McDonald's should pay its workers $15 an hour, Bernie Sanders says

[Hassin Bin Sober]

McDonald's should pay its workers $15 an hour, Bernie Sanders says

https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/04/business/bernie-sanders-mcdonalds/index.html

New York (CNN Business)Amazon? Check. Disney? Check. McDonald's?

The fast food chain is Senator Bernie Sanders' next minimum wage target. He wants McDonald's to give its workers a pay raise to $15 an hour.

In a letter to CEO Steve Easterbrook on Thursday, Sanders demanded McDonald's boost workers' paychecks and let workers unionize. Sanders had previously called on Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to increase the company's minimum wage, and Amazon followed through this week.

"If McDonald's raised the minimum wage to $15 an hour and respected the constitutional rights of your workers to form a union, it would set an example for the entire fast food industry to follow," Sanders wrote in a letter addressed to Easterbrook and posted to his Twitter account.

Sanders said he talked to McDonald's employees who complained that their current pay makes getting by difficult. He claimed that many McDonald's employees need federal assistance, including food stamps and public housing.

He added that McDonald's isn't a poor company. The company made a $5.2 billion profit last year on nearly $23 billion in sales. McDonald's is a healthy business: Revenue has increased recently as McDonald's offered better food and technology, and the stock is up nearly 80% since Easterbrook took over in 2015.

[jmowreader]

1. Does Bernie understand how McDonald's works?

The McDonald’s company doesn’t own the stores. Independent owners do, and they’d have to fire people to afford to pay $15 per hour.

[JI7]

3. depends on the area. since places already have or plan to get 15 minimum soon

like california and los angeles. ca passed the increase in minimum wage and los angeles passed similar but to get there faster.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

6. Maybe he understands corporate owns 10% of the stores.

Maybe he knows corporate exerts a ton of control over franchisees.

Maybe he knows increases in corporate pay pressures franchisee pay.

Maybe he knows the NLRB considered the franchisee/franchiser model to be really murky - but I guess that will go by the wayside because - BERNIE!

And no stores are going to close over such a minimal pay increase. McDonald’s franchises are a license to print money. Maybe they can reduce the schedule of throwing perfectly good buildings in a dumpster to rebuild stores in 2 weeks.

[QC]

2. He's just jealous of the Job Creators!!!

[exboyfil]

4. That is about what the safety tech's that

work with my RN daughter make. I would rather flip burgers for $15/hr. than be often in danger from mental health patients.

In some areas it makes sense to have that wage. In many areas they would be making more than skilled machinists. Another data point are the CNAs who took care of my grandma in a nursing home. They made about $11/hr. and they earned every penny of it.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

5. You couldn't pay enough to work in a McDonalds. Any fast food place but especially McDonald's.

Those people run around doing the work of three people. It’s why I try not to get pissed off when it takes three tries to get a simple coffee ordered in the drive thru. You can’t take orders over the intercom , make change and fill drinks without bumbling it 90% of the time. You just can’t.

When is the last time you saw someone standing around in a McDonald’s? It’s why I laugh when people say they will hire less if wages increase. Not gonna happen. Automation eventually will happen but that’s coming anyway at any wage over near zero.

I worked summer jobs in college running a jack hammer. I would do that again before working fast food (or waiting tables).

And a skilled machinist making $15 dollars an hour is a good wage - for the 1980s. That’s fucked up. I was getting union scale $16 plus as a laborer in the 80s. Time and a half every Saturday.

It never ceases to amaze me to hear, on Du, how unfair it will be to OTHER industries or employees if some low paid slave wage labor gets something near a liveable wage.

How about this? Why don’t we advocate for a liveable wage for those other industries rather than try to keep McDonald’s workers down?

My buddy who spends half his time in France once remarked how Americans will try to keep the other worker down while the French will protest why do they not have a benefit.

Shaming Bezos and McDonalds isn’t about just amazon or McDonald’s. I think it’s great advertising for what can happen if we actually ASK and DEMAND something from corporate America.

Who knows, maybe it will wake people up to the fact the workers generate the wealth.

We better get a mitt and get in the game because near zero employment is coming. We better be used to making demands.

[Power 2 the People]

9. +1000

Powerful statement.

[Power 2 the People]

7. McDonald's as a corporate entity made the $5.2 billion in profits.

Rather than have the financial burden fall on the local franchisees, McDonald's should lower their royalty rate to compensate for the added labor expense.

They currently charge the franchisees:

4% Royalty on GROSS revenue
4% of GROSS revenue for advertising
10.7 % of GROSS revenue back to McDonald's corporate office for RENT!!

That's 20% of each franchisees gross income being skimmed off the top for corporate. They can afford to lower the royalty or rent fees. Greedy bastards.

https://www.businessinsider.com/what-it-costs-to-open-a-mcdonalds-2014-11

[Initech]

8. How well did that work with Amazon?

They're getting $15 an hour at the expense of their bonuses, yet nothing will happen to Jeff Bezos or the board of directors' 8 figure salaries. That is what needs to change, Bernie.

[Autumn]

10. I saw one man whining he only got $1 raise, not all Amazon employees make

$14 an hour. As for bonuses? Math. Bonuses cost less than pay raises and companies know that Idiots get excited over the word bonus, most get a lump sum of less than a quarter of the overall yearly change of their raise, that's how it was when I worked and I doubt it's changed. They want the lump sum because they suck so bad at math and money management they can't understand they are getting shafted.

[Initech]

11. Oh it's a total sham job.

$15 an hour is fucking nothing compared to what CEOs make, especially when rent is so out of control people are sleeping in cars or tent cities because they can't afford to live there. We get peanuts and they have enough money to buy the entire whole fucking world's supply of peanut farms and STILL have money left over. How much is enough? The first great depression happened because of this shit and we're spiraling toward a second one and this one, there may be no recovering from.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

12. I think it worked out great.

Some people got a three or four dollar raise. Other people got a one dollar raise. All those people don’t have to piss in a bottle or count on some fleeting bonus program that could be pulled if they miss a day at work. How about an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay instead of some jogoff bonus plan?

[Initech]

13. $15 an hour is still not that great.

Especially when rent in most of the major cities is getting so out of control it's insane. And compare that to Jeff Bezos who makes billions every year. We get peanuts while they get the whole peanut farm.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

14. I think it's a start.

I think Bezos blinked. At least a little bit.

I also thinks it shows what can happen when our leaders grab the headlines and shame a company.

Who knows, maybe the next step is serious unionization efforts by employees and another go at card-check by our leaders once we win the house and presidency.

I tell ya, the people around these parts who scream about incremental change suddenly have a problem that these folks didn’t secure themselves a $60k salary on the first go ’round.

Also see my post #5