McDonald's boss says he's "proud" of wages as thousands of workers call for a rise

Fight the good fight! Nobody working full time in the United States should be living in poverty.

Thousands of McDonald’s employees and union activists descended on the company’s headquarters near Chicago on Thursday to hold the biggest ever protest against “poverty wages” paid to most of its 400,000 employees, as the company’s board gathered for its annual shareholder meeting. About 5,000 McDonald’s employees from across the US chanted: “We work, we sweat, put $15 in our cheque” as they marched towards the burger giant’s headquarters holding banners reading “McDonald’s: $15 and Union Rights, Not Food Stamps.” As the meeting began protesters delivered a petition signed by 1.4m people calling on the company to support a $15 minimum wage and to respect workers’ rights to unionize.

“We’re here to tell McDonald’s and its shareholders to invest in the company and its workers instead of wealthy hedge fund managers and executives,” said Kwanza Brooks, a McDonald’s worker and mother of three from Charlotte, North Carolina, who is paid $7.25 an hour. “We’re tired of relying on food stamps to feed our own families. We need $15 and the right to form a union and we need it now.” Terrence Wise, 35, travelled 12 hours by bus from Kansas City with his three young daughters. “Was it worth it to stand here? Yes definitely. I want my voice to be heard. I’ve worked at McDonald’s and Burger King for 11 years earning $8 an hour. I have three little girls to care for. I work two jobs, my partner works too, yet we still struggle to survive. We rely on food stamps. I don’t want to live on food stamps, I want to get paid what I deserve and work hard for. McDonald’s can clearly afford to pay us a living wage. They need to, now.”

 

Switzerland breaks the myth that a country can not have high wages and compete with China. 98% of people in Switzerland earn more then 25 Euros per hour and 30%+ f the Swiss economy is manufacturing, it is the highest in the developed world. Switzerland also has a trade surplus with China, this is because Switzerland specializes in manufacturing certain types of industrial chemicals and precision parts. China can not compete against the Swiss, so the actually import Swiss products, as a result Switzerland has a trade surplus with China.

USA and other western countries have to start addressing economic issues like the Swiss are, or there are going to be big problems in the future.

 

I agree with what he's saying to an extent. It's hard to listen to a billionaire whenever there are tons of people having to deal with minimum wage.

 

I completely agree with the last sentence. Do you have any links to back any of these facts up though?

 

If your employer is paying you minimum wage it is because you haven´t proven yourself to be worth more than minimum wage. Businesses are not stupid and are not going to lose valuable employees for a few dollars an hour. The reason fast food workers get minimum wage is because they are unreliable. As an owner, you basically always have to have 25% more people scheduled than you need because you don´t know who is going to show up.

if you drastically increase minimum wage on fast food places, all that is going to happen is 50% of minimum wage workers will get promoted to asst managers (at the new minimum wage) and 50% will lose their jobs. Fast food places already do this, as soon as someone is at all reliable they get a raise and promotion..

Anyone who thinks a Burger King with 50 employees making $8 per hour is going to suddenly become a Burger King with 50 employees making $12 per hour are kidding themselves.

Unemployement has been fairly low for a long time.. anyone who has been working more than 6 months at a minimum wage job has done things to deserve to only be making minimum wage.. probably for missing shifts.

 

This is not a fair comparison. Switzerland has a very small economy, the amount of jobs that need to be created is minimal. Yes, it is great that the entire country can be gainfully employed making watches, knives and instant cocoa ... but the USA has 200 million workers.

Also it is short-sighted to talk about a trade balance with China being a meaningful thing for the economy. That is ´this decade´... and 20 years ago it was Japan, and before that ... Modern, Developed countries will often have a trade deficit against developing countries because they don´t have to worry about the environment or social issues and their labor costs are much lower. it is the same thing we went through with Japan.. we couldn´t compete with their cars because they didn´t have to pay workers as much, didn´t have to worry about pollution... China right now is just starting to have to deal with public education, the environment and worker rights... and when those things kick in, very few countries will have trade deficits with China.

 

Having seen multiple and jobs and bosses all I have to say is that bosses don't become rich by paying fair wages. They make people work hard and be paid poorly, that's how it works.

 

When it comes to a minimum wage, what exactly would people consider fair though? What one person can live off, another person might struggle. I do think there needs to be some sort of scale introduced, a lot of companies do get away with paying low wages simply because they can.

 

The low minimum wage problem is a problem not only the US faces, it is a worldwide issue faced by minimum wage workers. From where I am, it is also a regular topic in news reports. Employees rallying down on the streets demanding for increase in the minimum wage.