Child labour builds character: Stoner

Andrew Stoner: "Child slavery- good for us, good for them!"

NSW Nationals leader Andrew Stoner believes that it doesn't matter if young people are paid slave-wages for cleaning toilets and scraping grease in McDonalds and KFC outlets, because it's the "new form of national service" and the lucky little ducks get to learn "life lessons".

I say right on, Andrew. They get to learn "life lessons": the most important being to vote Labor or Green if you want your rights as a worker respected instead of getting fucked over by a scummy boss.

Coincidentally, I just happened to read the following anecdote on 'Fumbling Towards Geekdom':

In my third year of undergrad I worked nights and weekends at KFC. I quit on the day I turned up bruised and bleeding from being knocked off my bike by a car a few blocks away, and my boss still wouldn't let me go home to recover, and threatened to dock my pay for being 15 minutes late.

Obviously StyleyGeek is grateful for the motivation that this boss provided to better herself in life so she never again had to work in a KFC and get treated like crap. Everyone should have to endure having their rights trampled by a scummy boss- it builds character, just like Andrew says!

While delivering his important message on how Australia's young people ought to be enslaved in fast food outlets, Andrew Stoner lightened the mood by having a little joke with us:

Mr Stoner said many families had invested their life savings in buying a franchise and higher wages would reduce their income and their business's eventual sale price.

Now, I know there's plenty of 'Mum and Dad' franchise owners. But to buy a big-name franchise like a McDonalds or KFC you've got to be pretty loaded. It was well-known when the Kempsey McDonalds was built that the people who owned it were very wealthy. Still are, I'd say, despite the gruelling years of being forced to pay the minimum wage to 15 year old high school kids. Who they, er, of course hire because their nimble hands are better at flipping burgers, not because their lower minimum wage makes them cheap and maximises profits through lower expenditure on employee wages.

Incidentally, my primary-school best friend's mum trained in Port Macquarie to get a job at the Kempsey McDonalds when it first started up. She had been a stay-at-home mum to her three kids for years, had no qualifications. She was the oldest worker there and was so proud when she got the 'Employee of the Month' award. It didn't take long for things to turn sour when she started having to ask for days off for things like caring for her 3 kids if one of them was home sick from school. I think she quit rather than being sacked, but I do remember her relating a conversation between herself and the female half of the married couple (parents themselves) who owned the franchise- the gist of which was maybe she shouldn't be working there if she needed to ask for days off. I think the franchise owner may have suggested she just hire a babysitter (as if that was affordable). My friend's mum marvelled at the lack of empathy that a fellow mother could have.

If only Andrew Stoner had been around to tell her that being treated like shit as an employee is actually good medicine. Thanks, Andrew! How about we treat politics as the 'national service' you slimy bastards all claim it is and pay you $15 an hour for the next year? As a bonus your daily duties will include cleaning the toilets in state parliament and playing dishpig at whatever restaurant you happen to eat out at.