Snoopy, completely agree!

I'm all for fairness and ensuring that people are treated well. Unfortunately I don't have the data to be able to calculate if what they are asking for represents business risk (often very profitable companies that have low profit margins on high volume can't afford to increase costs, so the small increase may be unreasonable). On the other hand we have to remember that the jobs we are talking about here are flipping burgers, exactly the example job people give when you talk about minimum wage jobs. It's not a career, it's not something that needs incentivized. It's student labour, temp jobs and something to do if you get made redundant. It's unfortunate that it's unionized.

The thing with wage increases, is that people love them for about 3 weeks, then they forget about them and they feel about their job/pay situation exactly the way they did on the previous wage. It's the same with bonuses.

All that said, I think it's good for the business if there are some long term employees and it would be good to give something back to them to say thanks. The best way to do that is to help them get a better job lol, obviously that's not in the businesses interests.

I think I'd rather have a share scheme / offer in place for employees to cash in on at the end of each year. That way, if anyone does choose to make a career of it, they can have some reward. Also people that aren't there long enough but think they might be can get incentivized without any cost Additonally, I think RBD shares are a good way for employees to ensure they have some savings and a good way to manage some of their finances into a better investment than the bank. Exactly what long term low paid workers need.