A few months ago, progressive talk show host Thom Hartmann posed a question to heartless, vomit-inducing “gender traitor,” Phyllis Schlafly about whether or not a person who didn’t make enough money to support themselves, was really free.
Good question, Thom. Although beside the point, it’s worth mentioning his inquiry was met with about six seconds of dead air followed by a hasty diversion.
Following this line of reasoning, it would seem as though there’s something new cooking these days and it smells like freedom. Freedom fries, perhaps?
Fast food workers in need of a livable wage have taken to the streets to protest their ongoing exploitation at the hands of greedy fat-cat CEO’s who earn more in half a day than their employees do all year.
This, the latest in a series of similar strikes, is the largest yet, according to organizers. The one-day strike is taking place in roughly 150 cities across the country in some of the most popular and most profitable fast-food chains in the country. McDonald’s, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Wendy’s and Domino’s are among them.
Multiple media outlets are reporting massive arrests with NBC reporting arrested demonstrators are sitting in the streets of Detroit and New York. The Chicago Tribune reports protesters have blocked 87th Street with over two dozen protesters arrested so far.
Protesters, with the help of the Service Employees International Union, are taking bolder stance this time around. Kendall Fells, an organizing director for Fast Food Forward, said he has trained workers to engage in acts of peaceful civil disobedience. Notoriously underpaid home-care workers have joined in the protests as well. As of early this morning a number of protesters in New York City were arrested for staging a sit-in in the street and refusing to move.
So what do these greedy little serfs want anyway? They want something they shouldn’t have to fight for in the first place: a $15-an-hour wage and the right to unionize.
Jasmine Almodovar, who works for $9.50 an hour as a home-care aide in Cleveland, earns $350 per week. She said she is unable to support herself and her daughter.
“I work very hard. I’m underpaid. We deserve a good life, too,” she said. “We want to provide a nice future to our kids, but how can you provide a good life, how can you plan for the future, when you’re scraping by day to day?”
If we follow the purported logic of numb idiots like Sarah Palin and Paul Ryan who pollute otherwise constructive American discourse with their talk of “bootstraps” and “stepping stones,” then are we to understand that these CEO’s work harder in half a day than their employees do all year?
The pro-billionaire/anti-working poor party, claim these terrible paying jobs are meant to be a temporary stop on the way to the mythical American Dream job. It’s as if these purchased politicians lift their empty heads from their permanent places in the sand just long enough to dole out these tired lines, because they always avoid the actual issues:
Where are these “other jobs?” What if there are no “better jobs?” How does one acquire a well-paying jobs if they can’t afford an education? What if these “stepping stones” lead to nowhere but off a cliff?
Only 30 percent of fast food workers are actually teenagers. The rest are mothers, fathers, grandparents, retirees, everyday, average Americans basically. And regardless, who knows how many of these oh-so exploitable “teenagers” are working to help unemployed family members?
The way in which these laborers–arguably the hardest workers in the country–are currently treated is un-American and it’s a sham. We can do better. And if we as a country are to avoid our continued devolution into an overpaid ruling class with legions of serfs, then we must. So we owe a debt of gratitude to the protesters putting it all on the line today for our once-great society that, unfortunately, has turned hostile toward its increasing number of low income earners.
The President agrees:
“All across the country right now there’s a national movement going on made up of fast-food workers organizing to lift wages so they can provide for their families with pride and dignity,” Obama said while speaking at Milwaukee Laborfest earlier this week. “There is no denying a simple truth: America deserves a raise. Give America a raise.”
He added that if he “wanted an honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work, he’d join a union.”
The restaurant industry is the fastest growing industry in the service sector and like home-care, it is one which pays the least, and offers the least in regards to benefits, insurance and basic human dignity. Studies have shown that unionized workers experience vast improvements in working conditions and pay. Nothing close to the same galaxy within which their CEO’s reside, but something just a little less cruel.
“I’m participating because I’m doing whatever it takes,” said Ronnie Kitchen, a Burger King employee in Chicago who earns $8.25 an hour, “I’m tired of living in poverty.”
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Nicole Girard is a political writer with a passion for civil rights and the truth. Follow her on facebook or twitter. |
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