By Adrienne T. Washington
Washington/Baltimore Afro, July 31, 2013
Is it any wonder that hundreds of fast food workers across the country this week are walking out and striking at their jobs ... From California to New York their chant can be heard: “We can’t survive on $7.25.” ...
In Baltimore, city officials have not moved on the debate to raise the minimum wage. However, Amanda Rothschild, co-owner of Charmington’s coffee house, told the AFRO , “I want my employees concentrating on our customers, not worrying how they will afford to pay rent or put food on their own table.” ...
Rothschild said she’s never regretted the decision to pay her 30-person staff $8 an hour to start with benefits including paid vacation and sick leave, shift meals, and health care. Not only has the pay scale helped her business to succeed, she said it has caught on with other restaurants in the community. “We have low turnover, which saves us money, and our employees care about their work, which shows in the quality of service they provide and the quality of the food they turn out.
If my small restaurant can pay higher entry wages, certainly the big chains can too," she said. ...
Holly Sklar, [director] of Business for Minimum Wage, told the AFRO that the opposing arguments that increased wages results in job loss or lost business is not supported by recent data she noted on her organization’s website. ...
“The biggest problem for Main Street businesses is lack of customer demand,” Sklar said, noting that minimum wage workers have less buying power today than minimum wage workers in 1956. Meanwhile, corporate profits are at their highest since 1950, as a percentage of national income, while the share going to employees is near its low point. “We can’t build a strong economy on a falling wage floor.”...