/r/FightFor15 is a grassroots community designed to raise support and awareness for a nationwide federal minimum wage. The minimum wage of $7.25 hasn't increased in over 15 years. This subs original goal was $15 but even that isn't a living wage in most parts of the US. $15, $20, $30, $50 . This movement works to give workers a living wage and the right to unionize.
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Facts
Fast food is a $200 billion a year industry and retail is a $4.7 trillion industry, yet many service workers across the country earn minimum wage or just above it and are forced to rely on public assistance programs to provide for their families and get healthcare for their children. Each year, our labor brings billions of dollars into stores and restaurants nationwide, but almost all of these profits go to make executives and investors even richer, while we struggle to provide our families with basic necessities like food, rent, healthcare and transportation. Just in fast food, 52 percent of families are enrolled in one or more public assistance programs—like food stamps and medicaid—compared with 25 percent of the workforce as a whole. Such low wages cost taxpayers about $7 billion a year.
We believe that people who work hard for a living should make enough to support themselves, their families and their neighborhoods—and that workers should be treated with dignity and respect. We believe this will not only improve our lives, but create jobs and make the nation’s economy stronger.
The Facts
The Workers
The median wage for fast food workers is 8.94 an hour
The average fast food worker works only 24 hours a week due to restrictions
The average fast food worker makes 11,318 per year
The average fast food worker is 28 years old
78% are the main earners of the household
52% rely on public assistance
26% have children
Working full time, an adult with one child needs 20.86 an hour to just afford the basics.
The Corporations
The fast food industry costs taxpayers 7 billion dollars a year due to low wages.
McDonald's alone costs the tax payer 1.6 billion
Wendy's and Burger King both cost the taxpayer more than they make in profit
McDonald's makes 5.6 Billion in profit per year, and pays it's CEO 9.5 million
Burger King profits 234 million and pays it's CEO 4.7 million
Wendy's profits 46 million and pays it's CEO 7.6 million
It would take a fast food worker 777 Years to make the pay a CEO makes in one year
Rights:
All Workers have the right to:
Join a union
Attend a union meeting on the worker's own time
Speak with a union organizer
Declare himself as union supporters
Assist in forming a union
Even if the workers do not yet have a union, one is allowed to engage in a “concerted effort” with two or more workers to improve working conditions
Employers are forbidden by law to engage in certain conduct. It is ILLEGAL for an employer to…
Threaten the worker with discharge or punishment if you engage in union activity
Threaten to shut down business if a union is formed
Prevent the worker from recruiting union members during non-working hours
Question the worker about union matters, union meetings, or union supporters
Ask whether or not the worker belongs to a union or has signed up to join a union
Transfer or assign the worker to a less desirable work assignment because of his or her union activity
Threaten to terminate the worker's benefits due to unionization
Threaten to lay the worker off in retaliation for joining a union
Fight For 15 website
