Damaris Benitez
Period-6
11/16/2015
1. The lead in this article talks about a dishwasher at a former restaurant. The writer describes the type of working environment for the workers. It hooks the reader by giving them an insight on what the works deal with and have to do. Which eventually leaded the reader into knowing how hard and tough they work, and how much they are also payed.
2. The related trends that are provided in the context is the exploding restaurant industry and widening income gap.
3. Kingsbury gives the economic argument of polices that would raise the wages of restaurant workers unimpressively. She dismisses it by adding how states like California and Massachusetts are going to guarantee employee getting a higher raise than just minimum wage.
4. She gives the counter argument by saying the concerns of the children of such workers ought to be enough of an incentive to mount an effort to raise pays, she also adds that it would be the most effective way to combat income inequality between rich and poor ever since the stock market crash of 1929.
5. The statistics she uses is 3million plus restaurant workers in the US face poverty rate that is nearly three times that of the rest of the country's workforce, and the industry hosts seven of the worst 10 paying american jobs, she gives the credits of the statistics to federal labor.
6. Consumers argue that hourly wages should be at least above living wage for individuals, payment for all the time they work and opportunities to organize if they choose to do so. Lawmakers say yhay they should have the courage to reject demands of the National Restaurant Associations.
7. The NRA is "tipped minimum wage" , under which restaurants are allowed to pay workers just under $2.63, with the hard-to-enforce understanding that tips will make up the rest of the way to at least pay $8 an hour.
8. Restaurants owners blame low wages and poor working conditions on slim profit margins amid intense competitions.
9. The counter example given is that raising wages across the board wouldn't change the competition, but that every outlet would have to pay under the same rules and demands.
10. Boston has a large population of latin american immigrants, some which do not have papers. Making them needing to work as many jobs as possible in order to meet living conditions for them and their family.
11. The story about Filiberto Lopez, adds not only human interest but gives the reader an insight on how humans just like them live their lives with the minimum wage.
12. Restaurants violate the law by wage theft. Not giving their workers all the pay they deserve including overtime.
13. Wage theft are really common in Boston with 1.7million dollars due to wage theft.
14. At the mayor's office she states that allowing restaurants to operate with less red tape, overhead could be reduced and capital freed up for owners to pay higher than minimum wage.
15. In my opinion I think Kingsbury did a great job and spoke for a lot of workers who feel like they have been cheating. It was effective to me so i feel like many others would be effected too.
3. She dismisses the argument that higher wages would result in fewer restaurant jobs. She says that Massachusetts should not expect this to happen because when California prohibited sub-minimum wage paychecks, the number of restaurant jobs actually increased.
ReplyDelete4. She does make these points, but before she brings up concern for children, she argues that is a basic issue of fairness, and after she points out that higher wages would combat wage inequality, she argues that it would actually save taxpayers money because they wouldn't have to subsidize poor wages anymore.
5. Also mentions that dishwashers make $2 below poverty wages and that restaurant workers get zero benefits.
6. Kingsbury says that consumers and lawyers should do these things.
7. The NRA supports the tipped minimum wage. It is not itself the tipped minimum wage.
13. Without a time period (fiscal year 2013), it's hard to know how significant the $1.7 million figure is.
14. She also says the mayor should withhold licenses from restaurants who are guilty of wage theft.
15. But how is the conclusion effectively written?
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