{"id":4393,"date":"2013-09-25T09:00:29","date_gmt":"2013-09-25T14:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/citings\/?p=4393"},"modified":"2015-10-13T13:42:50","modified_gmt":"2015-10-13T18:42:50","slug":"you-want-fries-with-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/2013\/09\/25\/you-want-fries-with-that\/","title":{"rendered":"You Want Fries with That? Millenials and Collective Action"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>
Photo by mtume_soul via flickr.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Millenial Generation is coming of age in an era of low voter turnout, weak and waning labor union influence, and few civil protests compared to previous generations. Though this appears to paint a portrait of overall apathy, the young Millenials are not necessarily disengaged.<\/p>\n

Last month, fast food workers, many of them young, in 60 cities and almost 1,000 restaurants across the country walked off their jobs in a demonstration for higher wages.\u00a0In an article in the NYTimes<\/em><\/a>, the workers involved in the walk-out received publicity for the \u201caudacity of their demand,\u201d\u00a0a push to increase their hourly wages to $15. Currently, the majority of the 2.3 million fast food workers in America make no more than the federal minimum wage of $7.25, well below a living wage. The media depiction of the strikers as na\u00efve and audacious in their demands calls to mind the Occupy Wall Street movement. Once again, corporations are claiming that raising workers\u2019 wages would place a financial burden on consumers and hurt businesses.<\/p>\n

But if we\u2019ve learned anything from the backlash against these protests, it\u2019s that the situation is not black and white. Tali Kristal\u2019s <\/a>recent research, \u201cHow the Decline of American Unions Has Boosted Corporate Profits and Reduced Worker Compensation<\/a>,\u201d argues that the consumer versus poverty-wage worker dichotomy is faulty. Not only has the federal minimum wage failed to rise with the cost of living, but the literal percentage of corporate profits going to the worker is declining\u2014with more of the profits being pocketed by already-wealthy individuals. This is happening as labor unions, which have historically defended workers\u2019 rights, decline in power and influence. Kristal advocates a need for increased collective action in the form of labor unions and a redirected attention to where profits are actually going.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the fast food worker walk-out is an example of this much-needed change. University of Washington sociologist Jake Rosenfeld <\/a>believes that the walk-outs mark a shift in the previous decline of labor unionism and collective action, arguing, \u201cThe strikes could elevate the union movement\u2019s standing among younger workers who have grown up in an era when unions have steadily lost membership and power.\u201d In a generation of waning civil engagement, declining labor unions, and an overall aura of apathy,\u00a0such demonstrations mark a renewed form of collective action.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Millenial Generation is coming of age in an era of low voter turnout, weak and waning labor union influence, and few civil protests compared to previous generations. Though this appears to paint a portrait of overall apathy, the young Millenials are not necessarily disengaged. Last month, fast food workers, many of them young, in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1947,"featured_media":4399,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,85],"tags":[1025,23877,24892,24893],"class_list":["post-4393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-politics","tag-collective-action","tag-fast-food-walk-out","tag-labor-unions","tag-millenial-generation"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/files\/2013\/09\/fast-food-strike-via-flickr.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1947"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4393"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4393\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4409,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4393\/revisions\/4409"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}