Don’t cross the picket lines of the fast-food chains and retailers whose workers are striking. There are several reasons, the first of which is not being a selfish arse. Here’s the rundown from DemocracyNow:
Thousands of low-wage workers at fast-food and retail chains nationwide are walking off the job today in what organizers call the largest strike of its kind so far. Workers in some 58 cities are taking part in a pre-Labor Day action for a living wage of $15 an hour and the right to unionize. They plan to picket outside major chains, including McDonald’s, Burger King, KFC and Macy’s.
There are other reasons to support the strike, too. But let’s look at some of the reasons some of you don’t want hard-working folks (and parents) to make $15 per hour. You think it will make your crappy food and inferior chachkies more expensive. Oh, forbid your Big Mac is a nickel more – that’s the “big” increase you’ll see. So 5 cents is the difference between working people having to depend on taxpayer-funded social programs and them having a big step towards autonomy.
Okay, so you heard from your conservative news outlets that increasing the minimum wage will lead to rampant unemployment. Keeping the minimum low is actually good for the economy, right? Aside from the fact your news sources have never showed much altruism before you have to be skeptical of their, ahem, social consciousness now. The “keep wages low to keep employment high” mantra is bunk and is part of our global race to the bottom. Here’s a nice, long PDF that proves, with lots of science-y data, that increasing the minimum wage has no discernible effect on employment.
Lastly, consider these two laws of America’s economics:
1) 70 percent of our nation’s economy is based on consumption. What’s does that mean? In the post-industrial society that is the USA, we need people to buy stuff. So we need people to have buying power. That means that money hoarded in a large corporation’s offshore account needs to come back stateside so that our economy can grow in the only way it knows how – consumer spending! More spending power for more people means YOU get more financial benefits yourself. 5 cents will do your 401K very well.
2) Labor does not determine a product’s price, the market does. The mind of a bargain hunter never adjusts for labor costs. “What a deal, now add 10 percent!” Nope, never been said. While labor can contribute a single-digit percent to the cost of the product, YOU determine the price of that product. Cost-cutting measures used to come from easing the throttle on executive bonuses or finding more efficient means of production. The Austrian-style economists who dominate our media will have you believe that cost-cutting should occur on the backs of wage earners. Why do want your fellow Americans to make less for absolutely ZERO benefit to you personally?
So support the strike. Low wages drag down all wages whether you are a cashier or chiropractor. Three out of five new jobs are low-wage jobs so you might find yourself working a frialator at some point in the future.
