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kleinbl00  ·  4011 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Thoughts on the Fast Food Strike?

Speaking as a union member:

    “These demonstrations are a coordinated PR campaign engineered by national labor groups where the vast majority of participants are activists and paid demonstrators; relatively few restaurant workers have participated in the past,” the organization said in a statement.

Yup, that's pretty much how we roll.

Fast food wages are a larger problem - they're a symptom of an economy that does not value a living wage. One day strikes are not going to change that. Long strikes are not going to change that. The fundamental issue is that labor unions arose out of a need to protect skilled labor (arguably; the Teamsters kinda throw this into question) and most of the skilled jobs have been shipped overseas, automated or otherwise eliminated.

I want to see fast food workers make a living wage. The only reason they will ever do so is if they become skilled laborers. Dick's in Seattle has a long history of paying its employees pretty well, comparatively speaking, and offering nice benefits. It also requires its workers to know a good deal more about food prep and maintenance than Mickey D's does. There's a burger joint on Pico called The Apple Pan that employs guys who have been there for like 30 years. They're damn good at what they do. But their burgers also cost four times what they do at McD's.

Really, for the economics of fast food to work out for fast food workers, fast food has to become slow food. I'm all for it, but I don't see it happening without a massive cultural revolution.