This morning, workers at some Rochester-area fast food restaurants went on strike. They’ll join fast food workers in cities across the country as part of the Fight for $15 campaign.
The workers say they want employers like McDonald’s, Burger King, and Wendy’s to commit to a $15 an hour wage for store employees and the right to form a union without retaliation. Campaign organizers say that the restaurants make big profits each year, but pay their employees — many of whom have families —  low wages. In May 2013, the average wage for fast food preparation and service workers in the Rochester metro was $9.89 an hour, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
More telling, however, is the bureau’s data on average annual wages for food service workers in the Rochester area, broken down by percentile. Quick hint: the 90th percentile means that 90 percent of workers in the sector would earn less than that amount on an annual basis while the 10th percentile means that 10 percent of the workers in that sector would earn less than that amount. (For reference, the federal poverty line is $23,850 a year for a family of four.)
This article appears in Sep 3-9, 2014.
I am not sure what the relevance of your reference to the poverty level for a family of four is. Are we to believe that an employer is responsible to vary,an employee’s pay according to their family size? Why not use the poverty level for an individual for comparison? That is about $11,700., which means employees even at the 10% percentile make more. Those receiving a pay raise undoubtably benefit from the higher income. But what about those that lose their jobs when the employer automates or creates more self service for the customer? For example, look at how many stores are moving to self checkout lines, which eliminates positions, just as tens of thousands of jobs were lost in the telecom industry when employment costs became higher than the investment costs to automate.
These people do realize that these local restaurants are franchises. They pay the corporation a fee to have the restaurant.
If you don’t like the pay of the job why not quit and get a better job that pays more?
Perhaps we’re forgetting that Rochester is the 5th poorest city in the US (3rd by some metrics). And given that the Rochester area unemployment rate is consistently about 1% lower than the national rate, that means that the reason rochester is poor is not because there aren’t jobs. It’s because the jobs there are are paying poverty wages, like the fast food industry. And as Americans we’re also forgetting that the only way that we’ve ever succeeded in fighting poverty is through the kind of organizing that these workers are doing. Striking for better pay is as American as apple pie. And it’s also the best way to fight poverty in Rochester. These brave workers are leading the way toward an economy that works for all of us. They’re heroes.
Cres…’s comments are actually incorrect. The unemployment rate in the city of Rochester is 10%. It is the metro area that has a low 6.1% unemployment rate. This means that the suburbs have a rate of something like 4%, which is pretty close to full employment. But that is not the case for city residents. I also think, but this is just an opinion, that the reason for the high poverty rate in the city is that the middle class has fled the city for the suburbs over the past decades. After all, the commute from a suburb to the city, if you work there, is relatively short, and the housing costs outside the city are low by national standards. And one gets the advantages of reasonable schools and low crime.
http://www.unemployment-rate.org/local/Unemployment_Rate/New_York/Rochester_City_NY/PS360310
I have to apologize about the stats. I did not notice that they are from 2010, so the actual current results may be quite different.
$15 is too high for a minimum wage. Fast food workers seem to work pretty hard for low wages, but that’s just how it is. The concept of a minimum wage has no real value other than as a talking point for politicians. The law of worker supply and demand drives fast food hourly wages higher and lower. If there is a shortage of workers, then wages and benefits naturally rise.
Why would someone make demands from an employer that they get paid more? I’ve seen some great people leave a place for more money.
The franchise argument is nonsense. Most franchises are actually mega-franchises, where the owner owns many stores. In our area, all the Wendy’s are owned by Richard Fox, a hyper conservative millionaire who owns over 80 stores in three states. Likewise, all the Burger Kings are owned by the Carols Group, which owns hundreds of stores around the country. This story about mom-n-pop franchises is a narrative cooked up by billion-dollar corporations to keep people poor.
People who are complaining about a higher wage for fast food employees being too much would do well to remember that these jobs are no longer held primarily by high school kids earning spending money, but increasingly by people trying to survive, pay bills, and raise children. Thats the reality of the economy we live in right now, and one can’t always just run out, try harder, and get another job. On top of that, all you taxpayers are subsidizing the fast food industry to pay their workers low wages in the form of food stamps, medical insurance, and other benefits. You pay for McDonalds greed. It’s really that simple. So, instead of sitting on the comments section of City Newspaper telling fast food workers to work harder at life, or defending wealthy franchisees who need no defense…perhaps you should join these brave workers on the picket line next time. And there will be a next time.
I’m gonna copy-paste me facebook status from yesterday into this comments thread, because there are apparently still a bunch of fools out there: Ok, kids, let me explain a little something you should have figured out on your own. NOBODY IS SAYING FAST FOOD WORKERS SHOULD MAKE MORE MONEY THAN YOU. Fifteen dollars an hour is meant to represent a living wage. The point of Fight for Fifteen is not that frycooks deserve a higher wage than paramedics or whatever other underpaid profession you care to name. The point is that everyone who works for a living should make enough to live on. And giant, tax-dodging, multinational corporations should not be paying the WORKERS (that’s all of us) poverty level wages. If you work for a living and you’re against workers making a living wage, then you’re just against yourself.
so if the minimum wage goes up, requiring not only soulless corporations but struggling mom-and-pop businesses to pony up, then skilled worker wages rise commensurately, then retail prices skyrocket so businesses can afford to pay their employees, aren’t we right back where we started? what am i missing here?