As I said in another thread, there are only so many management positions in a store.  In fast food there are atleast five people per management position.  What happens when all the management positions are  filled.  If someone has kids and can't move to a different location to accept another job and these managment positions are held, there's no way for any of the others to go higher.  They're stuck until one of  those positions open back up.  There are plenty of hard workers, but not everyone can be lucky enough to move up into a better paying position because the postitions aren't available.

Working at Burger King was one of the worst jobs I ever had. I worked hard at it though and I was offered a manager position after 8 months just before I quit. They deserve more money than what they're getting, but $15/hr? A union? I don't think so. A low skill job is still a low skill job, no matter how fast you can put together a whopper.

Please. I go to a top 30 private university that only admits 16% of qualified applicants,graduated in the top 10% of my class, and my mom dropped out of high school in the tenth grade and worked as a waitress her whole life, making less than minimum wage. To say there is NO chance of attending school, and to imply that the affluent don't experience life threatening issues, mental illness, health problems, and even social problems is disingenous. 

Thank you for your service, spurge. I have even more respect for you.

On I side note, I agree with mostly everything you said. Yes they want handouts, yes they should have planned better and not have 4-5 children working at a fast food place, yes they should have went to school or go to school etc.

All of that doesn't mean they don't deserve a litle increase. That being said it should increase to $10 dollars (NO MORE) an hour. It should increase because, while you brought some interesting points, doesn't change the fact that they are being exploited at their jobs. They are being taken advantage of, and just because they didn't plan ahead or not as smart and ambitions as other people shouldn't mean they should be treated like or paid like decent human beings.

They do need a union, though. Unions are good for two things: professional guilds to help make sure that tradesmen aren't caught in a race to the bottom with each other (so carpenters, et al don't have to worry as much about competing on price as they do on service), and unskilled labor, because the bottom of the market is most vulnerable to abuses by management.

The union helps fix problems like wage theft and can standardize rules about scheduling which are two of the biggest problems for people working in these types of situations.

The problem with unions is that they take money out of the pockets of these already poor employees. Right off their paycheques automatically, if I remember correctly.

7.25$ per hour? That's slave labor!

low education deserves low pay. plus its not supposed to be a career. it is for experience.
 
Im all for replacing these peeps with robots.

What prevents them from planning now? I know a girl who works at walmart with me who has two children, just finished community college, and is going to a respectable university majoring in biology. She has worked at walmart for three years now, and is my age 21. She make 10/ hr after starting at 8.4/hr. It certainly doesn't seem like having kids as a teen has hindered her progress. Heck, it doesn't even have to be that drastic for these workers. They can go from one entry level position to a better one. In a five mile radius where I live (Pittsburgh suburb) home depot, rite aid, walmart, lowes, three local super markets, wallgreens, family video, the local library, and countless others are hiring in a variety of positions, all starting with wages in the $8 area and with movement of approximately 50 cents every six months until you reach $10- $12/ hour, which is a lot considering how cheap the cost of living here. The problem is that a lot ( not all) of the people who work in the fast food industry don't even qualify for  these jobs because they just aren't dependable. 

Does everyone realize that the definition of a slave entails that there is no pay and that they have zero choice as to what they do with their lives? It doesn't sound like it on this thread...