firstly, i don't care if the work isn't intellectually demanding or high-skill. you accuse me of being a snob regularly on here but i wouldn't want to rub someone's little snout in the soot because their job doesn't involve graduate school certificates. i don't care how easy or menial a job is: the person doing it, if they're working 37.5-42.5-50+ hours a week – they deserve to get paid a good enough wage to 'get by' in life. i'm not talking single-moms with iPhone 6's and benefits, the tabloid-level target for excoriation here. just for humble, hardworking people to prosper and not struggle. own their own place, contribute to a pension/retirement fund, put money aside for their kids' college maybe, even. i'm not saying let's create a communist society where everyone can drive a BMW subsidised by the government. i just don't think it's right that, in an advanced western society, with all of our technological ease and automation, that someone should have to work 2-3 jobs concurrently just to keep their kid in school meals. that seems wrong. we can afford to pay them more (the mega-corporations employing these menial workers certainly can). i know the macroeconomic theory on the matter: i know that you can't implement a minimum wage without there being a result on inflation, a knock-on effect for interest rates, credit availability, etc. i get that. you can't just give everyone more money and not expect the prices of commodities to rise, or else the currency to be seriously devalued. but you're talking about serious economic crisis scenarios, here, when what we're arguing for is reform and gradualism. i'm not saying let's flatten society. i'm saying let's narrow the gap between ultra-rich and the wage-slaves. that won't do harm to anyone.Jay wrote:
And I'm saying people are getting by. It's not a life I'd want to live by any means, which is why I'm not. I worked in fast food during high school. Some of the ladies I worked with had a tough life, working multiple jobs and praying to be made a manager. It was still a better life than the one they left behind in Guatemala. But look at in perspective, we're talking about illegal immigrants and high school kids pouring bagged meat into a boiler and using caulking guns to portion condiments. This is not physically or intellectually demanding stuff. The hardest part is motivating yourself to actually show up for the meager wage.uziq wrote:
great argumentation, jay. we're talking about fast-food workers asking for a livable wage and to debunk my argument for affordable housing (in the context of fast-food workers and a minimum wage), you start banging on about "writers" and "trendy neighbourhoods". i was thinking more along the lines of cabrini green than williamsburg. i bow down to your titanic intellect on this matter. service workers organising and pushing for better working conditions/pay is clearly a ruse so all those liberal arts grads from swarthmore and pomona and wesleyan can get into a perfecty bouji basement flat and continue work apace on their avant-garde post-conceptualist poetry.Jay wrote:
There's plenty of affordable housing. It's just not where the writers want to live. Every time I read a story about a lack of affordable housing what I'm really reading is "boo hoo I've been priced out of trendy neighborhood X unless I want to live in a basement".
People get by here. If they couldn't we'd have a ton more homeless people. Take the words of privileged white people who have never known real hardship with a heavy grain of salt.
u fuckin dumb ass
After this increase, a married pair of burger flippers and caulking gun portioners will make more money annually than the median family does in America today. That's why it's absurd. (Median income = $52k, or about $26/hour, combined)
secondly, the argument about price competition never convinces me. so now the fast-food industry pays a good wage; so now that seemingly 'devalues' other careers. so what? maybe those other careers should organise, unionise, and fight for better pay. i see this argument all the time here in the UK. people are frequently pissed off that our train drivers go on strike – they're one of the last few remaining unions with any political clout here – and trot out these asinine charts: 'look! a train driver makes as much as a nurse! this dumbass only pushes a lever! she saves lives!'. so? there's nothing stopping other industries from organising and striking for better pay. (the irony in this case is that people using NHS workers as a rhetorical ploy are in fact remonstrating to pay higher taxes; an NHS pay increase wouldn't come from anywhere else. but that's neither here nor there).
Last edited by uziq (2015-07-23 14:44:39)
