++++++++++++++1!

 

Actually the average CEO is paid 380 times more then the average employee not the lowest...that includes all the overpaid upper management golf buddies making the real gap much larger in reality.

For all the hate here I feel we're missing the point. Fast food workers are living under the poverty level and them attempting to elevate their wages is not a reason to hate.

The min wage in 1968 was 11 dollars adjusted for inflation asking for 15 is not unreasonable. McD's alone made 1.5 billion in profits last year yet we as tax payers subsidized their business to about 1.2 billion in benefits paid to their workers because they are too poor to afford basic costs of living.

McD's is basically making its shareholders rich by directly taking tax money to subsidize their sub standard pay model, quite a few parallels to our own industry problems if you ask me

 

Do fast food workers have to contend with the Railway Labor Act and the National Mediation Board as well? We need to place more effort into changing the laws that govern us as a work group. That is exactly what the RAA is trying to do with the "1500 hour rule". We will see low time wonder pilots in the right seats of larger and larger "regional aircraft" if management can convince Congress that the new laws are unfairly hurting them before we can convince them that pilots simply need to receive fair pay and work rules. This is truly a race we cannot afford to lose and we are already way behind.

 

Shut up and pass me my fries!

 

Because they have nothing to lose. If they get fired, off to unemployment where they will make just as much money, get their housing paid for, ebt card, child care or more money for each kid, etc etc. so why not go for major pay raises where it is actually worth more money for them to have a job.

If we got rid of these entitlement programs more people would be fighting for these entry level jobs....and respect actually having a job.



Pilots have a lot more to lose. We, well most of us, have our eye on a future at captain pay, major or legacy airlines and a future where you have the chance to make several hundred thousand dollars a year.

 

Severing assistance programs while an obvious solution to get people off of government assistance just forces low income labors to live even further below the poverty line.

In addition removing that much government welfare would just further cripple the lower class economy, which would most certainly have effects on the middle and upper middle / lower upper class.

Corporate America is making record profits but claim that allowing working stiffs any larger piece of that pie would destroy the company, cause rabid unemployment and impregnate you're teenage daughter.

The problem is the data shows that higher wages for low level workers/higher minimum wage does not correlate to unemployment levels.


http://aneconomicsense.files.wordpre...0-jan-2013.png

 

Yet another perfect example of unions not doing enough. Even with the little bit of press they did get that finally woke congress, it was not due to the unions. And that was a perfect opportunity for the unions to create a media poop-storm to educate the public.

Maybe it's time for a new regional pilot and f/a union.


QUOTE=Flyhayes;1644077]Actually it might be good for regional pilots if the fast food workers prove to be successful in their fight. I'm sure the general public would find it hard to swallow the fact many of the pilots flying them around dark and stormy nights make less than a fast food worker.
Now how do we get the Unions to take out full page ads in the New York times on our behalf?

(as a point of history, the Pan Am pilots pooled their funds into a New York Times ad that acted as a turning point for the airline during a time when the government was content with watching the airline fail)[/QUOTE]

 

Interesting how many people complain about pay for a job they knew paid poorly when they accepted it?

 

Would be pretty good to show up and rain on their parade, but the power of one would be hard. Definitely need a "I'm a trained professional making less than $15/hr and I have more than a GED" I think even though we know the way our situation is, would anyone really rally together to go picket for us in a McJob protest.

 

12flare,
You have it figured out.
While the root causes of the economic problems of the majority of the USA residents, govts (and for most of the world for that matter) are not caused by what we usually discuss, they manifest themselves financially.
For 35 years plus now the working class has taken it on the chin as more and more of the money has flowed elsewhere, even as the productivity of labor has increased.
One of the many sad things about this ongoing social tragedy is that 40 years plus of propaganda from the media,general entertainment, and even our education system has sold the majority of the working class on the idea that people who perform unskilled labor don't deserve to make a wage that one could possibly live on. Hence we feel like Oliver Twist when he dared ask for "more".
When I graduated from high school my union card said "helper"...a nice way to say unskilled labor. With that job I was able to buy a brand new car, build flight time in a flying club while saving for future ratings, and had money in my pocket. (for those who may be interested in how a vibrant economy works, I didn't buy a new car again until the year 2000....ponder that fact, and its ripple effects multiplied by millions, and you get some idea as to why an F.O. on a regional jet makes 23/hour, but I digress)
In the 60's it was understood that someone who was working for a living needed to make a certain amount just to get by. Every employer understood this, and the general public understood this without a second thought. Call it the social contract if you will. Somewhere along the line we had a gradual revolution that decided that work has almost no value and its ok to not pay the people who do it.
Yet we still want this work done.
And then we have the hypocrisy to critricize the work ethic of those who labor at these jobs.
Its as though we have become an economic version of Kapos.
And so it goes.