Proposed Raise for Fast-Food Employees Divides Low-Wage Workers

[riversedge]

N.Y. / Region
Proposed Raise for Fast-Food Employees Divides Low-Wage Workers

JULY 26, 2015



Taniqua Hayes, 24, with her grandmother, Rebecca Cornick, 61. Ms. Cornick works at a Wendy’s in Brooklyn and will see her pay increase to $15 an hour. Ms. Hayes, who works at a day care center, will not receive the same raise. Credit Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times


Rebecca Cornick cheerfully chopped 120 heads of lettuce, wiped tables and rang up some Baconators, fries and chicken club sandwiches. For most of her customers, it was just another afternoon at a Wendy’s restaurant in the East New York section of Brooklyn. Not for Ms. Cornick. She was celebrating.

It was Thursday, one day after a state panel recommended that the minimum wage for fast-food workers be raised to $15 an hour, and Ms. Cornick was savoring congratulations from some regulars and the knowledge that soon, very soon, she would have more money to pay her bills.

But her jubilation dimmed after her shift, as soon as she stepped onto the street. On her stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue, the low-wage workers outside the fast-food industry will remain untouched by the pay increase. That includes her 24-year-old granddaughter, who earns minimum wage — $8.75 an hour — at a day care center two blocks from Wendy’s.


“It’s heartbreaking,” Ms. Cornick, 61, said. “So many people are desperate.”

Advocates for workers across the country cheered last week when New York became the first state to recommend a $15-an-hour minimum wage specifically for fast-food workers. But in New York City, the decision has created a stark new divide between low-wage workers who will receive the boost in their paychecks and those who will not..................

[djean111]

1. Hopefully this will drive other wages up. n/t

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

2. Fast food workers have been protesting for higher pay.

Other low wage workers need to do the same. There will be some pressure to raise other workers' wages simply as a result of fast food worker wages going up, but getting others up will go more quickly if they protest too.

[Vincardog]

3. This is the way the NeoCons broke the unions= Get the rest of workers to resent the union wages

instead of demanding equal pay and benefits.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

4. That's the trend we've got to reverse.

Get people to realize that they deserve more, rather than other people deserving less.

[Vincardog]

5. That is why I am part of the MOVEMENT to elect Bernie and throw out the RW hacks.

[Emelina]

6. While wages need to go up...

the corporate elite will merely switch to robots.

Problem is, when every job is done by a machine who will buy their products?

[Jimbo S]

7. I wish Taniqua well

If your wage goes up $6/hour, all of a sudden more people want your job and you're more replaceable.

[Lurker Deluxe]

8. this is accurate

Change the base salary to 30K a year and if the current employee is not sharp they will be replaced, quickly.

You will see a huge change in the people working in fast food, and those displaced will find it difficult to find employment. A degree will become a requirement to work at Wendys.