Another Fast Food Rally For Minimum Wage

While millions of procrastinating Americans rushed to file their taxes before the deadline, a handful of others were taking to the streets in yet another protest against fast food establishments like McDonalds. In New York City and Los Angeles, thousands of low-wage workers decided their time would be better spent on the picket line than in a classroom. They are on a quest for a $15-an-hour minimum wage, and they have grand delusions about what they are accomplishing.

“It’s something different,” Kendall Fells said. “This is much more of an economic and racial justice movement than the fast-food workers strikes of the past two years.” Fells is the director of Fight for $15.

A racial justice movement, no less.

In USA Today, a protestor insisted that it was simply not possible to make a living on $8 an hour in a place like New York City when the rents are so high. “So we need $15 an hour. That’s the bare minimum.”

That’s a good thing to realize. It’s wise to sit down with a pen and a sheet of paper and determine exactly how much money you need to make. Unfortunately, the next step isn’t to walk out of your job and go scream on the sidewalk. The next step is to go out and get your $15 an hour. The next step is to improve your skills, climb the ladder, send out your resume, start a business, and do whatever it takes to make yourself more valuable.

That’s what these workers don’t seem to understand. Most of them would find it really strange if their bosses took to the streets in protest, demanding that customers pay more for a Big Mac. You can’t just force people to pay an unreasonable sum for a hamburger! How ridiculous! If you want to charge that much, you’ll have to make it better. You’ll have to do something to attract a richer clientele! Whining about it isn’t going to change anything.

But they can’t see how what they are doing is just as ridiculous.

Trying to make this about “racial justice” is too idiotic to deserve a response, but it did remind me of the old KKK marches, where racists would go up and down the streets with hoods over their heads. Why the hoods? Was it because they were ashamed of putting their identities out there? Maybe these protestors should consider adopting hoods the next time they have one of these strikes. Because what could be more shameful than admitting that you intend to stay at the bottom of the employment ladder so long that you have to demand an increase in the minimum wage?