It's unhealthy food anyway.
"Public aid crucial to fast-food workers" by Katie Johnston | Globe Staff, October 16, 2013
More than half of fast-food workers’ families nationwide rely on public assistance to get by —double the rate of the overall workforce — at a cost of nearly $7 billion a year to US taxpayers, according to a study released Tuesday.
Time to cut some of the fat!
In Massachusetts, employees of McDonald’s, Burger King, and other fast-food chains receive $173 million a year in programs such as Medicaid and food stamps, research by the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign found.
Well, those food stamps are being cut so they will have to just eat at work.
Fast-food workers have been campaigning to call attention to the low wages and minimal benefits they receive as employees of highly profitable corporations.
How do you think they got to be highly profitable -- and now you counter workers want to ruin it.
The economy has taken a toll on such workers....
Related: Globe Salutes Labor
I think it's funny, don't you?
While the majority of jobs lost during the recession were in the middle of the pay scale, the bulk of new positions created during the economic recovery have been at the lower end of the spectrum.
The study also contradicted the common belief that flipping burgers is predominantly a job done by teenagers. It found that two-thirds of fast-food workers are adults, and a quarter of them have children. Representatives of the restaurant industry disputed the study’s findings, calling them misleading.
In late August, thousands of fast-food workers in more than 60 cities, including Boston, took to the streets for a one-day walkout, picketing in front of stores to demand $15 an hour and the right to unionize. Among them was Georgina Gutierrez, 36, who has worked as a cook at a Dorchester Burger King for four years....
She was fired later.
The National Employment Law Project released a related study Tuesday showing that workers at the 10 largest fast-food companies in the United States account for more than half of the $7 billion in annual public assistance costs. McDonald’s — the largest, with more than 700,000 employees — costs taxpayers $1.2 billion a year, according to the nonprofit advocacy group for low-wage workers. The seven publicly traded corporations among the top 10 biggest fast-food chains made $7.4 billion in profits last year and paid $53 million to their top executives, the National Employment Law Project reported.
Yeah, $o, what is your point?
“These companies operate on a business model that leaves low-paid workers unable to afford basic necessities and leaves taxpayers on the hook for billions of dollars each year, but awards CEOs millions of dollars each year in executive compensation,” said report author Jack Temple. “Low wage fast-food jobs are expensive for all of us.”
Several organizations took issue with the reports, including the National Restaurant Association, which released a statement from Scott DeFife, its executive vice president of policy and government affairs.
“These misleading efforts use a very narrow lens and selective data to attack the industry for their own purposes and fail to recognize that the majority of lower-wage employees works part-time to supplement a family income,” DeFife said....
I know how he feels.
The Employment Policies Institute, a pro-business organization in Washington D.C., also took aim at the reports, saying the majority of fast-food restaurants are franchises run by small business owners.
The increased attention on fast-food companies is making consumers more aware of the costs associated with these types of businesses, said Darrin Howell, deputy director of the local labor coalition MassUniting, which has been organizing fast-food workers in Boston. Diners may be enjoying inexpensive food, he said, but it is probably at the expense of their servers’ health insurance, and that costs everyone in the end.
“People want their burger and they want it fast, but they might not recognize what it’s taking out of their pocket besides the menu item,” Howell said, referring to billions of dollars in taxpayer money spent to prop up low-wage earners. “Their fight is your fight.”
Related: Grapes of Wrath Toward the Boston Globe
I'm sour that illegals were taken advantage of by labor leaders.
--more--"
Of course, all the cost overruns at the Pentagon, the aid to prosperous Israel, the trillions in Wall Street bailouts, the lavish political lifestyles and corporate welfare that is passed around isn't a problem. It's the damn fast-food workers mooching $7 billion bucks a year for benefits. Maybe they ought to stop eating that shit they serve.
