The rapid success of Fight for $15: 'This is a trend that cannot be stopped'

[HuckleB]

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jul/24/rapid-success-15-dollars-minimum-wage-new-york

"When 200 New York restaurant workers walked out in the nation’s first-ever fast-food strike in late 2012, they were widely mocked for demanding minimum pay of $15 an hour, with some critics saying their demand was absurdly out of reach, akin to visiting Mars.

But this week a New York state panel appointed by Governor Andrew Cuomo recommended establishing a $15 minimum wage for the state’s 180,000 fast-food workers. It was a landmark win for an unorthodox movement – the Fight for 15 – that is just two and a half years old.

“It’s huge,” said Kendall Fells, the Fight for 15’s chief organizer. “It’s hard to believe, going back to that first one-day strike, with people saying, ‘They’re crazy. This is stupid.’ And now you have Governor Cuomo stepping up to help raise wages for 180,000, people.”

Fells said the movement was intent on charging ahead and would continue to press McDonald’s, and other fast-food companies to adopt a $15 minimum, which suddenly appears more realistic now that a New York state board has recommended $15, to be phased in over three years in New York City and six years in the rest of the state. Moreover, it might grow harder for McDonald’s to resist such demands if New York’s move – which awaits formal approval by the state labor commissioner – demonstrates that fast-food restaurants can survive and perhaps even thrive paying more than twice the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.

..."


But here's what's scary, to me. "New York's $15 minimum wage would be the highest in the world." Hmm. Maybe the rest of the world isn't quite as grand as we sometimes want to believe.

Yikes.

[FrodosPet]

1. At $15 an hour, perhaps they can find competent people?

I hate sitting in line at the drive thru for 15 to 20 minutes in order to get cold fries, no black pepper, and sweetened iced tea when I wanted unsweetened.

[HuckleB]

3. Well, I guess you go to the wrong places over and over again.

That's not an issue with employees...

[nashville_brook]

2. Australia's MW is $16.88

[HuckleB]

4. Yeah, but you have to live there.

And it's hot as hell.

[Recursion]

5. That's higher than the median wage in 5 states

I'm all for it, but it's going to take a lot more transfers from Massachusetts and California to Mississippi and Arkansas even than we do now (and we do a lot already).

[HuckleB]

6. As it should.