McDonald's Tells Employees to Consider Returning Holiday Gifts to Get Out of Debt
Well, thats really nice of them...
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I was kind of ticked off last night, again at work (sorry, khalling, when I get a life, I'll stop talking about Walmart :( ) ...
A guy I work with, a nice guy from Ethiopia, we'll call him "M", was assigned the task of collecting empty pallets from around the store, and crushing empty cardboard boxes, which included making a bale when the baler was full.
He came to me to make the bale for him, and as I was busy stocking the pets department, I told him to tell our assistant manager, we'll call her "G", and she would get someone who knew how to make a bale to do it. So the night wears on, and somehow they get a bale made.
About an hour before quitting time this morning, G comes to me and asks me to take care of the cardboard and pallets and clean up the gm receiving area.
There's only one cart of cardboard to put in the baler, but the floor is strewn with baling wire; reusable boxes are stacked precariously on a pallet next to the baler and in front of the exit doors. A stack of pallets is blocking the exit doors, with the bale they made behind it, and two more stacks of pallets in front of the trash compactor.
Okay, so I have the headache of straightening things out, but then I have to put on my coat because it's below freezing outside with 20 mph winds, and I have to pull this tremendously heavy bale on a pallet jack the entire length of the store (outside) to the storage area, as well as the stacks of pallets. We're talking two or three blocks distance.
I was cussing the whole time; I had to stop 3 times to catch my breath pulling the bale alone, then it got stuck in a pothole right where we store them for pick up.
When I got back inside, I was told that they usually use the forklift to move them... which I'm not licensed to use (in spite of having owned and operated my own for years, and used those of my previous employer).
So I was mad, because I kept thinking of Atlas Shrugged and the 20th Century Motor Company. Walmart hires antiques, retards, cripples, the mentally handicapped, and the just plain lazy, and then expect anyone who shows a bit of work ethic, and/or creative intelligence to pick up the slack.
M makes half again as much as I do, because he's been there 6 years to my almost-2. Yet, because I show a willingness to tackle whatever job I'm given, because I use my reason to solve problems... I get extra work.
Another example. At my urging, the store got a new propane buffer, superior to the electric ones we'd been using. I was the only one using it, but, one of the things it does is blow dust bunnies out from under the shelves (something the management thinks A Good Thing), requiring a re-sweep afterwards. I was informed by the rest of the floor crew, jointly, that if it kicked out dust bunnies, I would be the one who had to sweep them up. I switched back to using the electric buffers. Why should I make extra work for myself? So the floor's not as shiny; nobody but me seems to care anyway.
(Last Sunday, an AM asked why we weren't using the propane buffer; I'd been assigned to help stock Dairy that day, while the two new guys were buffing with the electrics. I volunteered to use the propane buffer while one of them stocked... I was told that they didn't have any experience stocking Dairy... neither did I, til they put me there the first time...)
The funny thing is, other people who were similarly screwed have been trying to warn me about this since I started working there.
So, I wouldn't count on a given store, even McDonald's, recognizing competence and rewarding it.
(sometimes I feel like Garrison Keillor...)
Regarding returning gifts to get out of debt, I agree with the advice.
The gift buying and giving is out of control in our society. Borrowing money to buy gifts is just insane and like unto what the government does every month.
Competition for jobs at minimum wage skyrocketed. That and our spoiling our children made way for situation we now have at McD's, WalMart, and others. Many employers would prefer hiring someone who is reliable and showing up for work everyday over a high school kid who has a hot date, prom, party, etc and calls in sick. Now these immigrants are adults, perhaps with or starting a family, are brainwashed by the liberals and the liberal media that they have a constitutional right to higher wages, free medical, free food, etc. regardless of their station in society. They have been propagandized into believing that these fundamental rights, regardless of whether you are here legally or not. Mouch has been hard at work for many years in this once great country.
The fourteenth amendment states in part; "...deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." When the law allows for different treatment of one from another for any reason, whether it is income, gender, race, religion, etc., it is wrong. Taxing anyone at a different rate because of income is unconstitutional.
I have no problems with using Ethanol.
I am opposed to subsidies for both the oil and alcohol industries.
Please get your facts straight.
Posted by Boborobdos 3 hours, 1 minute ago
I'm opposed to both subsidies. The market should decide.
The point is subsidies haven't been addressed. Why are you making an attempt to change from them to ethanol. I have no problems with ethanol.
This discussion has evolved to an open debate on what government should or should not do, as well as the impact of business and how it treats workers, and what it's responsibilities may or may not be. You seem bent on being aggressive in your opinions, and I do not think it is relevant that you seem OK with one form of govt control (ethanol) over another (oil subsidy's), then you say you are against both. If you are against them, then you must agree that your position is that govt control, regulations, subsidies and minimum wage are all wrong. That's all, it is part of the subject.
The company has to deal with employees often unprepared for these jobs, (yet paid more than college educated reporters at a local newspaper) with many lacking in math skills. They have made it easy, with picture buttons on registers. However, counting out change is an issue about 80% of the time. At night, when it is all young people, it is chaos, as they do not understand they are responsible for making a restaurant run smoothly. School taught entitlement, not responsibility. What is it with nobody wanting to grow up and emulate adults anymore?
What do you want, McD's is a business, not a babysitting service for young people.When I took my first job at 16, it was because my Dad said if I wanted to drive my car, I had to have a job to pay the insurance. I did not see the workplace as a playground, but a business, like my father ran. He would not hire me for that reason. He felt I had to make it for real, based on what I did. No, these was NO whining permitted in his world. Singing was fine. My boss just wanted the cash to balance and the reports presented on time, and that was for little pay and no benefits.
That's an easy answer. So many kids see adult extremists shouting at each other on TV, who would want to be one of them?
Perhaps kids think TV is real, just can't draw that distinction between it and real life. Perhaps too many texts and too few conversations with grandparents are too blame. Perhaps, schools systems turning kids away from parents and toward the state and entertainment diversion.
There are adults worth emulating, like Thomas Sowell, or Charles Krauthammer, or many Veterans - but it is harder to find, I admit. Still, it is no excuses as I see it, the end decision is with the young adult - emulate a Cher or some other Peter Pan adult, or look to those with Objectivist values. Maybe we should institute a "give a student an Ayn Rand book" and hope some of it sticks.
There is something I can comment about for sure. Too many texts have to meet the approval of the right wing in places like Texas where they have human beings riding dinosaurs, literally.
We need to get honest nuts and bolts back into education, including age appropriate sex information (used to be called "health" classes).
Kids shouldn't be taught to be hateful just because some preacher thinks something "sinful."
Kids need to be taught how to balance a check book, change a tire, hire a lawyer for a house settlement, and just how much does that loan on the car cost them.
Wow, you are on two sides of the fence. Actually, I went to school in Texas for a while, and N.M., Wyo. and N.D. as well as Ohio. Out West I did get sex education, in the 1950s in health class, presented in a scientific manner, with no judgement calls or other influence. Years later, in Ohio, our daughter got liberal values clarification garbage in the name of health, as well as how to shop for the cheapest abortion, all at tax payer expense.
You are right on target when you say kids need to learn about personal finance and the stuff one needs to know to be self-sufficient in life, instead of a patsy. When our daughter did her undergrad studies, the banks set up shop on campus to give them all credit cards, no parental permission, they were 18! Well, a few months later, kids had spent and spent, and my daughter said many of them did not even know there was interest if they did not pay off the balance! These are the ones who made it to college.I had a girl at McD's drive thru literally freeze, like a deer in the headlights. I gave her exact change and five dollars for an order. An older employee had to pull her arm in, hand me back the dollar change. while the apx. 18 year old still looked dazed. My first job I had to make change for hours, no cash register to tell me how much. Our schools are failing both the students and their future employees.
Also, I have seen some of the items in those texts to which Texas objects, and they do not belong in academic books. Boys should not be feminized, other pseudo-religious should not be pushed, and Gaia worship does not belong in the classroom. It is bad enough they celebrate Earth Day, which just so happens to fall on Vladamir Lenin's birthday - but then Gorbachev was instrumental in getting this stuff in US schools.
Guess I misread you.
Madame Pompadour was told that the people have no bread; to which she replied, "If they have no bread, then let them eat cake".
This was a *politicial* comment, not a business one. It was "I'm rich, screw them".
It was, "The economy is doing fine, we're pulling out of the Bush recession".
It's funny, since Marie Antoinette before she was butchered had been trying to help the very people who murdered her, and history has branded her unjustly as callously indifferent.
It's not easy living on 8.00 an hour; the problem is the minimum wage that makes 8.00/hour the equivalent of 3.50/hour.
Not only are the employees not getting paid well, but they are giving the money to that left wing NPR organization.
Shouldn't the right consider that really sad?
If McDonald's doesn't pay enough... don't work there. Then their subsistence will be entirely upon the gov't and thereby your tax dollars. Such is the price of legislation and regulation.
It is not McDonald's fault that they can collect food stamps on your tax dollars, but yours. If there were no food stamps program, your tax dollars would not be spent on it, and would be available for other foolish and wasteful expenditures. Don't make McDonald's the villain of your conscience.
Orrr they can find a higher paying job. If they can't, again, thank government.
If I had been, I would have told them about the evil government flooding the country with immigrants to keep the labor pool plentiful so employers didn't have to offer decent working conditions or much pay, because labor was so plentiful and therefore cheaply had.
Half the employees I encounter at McDonald's, btw, can't speak English. The other half are Hispanic.
And?
Reminded me of Trayvon Martin's girlfriend...telling the jury that she "can't" read cursive handwriting.
She would probably thank McDonald's for a job, since the registers use pictures for the food items....
I sure you agree that the business can set the price of their product. Why can't a laborer set the price of his labors?
The laborer can set the price of his labors... and if the demanded price exceeds the value of the work to the employer, the employer should be able to hire someone else, instead.
@Rozar, I hear you. If you have a minimum wage job and own a $300 pair of headphones while complaining about debt or that you can't afford to eat (the latter especially if you work for a restaurant), something is very wrong.
The $300 pair of headphones--that was one of my then-14 year old nephew's Christmas gifts two years ago. His parents asked me to come with them to buy them as I have a background with audio and they hoped I could give an impression based on listening to different models (surely, a good idea). The best sets I heard were $150 and $50 respectively, but no....he had to have the $300 set because of the brand name.
And what management, holy, or even motivational book agrees with that?
So yes minimum wage causes oppression in several forms. First it steals from the good workers to give to the bad ones. Second it eliminates reward for extra effort which causes the third, the demoralization of the good worker into being just another average worker.
BTW YOUR suggestion would prove to be way too expensive for McDonald's. Those who excel move up the restaurant food chain to different organizations like Dennie's, Friendlie's, etc. So, McDonald's is stuck with marginal employees and has to train new ones.
It just doesn't work that way. If McDonald's wants to keep someone they figure out a way to pay them.
Assuming that you can find someone who will be enough better to be worth the added expense and paperwork (thank you IRS).
In 1974, I made 25 cents an hour handing brick to my father and being "gopher", on holidays and weekends. The minimum wage was under $3/hour.
Every time the minimum wage has been raised since then, prices have risen accordingly.
If businesses still charged what they charged in 1974, yet paid the modern minimum wage, they would take a loss on every transaction. How long could they stay in business?
The economy adjusts; always. Today McDonald's has a dollar menu. If McDonald's had only a dollar menu when it first started, they would have gone out of business because nobody would have paid a freaking dollar for a hamburger. As the minimum wage has increased, not only has what McDonald's had to pay their employees increased, but their suppliers have also had to pay *their* employees more, as well. McDonald's costs go up, their prices go up to compensate, as does everyone else's. Then, the minimum wage is suddenly insufficient, to the left. So they have it raised to $3.25... then $4... then $5... constantly adjusting it upward as each new minimum wage drives prices up.
You keep caring what the employees *feel*. Nobody cares what they feel. Feelings don't feed you: work does. Someone to flip burgers is only worth so much value to McDonald's. Not emotional value, but mathematical value. McDonald's is competing with other fast food chains... and restaurants... and home cooking. They can only make their food taste so good. The rest of their enticement for customers has to come from quality of service, speed of service, and price. It's costing them for utilities, it's costing for maintenance, it's costing for taxes and it's costing them per hour per employee. The only way for them to make money is to shove food out the door as quickly and proficiently as possible. The more they pay to have that done, the more has to be done in less time in order to cover expenses. They can only shove food out the door so fast.
Forgetting the money the shareholders demand, the massive taxes they have to pay, the expenses of keeping the doors open, those "huge" profits also go into insurance, into legal fees, into war chests to pay for future lawsuit payoffs for idiots pouring coffee on their crotch, for natural disasters, for man-made disasters, for expansion...
Why does the term diaper load come to mind? Here is a history of minimum wage: http://www.thedigeratilife.com/blog/fede...
Now, explain why prices have in some cases grown almost exponentially while both minimum wage hasn't gone up much and unionization in general is down.
Looks to me like you got it exactly backwards.
$7.25 an hour is an exponential increase from 40 cents an hour...
As I said, when you raise the minimum wage, every employer has to raise prices. That means not only does your Big Mac go up... so does the price of producing the two all beef patties, the special sauce, the lettuce, the cheese, ,and the sesame seed bun. The producers of the trays and cardboard containers labor costs go up, the companies who make the cleaning products for the grills, the companies who make the grills, the companies who make the containers for the cleaning products for the grills. Each passes the added expense on to his customers, who pass it on down to the retail customer... you.
When the minimum wage was 40 cents, a cheeseburger cost a dime. Now that it's $7.25, the dollar menu sells one for a buck; 25% of the hourly wage vs 13%. And the dollar menu burger has two patties.
And even w/o the assault, the oil industry now has to produce a vast array of different fuel types to satisfy the environmental and other regulations (remember leaded gasoline?).
BTW, my Vibe (actually a Toyota) is running just fine with almost a quarter of a million miles on it. If there is damage from ethanol (10% of the fuel it drinks) it hasn't shown up yet.
The point is subsidies haven't been addressed. Why are you making an attempt to change from them to ethanol. I have no problems with ethanol.
Back in the late 80s/early 90s, in order to sell the same exact software package for Mac that had been also developed for MSDOS and/or Amiga, one had to raise the price, or Mac users wouldn't buy it.
But then, I'll bet a bunch of them think the top 1% are thieves.
Also I'm very liberal with my application of the word moron, I don't mean it as an insult to intelligence but more of a way of referring to someone who has made a logical mistake.
I should find another word as I've noticed people seem to be very sensitive to being referred to as a moron lol.
The article and test was published in Omni magazine in the late 70s.
Educate yourself before you embarrass yourself even more: "Mensa is an international society whose only qualification for membership is a score in the top 2 percent of the general population on a standardized intelligence test."
That's from: http://us.mensa.org/learn/about/mensas-h...
Make no mistake if I was wrong I would call myself a moron. But then I would correct myself. No one has all the answers, and if a Mensan makes a mistake I'm not going to assume it's correct because he is more intelligent.
I don't see why you're so hung up on this one word. Out of anything on this one website you're trying to understand why I use the word moron?
I doubt that the stereotype being painted here of the $300 headphones and expensive sneakers is true for most who work at McDonald's.
Historically Americans have stepped in when abuses occur in sweat shops, for example. Today McDonald's, Walmart, and much of the related industries are abusing their workers with low wages and teaching them how to rip off the welfare system. IOW, I don't want to subsidize private corporations.
Historically, when abuses occurred in sweatshops, the workers took a hand in redressing the issue, before the government could even evaluate which side of their bread was buttered.
I do not make "low wages". I have been given NO instructions on how to milk the welfare system by Walmart, nor has anyone I know who works there.
I'm curious how one abuses workers with low wages. A worker's effort is worth a certain amount to Walmart. No business can pay its employees more than the value of their industry, not if it wants to survive. Wages are artificially inflated by the abomination known as "minimum wage".
What abuses low-wage workers is do-gooders and their feel-good, vote-mongering "minimum wage", and its related monetary inflation.
Tell me, do you abuse Walmart with low prices by buying the $288 TV for $98 on Black Friday? Do you ever abuse Walmart with low prices by buying the cheapest version of an item they have there? Don't you ever offer to pay Walmart *more* than the price they ask for an item? Don't you ever offer to pay Walmart *more* for an item, just so some bleeding heart somewhere doesn't feel you're abusing them by not giving them more money than their product is worth to you?
For the workers... When they get fed up enough they will unionize. As a group they will have the strength to negotiate a far better deal than individuals.
As far as the cheap TV goes I'm sure Walmart will still make money on their marketing efforts. Just not as much after expenses.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPAmy4XO_....
When Mrs Carlisle was kidnapped, Kimberly ran up to agent Chesnic and said, "She hired me"... "I know, Kimberly"... she touches him again... "...when others wouldn't".
You and your kind took my self-respect along with my balls, with your do-goodery. I *chose* to draw unemployment, so I'm the one to blame. But Walmart gave me my balls back. It's because they would hire me when others wouldn't that I now have enough self-respect to recognize that I require better employment where my industry and creativity can be applied to my own benefit.
You people only care about how YOU feel, not how your victims feel. "Oh, I feel *terrible* that these people aren't rich and riding around in limos." Solution; *give* them money so YOU feel good, regardless of what it does to their character and self-respect.
People who care about themselves hand out welfare. It's like you don't get freedom at all.
Freedom isn't safe, or secure, or prosperous. It's a road to safety and prosperity, but you have to drive it yourself.
. Because freedom means YOU take responsibility for YOUR life, you don't pawn it off on your government, your community or your employer.
Patrick Henry said, "Give me liberty, or give me death!", not "Give me liberty, or give me guaranteed health insurance at a price I can afford". He didn't say, "Give me liberty, or give me a job where I make twice what my labor is worth to my employer."
Any union organizer gets near the Walmart where I work, I go to jail, but he goes to hell. Union organizers do well to stay the hell away from me.
If they succeed in unionizing Walmart, Walmart will decay and go out of business just like GM, and short of a government bailout, there will be massive unemployment as a result.
The cheap tv is not about Walmart; it's about you. Walmart is a consumer of unskilled and semi-skilled labor, just as you are a consumer of electronic devices such as TVs. (I notice you didn't address the questions about giving them more money than the asking price).
As far as the cheap labor goes, I'm sure the employees will still make money on their labor efforts. Just not as much after expenses.
It's up to Walmart to decide what their profit margin should be, not we employees, not union thugs. If we don't like it, we can quit and go work elsewhere... or start our own "big box" store... or start our own line of "Dollar Stores", which are booming.
Actually Ford did OK with its unions and all that stuff through the recent troubled times. I like to attribute to Ford marketing to all Americans and not catering to the right wing, but that's only my opinion.
Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, and a host of other car companies did just fine, also.
http://www.ilo.org/washington/ilo-and-th...
You are on the wrong side of history, and the wrong side of our labor trends.
Without the Democrat Party, there would be virtually no unions remaining.
Without corporate abuses there would be no unions. Walmart, McDonald's, etc. have abused enough folks that unions are seriously considered as a weapon against corporate abuses.
I do not oppose the idea of collective bargaining if that's what the employees at a given employment site wish. But, it does not benefit the skilled and able employees; it benefits the lazy, the incompetent at the expense of the skilled and able. The skilled and able can command the highest wage and best benefits the market will allow, due to their value to their employers. The least skilled and abled only have their cheap price to offer. The only way they can get the unearned is to ride the coattails of the skilled and able. This is why good workers shun unions.
When one looks at Walmart with regard to unionization, the unions have virtually nothing to offer:
John Galt: "What on Earth do I need *you* for? What have you got to offer me that I couldn't get without you?"
Walmart pays even the least skilled and least abled employees above your precious minimum wage; for full-time employees, they provide healthcare benefits, profit sharing, counseling for finances, smoking, or other issues an employee may have. An employee is encouraged to go to higher management if they have a problem with lower management. After 90 days, they're eligible for a performance bonus; after a year they get the benefits package, a certain number of hours of paid vacation, certain number of paid days absence, a certain number of hours beyond that for sick leave, which add up week by week, year by year. We even get two fifteen minute breaks per day, ON the clock, a whole HOUR off the clock for lunch...
They provide training for their employees; I just finished taking the 1.5 and 2.0 safety training exercises, dealing with chemical spills and equipment malfunctions. I took them during my work hours, as required. The store is kept reasonably air-conditioned, reasonably cleaned. Procedures are in place for emergencies.
Just *exactly* what the hell can unions offer that employees can't get already? I keep imagining what Walmart could offer in straight-up pay if they didn't offer some of these benefits, if they didn't have to do some dumb-shit policies to appease the government.
I highly doubt they'll get better health *insurance*, since the offerings of Walmart were pretty much jaw-dropping.
I predict in a few years Walmart will increase their workers' average pay, because the federal government will once again mandate an increase in the minimum wage.
(I think Rozar means TOTAL privatizing of schools...get the gov OUT.)
You suggest that McDonald's owns the people who work at McDonald's, as if the employees are no longer free; as if McDonald's owes them something beyond the value of their labor to McDonald's.
McDonald's would be stupid and foolish to pay an employee more than his labor is worth to them. Then again, Walmart does it...
That's why unions ended the sweat shops and got folks a wage they could live on.
Unions didn't get folks a wage they could live on; they're still screaming about needing a living wage for their membership. Not once did a union ever forgo its dues for the sake of its membership. Unions exist for the benefit of the union officers and organizers, not the members.
My great-grandfather helped found a union; my grandfather was a life-long union man. My father quit a union when he saw the corruption within it. When he tried contracting for himself, the union came and sabotaged his supplies and equipment, and tried burning him alive. I've never belonged to a union, and I never will.
The idea of the employees of a given shop in a given *dangerous* profession collectively bargaining is great. Of course, with an endless supply of immigrants, it won't do squat, because your union members will get fired and replaced with new workers... unless the government passes a law protecting your precious thugs, forcing employers to let them screw with his employees, even if they have good working conditions and just pay rates.
Read the part of Atlas Shrugged about the riot at Rearden's mill. That *is* how unions work.
Sadly you are correct that corruption often manifests itself in taking advantage of others. But to combat corporate abuses can you offer another solution?
The problem of your tax dollars buying them food has nothing to do with McDonald's paying their employees a wage appropriate to the employees' contribution. That's a problem of do-gooder legislation.
That is negotiable through unions.
And, it gets back to my big gripe at Walmart; I'm a good, industrious, smart employee, yet I make less than incompetents who've been there a long time... as is the case in union shops.
The union can and will negotiate an *average* wage for workers, maybe even divided by work-type, but they will not negotiate the most money and benefits for me as an individual. Were it not for government born and influenced policies, I could and should be able to negotiate higher wages, by offering greater value to the company, than others, could or should. But, no, unions shackle thoroughbreds up to mules and think that's "fair" to everyone, when it's only fair to the mules, and not so to the thoroughbreds and employers.
This is why Galt created the strike, for crying out loud.
BTW, I don't mind a business owner making a lot of money. But it doesn't have to be at the expense of workers. Ben and Jerry's and Costco are excellent examples of how it can be done.
Is that your tag line for every comment? "sweat shop owners"? Maybe if you say it enough times, Dorothy, it will come true. Business owners have the right to run THEIR business the way THEY see fit... no one HAS to work there.. last time I checked this is still a free Country. Oh...wait. Scratch that.
Absolutely correct. And laborers can themselves combine. It's just as the rich combine assets they can combine their efforts of labor. Why shouldn't gangs of laborers be able to negotiate with gangs of owners?
If laborers unionize, people like me will come in and undercut them... unless government prevents it, with closed-shop State type rules and regulations.
If unionization works so well for everybody... why are unions on the decline?
Like a bigot, you damn the "greed" of businesses, but fail to damn the "greed" of their employees.
If you're referring to labor unionizing offsetting cartels... that's like saying hockey teams offset golf courses.
what do you consider a "huge" profit? what kind of margin do you think is proper for a business to make? why?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8MVFoiw-...
Fast food is NOT sweat shops. Do you work at McDonalds?
I surely hope you tip them a thousand dollars each. So they can pay their employer for letting them work there. Lots of people wouldn't do what I do for what I get paid either...that's neither here nor there. I accepted the wages I earn when I got hired....no one forced me to accept it, that was MY choice. If I can't "live" on it then I need to go else where, or work more, or work two jobs. You do what you have to do to get by...this is not a new concept. LOGIC, my friend.
Yes, and that's why there is now a movement to unionize McDonald's, and other fast food employees, into unions. Laborers can combine their skills like infestors combine their money to make money.
Entry level jobs are not lacking for warm bodies to fill the positions...and the striking workers have little to blackmail the owners with.
Laborers can't combine skills. You combine a skilled laborer with an unskilled laborer, you get less productivity than if you kept the skilled laborer alone.
And flipping burgers at McDonald's is UNskilled labor...
Unions ARE working to get into McDonald's: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/29/nyregi...
As LetsShrug said... it's not rocket science.
I'm always greeted at the drive through with a smile and a small discussion of my day and the employee's day (night, actually, for both of us).
When I requested a dollar menu dinner item during the time when they only served breakfast, they made my mcChicken sandwiches (with tomato) special for me.
Whenever there was a mixup or delay in my order, I was compensated. Often I've been asked if I wanted a drink, or fries, or something new on the menu with my order, and I had either forgotten part of what I'd gone there for, or decided that, yes, that *was* what I wanted. All asking did was remind me to think about what I wanted.
This is good customer service because I was a good, regular customer. If customers unionized, we'd all get the same service, which would quickly become the quality the most pain-in-the-ass, least-friendly customer rated.
Such is the pricetag of your conscience. But, you make us all share in that price.
See, rather than welfare I much prefer the idea that those low earners who are at that level because of corporate greed organize and market themselves as a group. Then they can have a better position to establish their value.
They are not low earners because of corporate greed, and wanting more money than their labor is worth is dishonest greed on their part.
They want a better position to establish their value, get educated. Get experience. Keep their genitals in their pants and not produce kids they can't feed themselves.
You can't have it both ways; either you subsidize those people with food stamps, or your let them go hungry. Blaming McDonald's, which owes them *nothing*, certainly not employment, does not address the problem.
Let's say you double their salary. The McDonald's franchise has to increase prices to accommodate the lost productivity; or they can fire half their employees... the most expensive half.
Meanwhile, Walmart workers, having to pay more for their McDonald's meals, stop eating McDonald's and go to Burger King, or buy food at Walmart's deli, or buy Ramen Noodles or cans of Mini-Ravioli, foods nutritionally no better than that at McDonald's. McDonald's profits go down, more layoffs. Stores start shutting down.
Congrats, you put the mean old greedy franchisee out of business... and unemployed everyone who worked for him.
Why is corporate greed so much worse than employee greed? Because the numbers to the left of the decimal point are so much more numerous? Why is it okay for employees to blackmail a company into paying them MORE THAN THE VALUE OF THEIR CONTRIBUTION, but not okay for a company to make more profit than some smarmy academician arbitrarily deems sufficient?
How does investors working together increase their "value?"
In fact labor grouped together can help define their value to investors.
An investor is not a laborer. A stork is not a moose.
You are replacing "value", with "force".
Works for the Mafia...and the unions.
Forced labor doesn't even exist anymore in the Deep South...where chain gangs once kept the roadways clean.