Texas paramedic has perfect response to conservatives whining about a living wage for burger flippers

A Texas paramedic came to the rescue of fast food workers seeking a living wage, saying others who are struggling to get by should support their cause against "bosses" who pit workers against each other for crumbs while "they made off with almost the whole damn cake."

Jens Rushing, an EMT in Arlington, Texas, took to Facebook to defend the often derided "burger flippers" in New York City who recently won a wage hike to $15 per hour.

While conservatives who make a living pounding out an occasional "think piece" have called increasing the minimum wage "immoral," Rushing chided fellow workers at real jobs  for knocking the fast food employees, saying that is what the bosses want.

"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," Rushing wrote. "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.'"

He continued, "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. "

Rushing noted that the company that employs him boasted of making $1.3 billion last year and that they expect their employees making $27,000 a year or less to applaud them, adding that they are just as important to the company as the CEO.

"Can they pay us more? Absolutely. But why would they? No one's making them," he wrote before adding a final exhortation for workers to band together for living wages for all: "Organize. Fight. Win."