Fast Food Workers Call Us To Repentance

The low paid workers get their rent, health ins. food stamp subsidies from us tax payers who are thus subsidizing the franchises and fast food corporations.. We lend banks money @ 1% and they charge the customers 5%. FOX News is outraged at the asking for a hike in minimum wage claiming that burgers will be priced out of reach. Cheap Cotton needed slaves as was taught in the South.The workers need to target weak franchises...bankruptcy is the necessary medicine for capitalism. . . .

Is the Church serious about this? How about parishes making public commitments to boycott etc? Marches, like in the old support for farm workers?

The majority of parishes in the USA do not have the wherewithal to serve fair trade coffee let alone help fast food workers. Maybe we should start there, with coffee? Once we have that mastered, we can segue to other social justice areas?

We Christians (Catholics) say we live according to the teachings of Jesus who said, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." But many of us would rather lock into the teaching of St. Paul addressed to a certain church with a certain problem, "If a man will not work neither shall he eat!" A little "tough love" may be good at times but I would rather do whatever it takes to make the teaching of Jesus applicable, understanding that "charity although good must never be practiced contrary to sound judgment," according to Augustine, meaning that a just living wage must always be in line with Justice, another word for "fair play" absolutely in line with the teaching of Jesus,"do unto others what you would have them do unto you." To put it in dollar value, $15 per hour is not too much to ask, along with additional governmental tag-ons allowing a level of prosperity, aligned to the ideals of Jesus and his teaching according to the wisdom of Pope Francis who said, "Every economic and political theory or action must set about providing each inhabitant of the planet with the minimum wherewithal to live in dignity and freedom, with the possibility of supporting a family, educating children, praising God and developing one's own human potential. This is the main thing; in the absence of such a vision, all economic activity is meaningless." Even if according to Fox News we'll have to pay more for a hamburger!

This is a complex problem as substantial hikes in the minimum wage or other government fiats often hurt the poor the most. $15,000 a year seems below any American concept of a "living wage" for an individual and even more so for a family. But most people in the world live on far less and would jump at the chance for these wages if they could get them. The global median salary is $1,225 a year (see link below). While service industries cannot move the jobs to the willing workers abroad (greatly improving the lot of the foreign poor), many or most of our manufacturing jobs are going there, greatly reducing global income inequality, but at the expense of increased inequality at home. I suppose as a Church of the whole of humanity, we should be pleased with the reduced global inequality, even while we try to solve our own local inequalities. McDonalds employs 440,000 people and serves 69 million customers a day. The WST said they made $5.5 billion in 2012. That makes it 22 cents profit per customer per day or $34 a day per employee, while they pay the min. wage employee $58 a day (plus benefits, unless they are part-time - a shift incentivized by Obamacare). If they increased the pay to $15 per hour ($120 per day), and all else stayed the same, they would lose about $10 billion a year. Management would of course not leave everything the same. They would a) replace workers with more automation or b) greatly increase food prices c) shut down the less profitable franchises). All would most certainly hurt only the poor. Walmart employs 2.2 million people (1.3 million in the US). I think the poor shop there the most. Higher pay again translates into higher prices. One should also ask why workers take the jobs that pay only minimum wage, since it is less than what people can get on welfare. It could be a temporary or starting job (as I did) to get some job experience. Or they might have a robust work ethic. It would be a shame to have training jobs disappear as they can be a good stepping stone into better paying employment. For those who would like to help workers at fast food outlets, boycotting is more likely to get people fired (if the local franchise loses money). Maybe consider giving a $5-10 tip each time you shop there, as it would go directly to the worker? Or, even better, become an employer and hire people to better paying jobs. I know its risky and you are liable to be attacked for being a greedy employer. But better to light a candle than curse the dark or attack the 1% (which might include you - an after-tax income of only $34,000 for an individual in the world -http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2082385/We-1--You-need-34k-income-global-elite--half-worlds-richest-live-U-S.html).

O'Leary and others point to facts that support the argument without considering the moral perspective. The fact that the rich get richer while the poor get poorer is most alarming and new. As Henry Ford said " I give my workers a living wage so they can buy my cars." Enough said.

They do not have those techniques. For when, at least, the only assistance they have is our moral sensation.tubal reversalTubal Ligation Reversal