Commentary by Sanford D. Horn
August 1, 2013
The union driven surge for fast food employees’ recent
demands of a raise from a $7.25 an hour minimum wage to an unconscionable $15
an hour is demonstrative not of their ignorance, but of their desperation to
keep alive a class warfare battle, that is really a product of poor education.
SEIU (Service Employees International Union), a huge
supporter of Barack Obama throughout his political life, is the driving force
behind this irresponsible demand of a $15 an hour wage for entry level workers,
for whom a career should not be stunted, but launched.
Fast food employees of Burger King, KFC, McDonald’s, and
Wendy’s in seven cities, New York, Chicago, Milwaukee, Kansas City, St. Louis,
Detroit, and Flint, MI are taking to the streets thinking they are
indispensable in their minimum wage jobs. All managers should be on alert and
have full staffs ready to step in the moment the current staffs walk off their
jobs. Walking out is tantamount to job abandonment and currently unemployed
folks will gladly take a $7.25 an hour job.
Make no mistake, I am not diminishing the workers, but
the reality is, this is not brain surgery. No one mistakes fast food
counter/kitchen jobs as anything more than what they are – either a temporary
job for young people or a means to an end for someone wishing to have a career
in the food service industry. No one gets rich in these jobs. They are an
opportunity to garner experience in the work world, put some money in the
pockets of the workers, and with hard work and diligence, could lead to
promotions that will earn more money.
SEIU, as are most unions, is desperate to retain membership (translation, dues) and public relevance, thus their involvement, if not impetus, of the fast food workers’ arbitrary demands. The union knows this demand is unreasonable, because they understand the ramifications of what this demand would do to the fast food industry and the far reaching effects on the economy as a whole – they simply don’t care.
Were the fast food businesses foolish enough to more than
double the pay of their workers, they would also need to raise the prices of
their entire menu. Gone would be the dollar menus, budget menus, affordable
children’s meals, snacks, and other treats. Fast food workers already complain
they can’t afford the food they prepare and serve. Imagine the prices when
paying workers $15 an hour.
Continuing to assume the stupidity of the fast food
businesses, once they raise their prices, they will see a concomitant shrinking
of their customer base, thus leading to the eventual laying off of those very
workers making $15 an hour, who will then be earning zero dollars an hour.
Those unemployed workers will then want to collect unemployment from the
government, thus making more people dependent upon government, something with
which unions have no problem.
Unions do not serve the purposes with which they were
intended more than 100 years ago – fighting for workers’ rights, preventing
children from being injured or killed in mines or jobs with small spaces and
gears where only a child could fit, purporting the importance of insurance for
workers, as well as calling for race and gender fairness. The government has
taken over those purposes with child labor laws, as well as the advent of the
EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) and OSHA (Occupational Safety
and Safety Administration).
Today, unions, by and large, are ubiquitous,
unscrupulous, greed heads, lining their own pockets at the cost to society’s
detriment – be it SEIU, any teachers’ union, or any union protecting bad
workers and unnecessary jobs causing jobs to be lost overseas. An American
worker employed at $7.25 an hour is better than an unemployed American worker
whose job has been outsourced.
And as alluded to above, unions rely upon the uneducated
and undereducated to pad their rolls. Educated people understand minimum wage
jobs are dead ends should they treat them as such, instead of the potential
stepping stone within a company or industry should a worker be ambitious,
industrious, and possess a strong work ethic. This type of worker is a product
of a good education and even good examples set at home by parents.
Once again, the structured family unit, a good work ethic,
and a good education are the keys to success, not the weak demands of a union
seeking to create a deeper divide amongst the classes. Without corporations,
such jobs don’t exist, raising unemployment and making people more dependent on
government. Without workers making unreasonable demands, such jobs will keep
people employed and on a road to success, if they follow the above model.
Sanford D. Horn is
a writer and educator living in Westfield, IN.
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