Today, we obtained a $20 million dollars in relief relief for
our employees for our employees, taking a lot of credit here.
What could he possibly be talking about?
Okay, the restaurant chain Chipotle has reached a $20
million settlement regarding alleged labor law violations.
This is the largest settlement in history in new york for something of the kind and
it's an interesting legal precedent if we think about what's going on with amazon
and Starbucks, but let's remember that this is happening concurrently with a lot
of union busting, suggesting that have this tactic to sort of roll their dice and
take their chances with the justice system because it's much cheaper to pay out these
settlements than to actually meet the demands of the workers recognize
their unions and raise their wages.
And you know, it's better than nothing.
But the more you think about it,
the more you realize this settlement is not near enough.
So, we have the Commissioner of the Department of Consumer and
Worker Protection in New York Ville de Vera.
Mayorga who works under Mayor Adams, who's probably more responsible for
this than him and probably should have been the one breaking the news.
But she said workers can expect $50 for each week or part of a week
that they worked between November of 2017 and April of this year, 2022.
So $50 a week, let's break this down.
The average salary for a chipotle worker in New York is 1680,
this is 35% higher than the national average, but let's also keep in
mind that New York City rent is 54, higher than the national average.
If they brought their salary to $25 an hour, which is close.
To a living wage, but not quite there yet.
For New York City, it would cost them $328 per worker per week.
So they're really getting off easy with this huge settlement suggesting that
workers power really is in withholding their labor, if they can get these folks
to recognize the unions and they're just going to wait to settle this in court for
way less than they would pay for raising their wages, Workers have to strike and
that's exactly what Starbucks workers are doing as of today, there are 17 states
where Starbucks workers are striking at 55 different locations and workers United,
who Starbucks is unionizing with made an estimate about this.
So according to them,
The strikes have cost Starbucks over $375,000 in lost revenue.
So that's really how you get the message across because although this is a huge
settlement and Eric Adams is celebrating it, it's not really near enough.
Yeah, I was wondering how this thought got into my head because I realized,
you know, from an early age, we got an unconscious sense that,
well the bigger the company is, the more you could trust them.
I mean, a big corporation is going to do something wrong, right?
Maybe a fly by night guy does something wrong runs the scam and stuff.
But the big corporations, they're not gonna do that, they're legitimate.
And of course, you got that thought in your head from corporate media,
which are also giant corporations and the reality is a lot of
small business owners actually care about their workers and
they try really hard to run an interesting place to work, a good place to work.
A loving place to work.
A lot of the big corporations don't give a damn at all and
they just look at it like a spreadsheet.
Well, almost all of them do, and, and they go, well,
how much would this settlement cost?
How much would a lawsuit cost?
And do you think that, that they do these calculations?
No, I'm, I know that they do those calculations and
how much we're paying workers more cost.
And these are not corporations that are just, God, there's nip and
tuck on whether they're gonna make it or not.
If they pay, you know, $16 instead of $15, they might go bankrupt next year.
No, they all have multi billion dollar profits,
not just driving profits every single year.
So they're just trying to figure out how much can we squeeze our employees,
not just on wages, but hey, I'll, you know, play around with their schedules,
I'll make it as hard as possible.
And, and it's not to punish the workers, corporations are immoral.
They're not immoral.
They don't, they're not actually human, they don't care about you at all.
All they care about is the bottom line.
So, so they will do everything they can to maximize profits at your expense if
they're a public corporation.
Yet your corporate media tells you that they're the most trustworthy people ever.
As I read some of the things that Chipotle and Starbucks was doing, I was,
I was shocked by it, like really, you're gonna do that and you're trying to,
you're gonna try to get away with it.
And then I realized, hey jake you're being a sucker, Of course they're gonna get away
with it, they're gonna pay a settlement, that's a fraction of the cost of paying
higher wages and all the media is gonna back them.
You know, Also to add on to what Jenkins saying, depending on the network,
they could be an analyst, they could be an anchor at one point on Fox business.
They could be brought in on CNBC and be thought of as this Incredible
mind in business when really they're just trying to undercut the workers.
I was thinking about this as you guys were talking, do you know, according to status
to what Starbucks made last year, like the $300,000 that Jessica brought up.
It just sparked my interest, $24.61 billion.
So they could easily easily give up $300,000.
They could give up $500,000.
As jenks says all that matters is the bottom line and I believe their initial,
this is cipolla now their initial lawsuit was filed for over 100 and $50 million.
So the fact that it got down to where it is now is absolutely ridiculous.
By the way, thank you for the trigger warning with eric Adams.
I did not know that that was coming.
I appreciate the heads up.
One other quick thing that I found with chapel In Massachusetts,
they paid $2 million 13,000 plus child labor law violations.
That is unreal.
# 13 1000.
Is there anything more that I need to say on this?
Like I will give up a chicken burrito if it means that like you know billy who
should be delivering newspapers doesn't get taken advantage of some of
the things that were alleged a minor work past midnight,
a minor working without a permit, minors working more than nine hours a day.
They didn't notify employees of earned sick time and
didn't pay workers within six days of end of pay period.
So like all of these violations go into corporations not giving a damn
about the workers not giving a damn about kids working and
continuing to just think about the bottom line over and over again.
Alright I'll say one last thing.
Normally the way that it works is that the media is supposed to hold the powerful
accountable.
And so like I like Chipotle's food, right?
But we have put pressure.
I don't even wanna get into it.
Okay way too much.
So but but we're supposed to hold them accountable so they get pressure and
they go, damn it, we're caught, let's okay now we gotta be better to our
employees otherwise it's gonna cost us customers and we're gonna lose more money.
Right?
And so the problem that we have and the government's supposed to do likewise,
its hold is supposed to hold them accountable on behalf of the voters.
They're citizens, right?
But where it broke down in our system in America is corporatism one.
And so they took over all of the, almost all of the media and
they took over almost all the politicians by being able to give them millions of
dollars in campaign contributions.
So that is why both the media and
the government will celebrate a settlement that they know is far too small.
And it's actually just a band aid on a giant problem in corporations that
continue to abuse their workers with the encouragement of the government and
the media.
I gotta say I viewed you more as a cute job a guy.
Okay.
No, I mean I I don't want to do a plug for Chipotle in the middle of this story but
I like them better.
Okay.
Yeah I think people can get kind of sticker shock right?
$20 million that's so much money.
It sounds like so much.
Not really.
As Rick pointed out the profits of Starbucks annually.
Think about how much money these corporations can throw at lawyers.
Think about how much money workers have for these cases.
This really mean means, as jiang pointed out, it's in the hands of the government,
we need our government to ensure that corporations are abiding by labor
regulations.
And we had Kamala Harris this week saying you know I support unions,
we need stronger unions speaking at a conference and
really telling this story that she supports unions doing it for votes,
partially because I think she's scared with the momentum the labor movement has.
But let's ask Kamala,
why does the White House have more meetings with union busters and C E O S.
Than it does with labor leaders?
If that's the case.
If you think unions are so important for our country, we really need the government
to step in and ensure that workers are taken care of in their workplace.