Minimum Wage – It’s All About Perception!
Recently, the “Fight for Fifteen” demonstrations at McDonald’s and Wal-Mart stores across the country have sparked empathy in the news coverage by the main stream media. The liberal coverage of these outlets portrays employees as being taken advantage of and in need of increased wages and benefits. As with most things in life, it is prudent to do the research to make sure we have all the facts, and that they are presented honestly and concisely. It is imperative we don’t rely on our political leanings and that we not have the proverbial “wool pulled over our eyes.” Every American, should re-check the position or “window” from which they the view things, as succinctly demonstrated in the following.
The Window from Which We Look
A young couple moves into a new neighborhood. The next morning while they are eating breakfast, the young woman sees her neighbor hanging the wash outside. ”That laundry is not very clean”, she said. “She doesn’t know how to wash correctly. Perhaps she needs better laundry soap.” Her husband looked on, but remained silent. Every time her neighbor would hang her wash to dry, the young woman would make the same comments.
About one month later, the woman was surprised to see a nice clean wash on the line and said to her husband,”Look, she has learned how to wash correctly. I wonder who taught her this.” The husband said, “I got up early this morning and cleaned our windows.”
And so it is with life. What we see when watching others it depends on the purity of the window through which we look!
“Fight for Fifteen” and the so called “Work Centers” that are championing this cause — providing their own version of training and assistance — are nothing more than union fronts where Union Bosses Use Fast-Food Workers For Personal Gain. Unions are pouring millions of dollars into these “Work Centers” as a method of unionizing the fast food workers across America! It is unfortunate and despicable that The SEIU’s Support for Wage Hikes are based on Self Interests and that these Protest Organizers Pay Consulting Fees, however, even more astonishing is that the SEIU has funneled $15 million into the Fight for $15 campaign. This sleight of hand by the SEIU and other unions demands that we check the purity of the window from which we view the true intentions of these unions and this Administration. Even some of the union members are cleaning windows as demonstrated in Union Members Are Getting Tired of the Anti-Walmart Campaigns.
Essentially, these worker centers are union branches. Labor Unions are organized as 501(c)(5) entities, and as 501(c)(5) entities they cannot receive tax-deductible contributions. However, many Worker Centers are organized as 501(c)(3) charities, which means they can receive tax-deductible donations and they are not accountable to the workers they claim to represent.
In other words, they are conduits for labor unions in disguise. They provide the labor unions with benefits which they could not otherwise independently receive. Labor unions are a dying breed, they are nothing more than Gasping Dinosaurs trying to avoid extinction, and the worker centers are proof.
Another benefit to the “Fight for Fifteen” demonstrations is that they serve to Deflect Attention from the Rogue NLRB and its attempt to establish Card Check through Regulation vs. Legislation with the new ambush election law, designed by this Administration to allow unions to rapidly force unionize employees and employers across the country, further described in Reprise: Beware the Ambush. It is nothing more than a payback to the union bosses for political contributions and votes.
The bottom line is, while America’s top labor union bosses raked in millions in 2014 for their own pockets and to press their political agendas, it has become apparent that Millennials don’t want to join unions. They are waking up to the fact that Labor Unions’ True Motivation comes from the Dues Money. Union bosses want to line their own pockets and promote their political agendas. Subsequently, union bosses are waking up to Why 78 Million Millennials Are Choosing Non-Union Jobs and are desperate to invent ways to force unionize them in order to survive, which is what the “Fight for Fifteen” is truly all about.
It is time for all Americans to wake up and see big labor’s intentions through a crystal clear window and not through distorted, long held political viewpoints or beliefs. Big labor and its claims are all about perception not reality.
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David A. Bego is the President and CEO of EMS, an industry leader in the field of environmental workplace maintenance, employing nearly 5000 workers in thirty-three states. Bego is the author of “The Devil at My Doorstep,” as well as the just released sequel, “The Devil at Our Doorstep,” based on his experiences fighting back against one of the most powerful unions in existence today.