Burger King Backs Off Opposition to Employee Free Choice Act After Week of Actions
This is good news from the SEIU, assuming Burger King has dropped their opposition permanently. It seems to be the result of a full week of SEIU actions at Burger Kings across the country :
Under pressure from SEIU activists and allies like Brave New Films, Jobs with Justice, and the Coalition for Social Justice this week, Burger King scrambled to respond to allegations that it lobbied against the Employee Free Choice Act while paying its workers poverty wages. In a statement issued Friday, Burger King apparently backed off its opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act:
"Burger King Corp. (BKC) believes unions serve a purpose in some workplaces and a number of its guests, vendors and franchisees have positive union membership experiences. BKC is not anti-union. BKC and its franchisees serve a diverse consumer base and, therefore, aim to remain neutral on political issues.
Now that it has recanted its opposition, we fully expect that Burger King will cease its expenditures on lobbying against the Employee Free Choice Act and either withdraw from business associations that also oppose the bill, or demand that those groups also stop lobbying against the Employee Free Choice Act.
Burger King spent $319,648 lobbying against the proposed legislation between 2006 and 2008 and has helped fund the fight against the bill through its involvement in the National Retail Federation, one of the organizations behind an anti-employee free choice group called the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace.
Prominent Burger King shareholder Goldman Sachs is also involved in lobbying against workers' interests as a member of the Business Roundtable, which spent $15,849,000 on lobbying in 2008, including lobbying against the Employee Free Choice Act.
Minimum wage employers think you have freedom to choose, you can starve or you can take what they dish out. Like TX right to work laws, meaning you have no rights if you're working.
We have minimum wage tactics at the military level, too. Your troops getting screwed by the organization put in place to help them when they've gotten in too deep.
{ I'll let this slide this time. But don't do that again.SiteMonitor}
The peasants are revolting!
Bathing and grooming might help.
In Texas peasants is pronounced pissant.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
It's just a little bitty pissant country place,
Ain't nothin' much to see.....
Doesn't Magic Johnson own King Burger?
What is your conceptual, continuity?
Are they still in business? I have to drive for miles to find one. All the ones around my area went bankrupt. Like Walmart in Quebec, anytime workers decide enough is enough and fight back, Burger King will just close it's doors. A&P is another good example. Unionized, workers got paid decent. So they closed all their stores, and reopened them under the Food Basics name, with help from the government of Ontario, by forcing people on welfare to work for them for minimum wage.
What's minimum wage in Canada? In my state it's slightly over $7 an hour - higher than the Federally mandated minimum wage. But a LIVING WAGE in my area was over $14 just about a year ago now.
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Good point. Now, fast food averages about 25 to 30% labor costs to sales cost when the management is included. Double the wage and you can quickly see why this wont work. The margin in fast food is not there.
I'm not defending the business, I'm trying to explain that the whole fast food notion is a bad business model that won't make it in the new econmy.
The truth is there should be a huge push for people to grow and produce at least some of their own food. this would be accompanied by a return to health for many americans.
It is somewhere around $8/hour. I'd have to look it up, to be honest. I do know, that working in the BK's, McDs and any other multitrillion dollar "fastfood" service, a government increase in minimum wage, is the only time most of their employees ever see a wage increase.
A living wage? Do you mean poverty level? I think here, a family of 4 is over 30 grand a year, and still below poverty.
As of March 31, 2008, the minimum wages are the following:
General Workers Minimum Wage - $8.75 per hour
Liquor Server Minimum Wage - $7.60 per hour (note: applies to employees serving liquor directly to customers in licensed premises as a regular part of their work);
Student Minimum Wage - $8.20 per hour (note: applies to students under age 18, if more than 28 hours a week are worked during the school year, the General Minimum Wage applies to all hours worked in that week);
Homeworkers Minimum Wage - $9.63 per hour or 110 per cent of the general minimum wage (note: this wage applies to all homeworkers whether they are full-time or part-time, or students under 18 years of age)
Now if you are fortunate enough (LMAO) to get a fulltime minimum wage job, that would pay you $350/week before taxes or $18200 per year. Unfortunately, most min. wage jobs are not full time. According to the "conservative" Fraser Institute, the poverty line for a family of 4 average in Canada is $22852/year. That is average, and that amount would be low in provinces like Ontario or Alberta.
fast food is f*cking disgusting. and the corporate heads of business are even grosser.
I haven't eaten that crap in years.
But it's really great crap!
If you really want to know what Americans think of beef just go to Hereford Texas. Right in the middle of town on Rt.60 there's a KFC.
... to sharpen a pitchfork? Thousands of them?
Corruption favors the wealthy.
Piss off the peasants!
Democracy is too important to be entrusted to politicians.
Rise Up!
Protest!
And the sharpening of said pitchforks, MUST be done by torchlight!
Fast food unionize? Ha! There really isn't enough money there to do that and still give Americans cheap food. I'm not saying I don't think the workers deserve more money or benefits, but you won't recognize the prices once you go back.
Of course they are poverty wage jobs. They pay minimum wage and rarely go above $10 per hour. Trust me I spent time working in several as a manager. Never again, rather starve.
Interesting thing about BK is that their prices are slightly higher overall than comparable fast food places so when we need something quick to eat (rare) - we avoid Burger King. This information makes that all the easier.
If they completely drop their opposition to the EFCA I'll reconsider.
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The Overlords will realize that without US - the workers and consumers - they will have no one to serve them, no one to sell mortgages too, no one to buy cars, no one to take out loans, etc etc etc.
Perhaps we are coming to that point in economic evolution the young Marx predicted wherein we ALL realize our 'species-being' - that we are all interconnected.
For most of us money is a medium of exchange. It is necessary to keep the flow of goods going. Alas, for some money is something to accumulate in vast amounts, to the detriment of those of us who use it as a medium of exchange.
The ones who have to change their ways are those who do no useful work but manipulate the financial markets to accumulate money. They like to say they "accumulate wealth" but it isn's wealth, it is fraud. Wealth is accumulated by way of labor, adding value to natural resources. No banker has ever done that kind of work.
Democracy is too important to be entrusted to politicians.
Rise Up!
Protest!
Please don't pity the fast food workers because they cannot unionize. Pity them because they work in a terrible industry that is unhealthy and unsustainable on many levels.
The two weeks I worked at Burger King training to be the "manager" were humiliating. They sit you down in a small closet to watch training videos. The first tells you the importance of showering, brushing you teeth and using deodorant each day before work, as they show some guy rubbing a stick on his pits.
Like I said above, the margin is so low, their expectations of employees so low, there is no way BK could sustain benefits and higher wages. I hope it passes though and BK fails. People would finally learn some of the true costs of fast food.
how do these corporations make so many billions of dollars profit? Just off wages? Hmmmm...find that hard to believe. An extra large coffee at Tim Hortons is $1.56. It costs less than 5 cents per pot of coffee. I know, my daughter was a supervisor there, and the company actually rubs the numbers in their faces.
my dimwitted sister manages 2 McDs in the city. She is paid over 50 grand a year, plus full benefits including car allowances. One store alone made over 2 million profit last year. 2 million is nothing to sneeze at. Now multiply that profit by how many McDs are just in Ontario. They could double their wages and not touch a single price on their menu and still make a profit.
Is she married? Would she marry a gay guy?
;)
A downturn in the economy and higher unemployment usually creates a spike in fast food and alcohol consumption.
Are you doing your part? Hic, burp.
That's a great comparison CC. As manager of the BK in 1995, I stood to make 20,000 per year. The volume of that BK was well over 1 million per year. There really was no bonuses or any significant benefits. (McD's treats management much better)
The unit's labor cost was about 20 to 22% of sales. If that was significantly increased even a 10% margin would be wiped out.
Cost of sales on beverages in restaurants are always low. Food cost is high. It is the blend of this where the restaurants are able to make a profit. If all customers bought only food many would close their doors.
I am surprised to hear that figure, and don't thing it's typical. My understanding is that a single MikeyD franchise owner can expect to clear 35-40K while working 80 hours a week to keep the lights on.
Mickey D franchise owner that works? No way. They make pretty good money. They hire stand managers and their wage varies greatly depending on the volume.
Not always the case. The highest volume and most profitable franchise locations are usually owned by corporate, in which case the managers might do well.
There are many corporations that own upwards of 10-30 locations, and they can churn a profit. Though there are just as many mom-and-pop single owners that work their buts off for very little.
The sheer numbers of restaurants. There are a lot of people that rely on this cheap food for sustenance, so their stock has gone up in recent times, like McDonalds.
They may be able to sustain a slight increase in wages, but you try to throw in health benefits and you'll see those businesses disappear.
If all businesses and corporations had to prominently post there donations to all political organizations and groups? At least when I spent my money, when I had some, I knew who it was going to be supporting. It's VERY difficult to find any true BLUE companies anymore. The only only I found recently was CostCo of all places.
Minimum wage is a federal standard. If you are offered minimum wage you should make a counter offer.
You may be turned down, however if everyone refuses that minimum standard employers will adjust by necessity.
The American Employee will not see the end of trickle down economics by relying on politicians to watch out for our interests.....WE must bring about the change!
'We, the People'............rimshot................hahahahahaha!
Doesn't that tell all the uneducated Reslugs working for Burger King that they are being screwed and are in the wrong party.
or in response to the Immokolee (FL) tomato pickers wanting more for their work?
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
... that corporate employees get. Years ago I worked in a corporate job for a fast food chain that was affiliated with Burger King. At that time I was shocked to find out that people in the corporate office got health benefits and people who worked in the stores did not.
I wonder if it's the same now? We need more unions.
Turn-over is so high at BK stores that it would cost too much to give the guy roasting his arms at the broiler benefits.
It's easier to let the minimum-wage worker figure out that they're being hurt for too little money so they move on. BK's are like a motel that rents by the hour - the ones that don't know what's going on get hurt more.
It burns the skin
It burns the skin
It burns the skin
I think BK's new ad campaign with this creepy guy in the mask...it just doesn't inspire me to go and buy their shitty food.
If it it hasn't sunk in yet, the Republicans and democrats both want our country to revert back to the Dark Ages and that is they ALL want a 2 class system for us and that is,Ultra wealthy and ultra poor! If you don't believe this ,ask yourself this, are you better off now as compared to when this assault on working Americans began, during the RAY-GUN years? Of course not ,for the past 30 years or so, wages have become stagnant, while corporate wealth has grown by leaps and bounds! GOD DAMN IT, WE HAVE TO GET OFF OUR COLLECTIVE ASSES OR WE WILL TRULY PERISH AND THE MIDDLE CLASS WILL BECOME A HUGE MYTH!
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