workers protests highlight fast food economics

[xchrom]

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_FAST_FOOD_WORKERS_PAY?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-09-01-12-59-34


FILE - In this Aug. 29, 2013, file photo, protestors demonstrate outside a fast-food restaurant in Los Angeles. Thousands of fast-food workers and their supporters have been staging protests across the country to call attention to the struggles of living on or close to the federal minimum wage. The push raises the question of whether the economics of the fast-food industry allow room for a boost in pay for its workers. (AP Photo/Nick Ut, File)

NEW YORK (AP) -- American fast-food workers often earn about $7.25 an hour to make the $3 chicken sandwiches and 99-cent tacos that generate billions of dollars in profit each year for McDonald's and other chains.

Thousands of the nation's many millions of fast-food workers and their supporters have been staging protests across the country in the past year to call attention to the struggles of living on or close to the federal minimum wage. The push raises the question of whether the economics of the fast-food industry allow room for a boost in pay for its workers.

The industry is built on a business model that keeps costs - including those for labor - low so companies can make money while satisfying America's love of cheap, fast food. And no group along the food chain, from the customers to the companies, wants to foot the bill for higher wages for workers.

Customers want a deal when they order burgers and fries. But those cheap eats squeeze franchise store owners who say they already survive on slim margins. And the corporations have to grow profits to keep shareholders happy.

***cheap*** is killing america.

[reformist2]

1. All workers need the ability to say 'no' to employers - a guaranteed income would do that.

Obviously an increased minimum wage would help, a union even more so. But these only improve the lot of those individuals that have jobs. You still have to figure out how to deal with those who don't. Guaranteeing every adult a minimum income would do that. Then if employers wanted to get workers, they'd have to offer potential employees enough to make them want to work for the additional money. But with the guaranteed minimum income, people would have the freedom to say no, without risking abject poverty and starvation.

[xchrom]

2. agreed...the power to say no. nt

[FreakinDJ]

3. Sure you want to eat food made by some one Who Hates their Job/Low Wages

Think about it