The Fight For 15 Is A Joke

09.08.2014 | Trish Williams |

$15/hr to flip burgers or clean the grease trap at a fast food restaurant? Again?

Yet another fast food strike kicked off this past week to protest ‘low’ wages at such bastions of gastronomic enjoyment such as McDonalds and Burger King. And once again a union (in this case, the SEIU) acts as if a minimum wage fast food job is the only job on earth low-skilled Americans can and will ever do. These union goons, and sadly too many of the fast food workers themselves, assume these workers are incapable of bettering themselves and would rather promote their remaining in entry-level jobs not meant to stay in for perpetuity.

What the union shakedown artists fail to articulate (or want to keep their members in the dark about) is it all comes down to basic Economics 101. As the price of labor increases (i.e. wages) the demand for labor (i.e. workers) decreases. With all things being equal and the government keeping their nose out of it, market forces will set the price of labor and its requisite labor pool size. Throw in gov’t intervention and the unions strong-arming fast food joints into increasing the price of their labor and that means is if you are flipping burgers, your ass is deep in the ‘danger zone’ of getting a pink slip. And considering how many low-skilled illegals are flooding into this country the labor pool is already swelling and it’s only a matter of time before the fast food worker demanding $15/hour is fired in favor of an illegal who will work under the table for less than minimum wage, and installation of a RoboBurgermachine who will make perfect burgers without any flagrant hygiene violations.

When I was in high school, my first job was one of those low-skilled minimum wage jobs at a mall location that shall not be named. I found out very quickly that the pay was awful and if you could get treated like crap more often than not you did. You stayed to get skills such as learning how to show up on time, fill out a timecard, not curse out your boss/supervisor, and just who in the hell FICA was and why was s/he entitled to grab a part of your paycheck after the Federal government got their cut. I chose to slug through that minimum wage job while taking office skills classes in high school so I could command a higher wage while putting myself through college.

In Economics there is a term used called a ‘rational’ consumer. Do you know what a rational consumer would do in the face of a fast food strike? Go somewhere else that doesn’t have this drama. Whether it’s the likes of Panera Bread or Chipotle or Chick-Fil-A, most consumers want to get their eat on somewhere that is reasonably clean, the clerks don’t hate their lives and their order is made right the first time.

RoboBurger can’t come soon enough.

Trish Williams

Trish Williams is a former engineering major, who resides in Philadelphia. Trish is an avid reader, advocate for STEM education in schools, and a firearms enthusiast. She hopes to relocate to the coastal South for warmer weather and conservative political surroundings.

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