Tag Archives: Minimum wage

business news, national news

McDonald’s goes through total makeover

mcdonalds-protesters

Message to my sons: Your dad’s McDonald’s is gone.

I just saw this link posted to my Facebook feed this morning. McDonald’s — which once sold burgers for 15 cents apiece and hired only boys — has gone higher-tech than it already had been.

http://toprightnews.com/15-minimum-wage-pushers-devastated-after-mcdonalds-makes-this-bold-move/

This comes from a conservative website that I opposes cities and states lifting the minimum wage to $15 per hour.

Oh, the agony of reading this link.

A St. Louis, Mo., McDonald’s is introducing bottom-less French fries, cushy lounge chairs for its customers and kiosks that will take customers’ orders. Fast-food vending machines might be next.

I’m an old man now and I’m starting to sound like my own father who used to recall the old days with some fondness.

McDonald’s is a big part of my life story.

I got hired at a McDonald’s on the corner of Northeast 122nd Avenue and Glisan Street in Portland, Ore., the day before my 16th birthday. It was such a major event in my life that I actually remember the date with as much clarity as I remember my birthday, my wife’s birthday, my wedding day, the births of my sons and my granddaughter and the day I got my draft notice.

It wasn’t a high-tech operation.

I got paid a dollar an hour; we peeled our own potatoes every morning in machine that spun the spuds around a rough-sided drum. Burgers sold for 15 cents, cheeseburgers cost four cents more, milk shakes and soft drinks sold for a quarter. A big day occurred when we grossed $1,000 in sales … for the entire day; today, they take in that kind of fiscal volume in an hour.

What about sex-discrimination laws? Don’t make me laugh.

The owner of the place hired only boys in keeping with corporate policy. We might as well have taken the sign down from the tree fort and hung it on the front door: “No girls allowed!”

I don’t object to the minimum wage increasing to a more livable sum. I am saddened, though, to see the impact these municipal and state laws are having on a venerable American tradition, which would be the fast-food joints that used to employ youngsters such as myself.

I made friends for life working with guys just like myself. I met two of my best friends ever working at the McDonald’s where I started out. One of them became my best man. The other one became my “brother” because we resembled each other as kids and our customers used to think we actually were kin; the hilarious part of that story is that we look like brothers today.

That was the environment we shared as kids working for virtually nothing, hauling 100-pound sacks of spuds up the stairs and sweating over a grill frying burgers by the dozens.

Onward we go to a future that guarantees a “livable minimum wage.” It’s a shame that we have plowed asunder a tradition that allowed many millions of Americans to come of age.

 

national news, political news

Kim Davis proves the Founders got it right

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huck

Here’s the latest social media missive from former Labor Secretary Robert Reich.

“This morning, on ABC’s ‘This Week,’ Mike Huckabee said Kim Davis’ refusal to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples is equivalent to Abraham Lincoln’s refusal to accept slavery, which was the law of the land when Lincoln became president. ‘You obey it if it’s right,’ Huckabee said, arguing that Davis shouldn’t be jailed. ‘Should Lincoln have been put in jail? Because he ignored the law?’

“So if Kim Davis who opposes gay marriage can refuse to issue a perfectly legal marriage license, a Quaker clerk who’s a pacifist can refuse to issue gun licenses, a clerk who’s a committed environmentalist can refuse to issue building permits, and a clerk who believes in a $15 minimum wage can refuse to issue Walmart a permit to build a new store. What planet does Huckabee live on?

“Here’s a man who was governor of Arkansas and wants to be president of the United States, and he compared Kim Davis to Abraham Lincoln? Sometimes I’m flabbergasted.”

Me, too, Mr. Secretary.

I’ll just add that the Kim Davis gay marriage license debate has demonstrated precisely why the Founding Fathers got it exactly right when they wrote a secular document — the U.S. Constitution — that would become the framework for the federal government.

 

business news, local news

What? Cities can't decide these things?

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Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin has signed a law that bans cities from enacting municipal minimum-wage standards for businesses within the city.

That’s strange. I have thought Republicans, such as Fallin, were categorically opposed to what they call “government overreach,” that local control should trump bigger-government control whenever possible?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/15/oklahoma-minimum-wage_n_5152496.html

Oklahoma cities, like cities in all the other states, do have this thing called “home rule charter” form government. I believe that enables cities to set the rules inside their corporate limits. Do I have that wrong?

Gov. Fallin’s signature on the bill now disallows cities from making that call.

It reminds me a bit of the Texas statute that used to prohibit cities from deploying red-light cameras if city officials perceived a problem with people running red lights, causing accidents and putting local residents in danger. That law has been amended and some cities — such as Amarillo — are using the cameras to catch those who run through red lights.

Those who support the Oklahoma minimum-wage ban say it “levels the playing field” for all cities. A GOP state representative said, “An artificial raise in the minimum wage could derail local economies in a matter of months. This is a fair measure for consumers, workers and small business owners.”

Sure thing. But if business owners agree that the $7.25 hourly wage is too low and are willing to pay more, don’t they have the right to do so if the city where they operate grants them permission?

Local control, man. Local control.

I thought that was preferable to patronizing Big Government.

 

Uncategorized

Increase the minimum wage

President Obama is right to raise a ruckus over the minimum wage.

It ought to be no surprise to learn that a family of four cannot live on $7.25 per hour, the current federally mandated minimum wage. Of course, I’m not convinced that a family of four would try to live on that kind of wage. Surely, the adults in that family would seek second, maybe third jobs.

http://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/obama-pushes-minimum-wage-hike-slams-gop-saying-no-everything

Still, the minimum wage has been stuck at its current rate for a long time. Inflation has moved along, making the cost of everything more expensive. College students trying to pay for school are having an increasingly difficult time doing so while working for minimum wage.

Having declared my support for increasing the minimum wage, I also think there should be limits.

Cities across the nation are boosting the minimum wage dramatically. Seattle has nearly doubled it.

The president recently signed an executive order that increased the minimum wage for federal workers to $10.10 per hour. I believe that is a reasonable amount to increase everyone’s wage.

I’m not going to get into the political battle that’s shaping up here. Democrats want to keep control of the Senate and are making the case for boosting the minimum wage. Republicans are resisting, saying it will hurt businesses that would have to pay it.

Whatever. Boost the minimum wage. It’s the right thing to do. Make citizens’ struggle a little less burdensome.

 

 

Uncategorized

Romney switches course on minimum wage

Do you recall the 2004 presidential campaign political ad that lampooned Democratic nominee U.S. Sen John Kerry for saying he was “in favor of the Iraq War before I opposed it”?

Well, 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney once opposed increasing the minimum wage but now he favors it.

http://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/romney-on-minimum-wage-raise-it-251118147687

Romney spoke correctly on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” broadcast this morning by saying Republicans should be the party of more and better-paying jobs. He reminded his hosts that he parted company with the conservative wing of his party by favoring an increase in the minimum wage.

Indeed, Romney now is aboard the same wagon with a majority of Americans who favor increasing the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour.

His Republican colleagues in Congress need to listen to the party’s most recent presidential nominee who, let’s not forget, received nearly 61 million votes in the 2012 election.

To their discredit, though, congressional Republicans are listening instead to tea party conservatives who don’t want to lift minimum-wage earners who have to support their families out of poverty.

And hasn’t President Obama been saying that no family relying on the minimum wage should live in poverty? Strangely, Mitt Romney’s stance put him squarely in the same corner with the man who defeated him in the 2012 election.

Don’t wait for Romney to extol the president’s correctness on the minimum wage issue. That would go beyond the pale.

Uncategorized

Minimum wage hike not really a killer

Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives John Boehner is on record as saying he’d rather kill himself than vote for an increase in the federal minimum wage.

Now that he’s gotten that off his chest, I surely hope he was just being melodramatic, trying to make some rhetorical point.

However, now the issue ought to turn to whether the House should vote on it. I say, “Why not?”

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/198856-boehner-id-rather-kill-myself-than-raise-the-minimum-wage

At issue is a proposal to increase the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour. President Obama wants it, as do congressional Democrats. So might a majority of congressional Republicans. Polling indicates most rank-and-file Americans support an increase from the current rate of $7.25 per hour.

Who’s opposed to it? As my late mother would say, I’ll give you three guesses — but the first two don’t count.

It’s the tea party cabal within the Republican Party congressional caucus, the individuals who have whipsawed Boehner and other establishment Republicans into backing much of their agenda.

Boehner isn’t likely to allow a vote to increase the minimum wage because he’s been buffaloed.

Therein lies the question of leadership. Is the speaker the Man of the House or isn’t he?

As speaker, he isn’t beholden just to a minority within his own caucus. He ought to be looking out for the interests of the entire body, all 435 members — and that includes Democrats as well as Republicans.

I’m not necessarily arguing here for a “clean” minimum wage bill, one that doesn’t have some sweeteners, such as spending cuts or tax breaks. Indeed, White House brass and congressional Democrats ought to be stop digging in their heels by insisting on a clean bill.

What’s more, economic data differ on whether a minimum wage increase is going to cause mass layoffs because employers cannot afford to pay employee wages.

I do know, though, that families cannot rely on minimum-wage income to sustain themselves. They need a boost.

So, Mr. Speaker, allow a vote. It won’t kill you.