So I came across this on Facebook just now...
So as I sit here on stand-by in the ambulance today and am reading/watching the news about the fast food workers striking to make $15 an hour to flip burgers and take orders from customers. Well let me brake it to you all... I make less than $10/hr to work on and ambulance and deal with all the shit we deal with on a daily basis.. Technically and literally. I am in college full time and work more than 40 hrs a week most of the time. I live paycheck to paycheck more than not. Yes, I can go work for other ambulance sevices and make a few bucks more but as an EMT it will be rare to find a job that pays $15/hr... Hence the reason I am in nursing school to better myself and to eventually make more money. So to all of the fast food workers striking.. Get off your god damn ass and find a better paying job or go to school. It is possible, so do it. There are people that deal with a lot more and make the same as you do. Your job is an entry level position, so either work your way into management or quit complaining... Ok rant over...
And I would just like to vent about it for a minute or two.
So. What's wrong with this picture?
Well. First, we could maybe take a look at the fact that an EMT is making $10/hour. That's not a very good measure of what we find important in this country. But mostly it's the "I don't have mine, so you can't have yours" attitude of the right-wing in this country. The attitude of "I deserve more than you, whatever the circumstances." The assumption that people working in the fast-food industry are all either teenagers or lazy bums who can't be bothered to do "real" work.
I'm not going to try to find links, because I am rather worked up right now (and very tired from term projects and the like). But I'm sure we've all seen the diaries that have gone by recently about McDonald's absolutely obscene "tips" for its workers—sell your Christmas gifts on eBay so you have enough to eat, etc., etc., rather than taking some of its hundreds of millions of dollars of profit and raising wages. We know there are people striking at WalMart and fast-food places all around the country trying to get a higher wage so they can afford to eat. Because we all know $7.25/hr is nothing close to a livable wage. Depending on how many people need to be supported, even $15 isn't good enough; $20 to $30 seems to be the best estimate.
Side note: I am quite sure this young man is upset over the amount of money he pays in taxes that goes to support people on welfare. If corporations paid living wage, that money would come from shoppers specifically, not taxpayers in general. Or, maybe perhaps, the CEOs could make 100x their lowest workers, instead of 400x. That might make a difference.
So I'm not really sure what the point of this diary is, except to point out that there's still a LOT of work to do before we have a living wage in this country. And it should be a living wage for everyone, foodservice workers or EMTs or street sweepers or whatever.
And we on the Left need to keep trying to educate people in compassion and goodwill.