The fast food workers of the world, or to be specific, those
who have stood up and demanded a living wage for their labor, are in my opinion
the bravest and most righteous workers that I have seen or heard of from in a
long, long, time.
Fast food: it's not a teenager's rite of employment passage
anymore. Nowadays the college educated head of a family is out flipping burgers
and running the register. Why? Well, it's the economy, stupid. As manufacturing
and tech jobs make their way overseas and corporations get greedier and more
skinflint-like with their strategy, many companies are hideously understaffed
on purpose. For any of the work still paying anything halfway decent, and even
(or rather especially) for skilled occupations, the jobs are limited thanks to
the psychopathic level of profit taking and preservation.
The pathetic environment created by this economic idiocracy
is only further cultivated by the cowards remaining in the labor pool who can
(usually barely) pay their bills. They are scared shitless to address staffing
issues, or the ongoing decimation of their pensions and health benefits, or the
numerous other cost cutting stunts seemingly only in action in order to ensure
that executives get fat paydays, with management thrown a semi-meaty bone
occasionally for aiding in the bloodletting.
I have a suggestion for resolving the fast food plight. The
gummint can do the following: specifically reach out to fast food employees earning
starvation wages. Give each and every one of these employees food stamp
assistance, free or greatly reduced cost health care, and as many forms of
assistance as can be conceived to help their financial shortcomings. In return,
tax the FUCK out of the franchise owners paying these pitiful wages. Give them
an alternative, though. If they raise pay to a living wage for their employees,
the taxes are reduced to an amount which would give them incentive to do so.
The alternative to that plan would be if rank and file
workers from all areas finally had the spine to organize and address the
shortcomings and employment tactics in their respective workplaces. The power
of today's social media, combined with good old fashioned in-person meet and
greet networking, can go a long way to lash back against the fools who are
trying to squeeze the sponge of the economy.
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