It could mean the difference between groceries  or the food bank; rent or eviction; scraping by or finally getting  ahead. For businesses across the country, it would mean customers with  more money … . Let’s tie the minimum wage to the cost of living, so  that it finally becomes a wage you can live on.”

People and the economy need a boost in Eureka. Most minimum wage workers, a majority  of whom are women, support households. Too many households are  struggling on low wages to meet rising food, housing, transportation and health care costs, with no retirement fund. A higher minimum wage is  just. It will help start an economic surge in our communities,  increasing spending, business viability, and creating new jobs. Support  the Fair Wage Act.

Kimberly Starr and James Decker, Eureka residents, are signatories to the Fair Wage Act initiative. For more information, visit fairwages.org.

http://www.times-standard.com/guest_opinion/ci_22829946/workers-pay-should-be-tied-inflation-back-fair