Paramedic Slams Complaints Against Fast Food Workers Earning Same Hourly Wage

One paramedic from New York who earns $15 per hour isn't disturbed that fast food workers earn as much as he does. He put up a powerful message on Facebook, regarding New York's new rule to jack up the minimum wage for fast food workers to the same level as his own---15 dollars per hour, according to addictinginfo.

Jens Rushing first responded to all those who complained about the raise in Facebook, and finally it went up on Imgur. He posted:

"Fast food workers in NY just won a $15/hr wage.

I'm a paramedic. My job requires a broad set of skills: interpersonal, medical, and technical skills, as well as the crucial skill of performing under pressure. I often make decisions on my own, in seconds, under chaotic circumstances, that impact people's health and lives. I make $15/hr.

And these burger flippers think they deserve as much as me?

Good for them.

Look, if any job is going to take up someone's life, it deserves a living wage. If a job exists and you have to hire someone to do it, they deserve a living wage. End of story. There's a lot of talk going around my workplace along the lines of, "These guys with no education and no skills think they deserve as much as us? Fuck those guys." And elsewhere on FB: "I'm a licensed electrician, I make $13/hr, fuck these burger flippers."

And that's exactly what the bosses want! They want us fighting over who has the bigger pile of crumbs so we don't realize they made off with almost the whole damn cake. Why are you angry about fast food workers making two bucks more an hour when your CEO makes four hundred TIMES what you do? It's in the bosses' interests to keep your anger directed downward, at the poor people who are just trying to get by, like you, rather than at the rich assholes who consume almost everything we produce and give next to nothing for it.

My company, as they're so fond of telling us in boosterist emails, cleared 1.3 billion dollars last year. They expect guys supporting families on 26-27k/year to applaud that. And that's to say nothing of the techs and janitors and cashiers and bed pushers who make even less than us, but are as absolutely crucial to making a hospital work as the fucking CEO or the neurosurgeons. Can they pay us more? Absolutely. But why would they? No one's making them.

The workers in NY *made* them. They fought for and won a living wage. So how incredibly petty and counterproductive is it to fuss that their pile of crumbs is bigger than ours? Put that energy elsewhere. Organize. Fight. Win."

It is clear that the hourly rate fast food workers in New York managed to wrest the minimum new wage for all the workers in their industry, and will get going by 2021. It will soon get tied for the highest in the world with Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle, according to fusion.

Rushing's post is interesting. It isn't education that is demanding a raise, but just basic skills. With more than 15 million people earning $7.25/hr. and 10.88/hr. according to the Brookings Institute, it is clear that there would be a ripple effect in raising the minimum wage for people who earn 150 percent or less than that.

What is really important, then, is what he is asking people to do---fight. Get organized, and fight.