N.J. woman with three jobs eulogized as face of low-wage worker
 

NEWARK N.J. (Reuters) - Maria Fernandes, a New Jersey woman with three part-time jobs who died while sleeping in her car between shifts, was remembered on Friday as much for her generosity as for becoming the face of millions of struggling U.S. low-wage workers.

A day after hundreds of U.S. fast-food workers staged protests in some 150 cities in a fight for higher pay, Fernandes was eulogized by family and friends who said their grief was eased by knowing that her death was contributing to a national conversation about raising the minimum wage.

Fernandes, 32, died while napping in a parking lot in Elizabeth, New Jersey, on Aug. 25. She was apparently overcome by fumes from a gas can she kept in her car to be sure she wouldn't run out of fuel on her way to her part-time shifts at Dunkin' Donuts stores in three different New Jersey towns.

"Society has a way of looking down at people who try to make ends meet, who seek above the minimum wage," her friend Rochelle Sylvestre, 24, told mourners. "Maria won that battle. ... Even in death she is bringing about change, and awareness and a movement in the job market."

More than a dozen fellow Dunkin' Donuts employees were among the 70 mourners at the Evans-Gordon Funeral Home in Newark. It was not far from where Fernandes lived with her dog and two cats when she was not working the overnight shift in Linden, the afternoon shift in Newark, or weekends in Harrison.

"To go to three jobs, go home to take care of her pets and her friends, where she found time to sleep was in the car or sometimes at home for an hour or two. She was always on her feet," her friend and co-worker Armando Gonzalez said.

"From what happened with Maria, hopefully the state can see we need to raise the minimum wage so we don't have to kill ourselves to make ends meet," said Gonzalez, citing his own difficulty living on the "barely $300 a week" he takes home from his full-time job at Dunkin' Donuts.

The minimum wage in New Jersey is $8.25, above the federal minimum of $7.25 but far below the $15 minimum demanded by fast-food protesters in a series of nationwide job actions.

Dunkin' Donuts did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In the wake of the recession, there has been an increase in the use of part-time workers, said Joan Entmacher, an expert in economic security at the National Women's Law Center.

"Employers aren't sure where the economy is going so they hire part-time workers because they are cheaper and not usually eligible for benefits or overtime," Entmacher said.

Nearly 2 million people in the United States are juggling two part-time jobs and two-thirds of them are women, the NWLC said.

Men tend to take on a part-time job for extra income if they already have a full-time job, which usually includes such benefits as health insurance, according to the NWLC's analysis of 20 years of Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

The money that Fernandes eked out was often spent buying pizza for homeless people, candy for children and gifts to cheer friends, mourners recalled. Her former boyfriend, Richard Culhane, 38, recalled how she bought clothes for him and his three young sons.

"She bought us suits. And here we are wearing them to her funeral," he said, blinking away tears in the sunlight glinting off a hearse.

full article...

Read an article just yesterday stating that the fast food chains are already working on a more robot style environment for their eateries.

There will be no need for this fast food pay argument in 10 years. The jobs will not exist.

yep like the cars. just think how many are going to end up dead from eating machine oil! :1orglaugh:1orglaugh:Oh crap:helpme:helpme:(

Good. It don't need to done by humans.

Employ similar tech to what the Auto Manufacturers do and hey maybe they'll get my fucking order right for once.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/...66411262231756

profit up by 23%, dividends also up - all is good then

you want black or yellow grease?

Posting days old news now for sig views, how original.

have a good weekend thanx for viewing :)

welcome to the most powerful country of the world

They could lube the machines with fry oil and burger grease. Problem solved.

guess you've never worked on machines. the food grease would build up a bacteria :helpme

When I look back at my youth.... I worked four jobs. I started a paper route at 4:30 am, by 6:30 I was opening up a restaurant where I worked till 3pm, then 4pm to 9pm at a fast food place, and then 10pm till 2am on a push crew in a Target store. I have no idea when I slept.

during the dream in which you worked 21 1/2 hours a day?

i worked 12 to 16 hours at shamrock foods. they never close. a guy worked 3 or 4 days straight fell out and died. they used to let me do 24 hrs sometimes

this one:

I remember when I used to believe that. And also, that we were the "good guys".:error

:upsidedow

How about this?
http://i.imgur.com/lEiIBgB.jpg

Poor woman ...

i dont trust it :2 cents: they still put extra shit in it

Very sad.

Kinda reminds of that 32 year old Florida woman, with 3 minimum wage jobs, who was two "rich" for Medicaid and too poor for Obamacare and died needlessly a few months back because she couldn't afford her heart meds :(
Link

having a gas can in your car shows why she works at dunkin donuts. not the sharpest knife in the draw.

I think that woman shouldn't be the face of McDonald's workers trying to get paid $15 a fucking hour for nothing...

That is way below this woman's dignity.

In my opinion she is exactly what people SHOULD be in life. Hard working and industrious.
She obviously didn't have the education or skills to do a high paying job. But she didn't let that stop her.

She busted her ass to make a living (the way you are SUPPOSED to).

From the little I know of her from reading that story...she sounds like the kind of person who I respect: Taking whatever abilities they have and pushing it to the max.

She didn't deserve $15 an hour working for Dunkin Donuts...but she knew that. And instead of being a lazy fuck, she went to work. An overachiever.

What killed her wasn't working. It was a dumb mistake of keeping that gas can in her car. Showing her lack of education and intelligence. (which is the reason she worked at a place like Dunkin Donuts in the first place)

But I can't find any fault with this woman in any way. She knew her abilities and her limitations and she made the most of it.

It's disgusting to me that these special interest groups trying to get $15 an hour for fast food workers are USING her death in this way.

So you think that people with little to no education can't bust their ass to make a living?

I happen to think that they can. And as this lady showed...they do.

that is sad shit.

This poor woman is an antithesist example of why I'd like nothing better than to slap the shit out of all these able-bodied sloths that see welfare as a lifestyle.

I quite agree with Robbie's words above.

No, I think your asinine comment about her not deserving $15/hr because she has no education or skills that say she should be getting $15/hr.

The raise of minimum wage has nothing to do with skills or education, it's about the cost of living.

I am guessing she wasn't black. Three jobs?

If you justify raising the minimum wage to $15 with the cost of living excuse...then you have to apply that same percentage increase across the board to everyone - up-to and including CEOs of major corporations.

And to pay for all those increases - corporations will hike the price of their product/service... which we'll all pay for in one way or another.

I'm college-educated and 50 yrs old with many, many years of work experience in a variety of fields. In the past I invested a great deal of time and money in my college education. Currently I'm in upper management - having laboured my way from an entry-level position a decade ago (while working a second job, I might add).

As such - if minimum wage is raised to $15/hr. I'm not going to be pleased about the diminishing gap between my current position and that of a menial job - unless I get a percentile increase as well. Cost of living affects us all, correct?

guess youve never met a jamaican in new york :1orglaugh 4 jobs is lazy. im not kidding

Or all these people realize that just saying fuck it and go on welfare hurts us even more, because A, nobody to do those jobs, means no more people working shit jobs so you don't have to cook your own meal, or serve yourself at a restaurant, etc, and more we pay in taxes.

But hey, fuck the people who weren't lucky enough to get a college education because they couldn't afford it, they're just not meant to make more than $9/hr. Let them starve, let them work themselves to death like this woman, let them become homeless, they just weren't meant to survive, right?

Luck had nothing to do with my college education. By the age of 25 I had worked hard, sacrificed and saved up...to pay my own tuition, books and related costs. Alongside my studies I also worked through both the co-op work semesters.

By your logic - we should be rewarding everyone no matter what their station in life. So what incentive does that provide to those who invest in college/university and make wise career choices?

There will always be haves and have-nots - for one reason or another. Why should the penalty of financial responsibility fall on those of us who bettered ourselves through either education, aptitude or experience to pay a disproportionate wage to those who work the typically lower-wage positions?

And btw - according to the article this woman didn't "work herself to death". My understanding was she unfortunately succumbed to gasoline fumes in her car. She didn't actually die on-the-job.

Just wanted to clarify that...

She didn't deserve $15 an hour. Nobody doing unskilled labor does.

The cost of living doesn't go up by magic...it goes up because of the cost of doing business. Raise that cost by paying more than a job is worth and you will further raise the cost of doing business and the cost of living.

A job should only pay what it's worth. Unskilled labor is the low rung on the ladder.

By the way...your entire logic is asinine to me. But I'm a hard working guy.

thanks for bothering everyone with another useless news thread to reach your sig view quota :)

I find it sad that we live in a society that seems judge people by their life's accomplishment related to work vs how they actually lived their life. It's really a shame that most people in this country worry more about chasing the carrot than enjoying it.

Someone working 3 jobs just to survive is a sad state of affairs, regardless of her education or mental capacity.

People worked hard all through history crockett...only now people expect things to be "easy" all the time.

Just be thankful that you are "enjoying" your "carrot" and not chasing it. That seems to be the prevailing way in our culture today.

Me? I am chasing the hell out of it! It's part of my enjoyment.

I'm enjoying my carrot, not necessarily because I worked all my life or all that hard for it, but because I decided to do so. People are too caught up in keeping up with the Jones's and trying to put up a front to appear as something they are not.

I simply realized that it was more rewarding to change the way I lived vs trying to "get more". Most people are caught up with trying to afford a bigger house or nicer car, I instead took a different approach and realized the fastest way to double my income was to cut my expenses in half.

I now work when I feel like it, not because I have to and I pretty much do what I want to do. Today I hiked 10 miles in the mountains before noon and tomorrow I'll probably do it again. I'm trying to get myself in shape, because I'm toying with the idea of doing a through hike of the Appalachian Trail starting next spring. It's that or head to Alaska, I haven't decided yet.

I think a lot depends on who you ask. I don't think talking in generalities (I'm just as guilty) really does justice to both sides of the discussion.

Agreed - but at the same time you have to look at all the mitigating factors. How many bad choices in life did she make along the way? Hypotheticals - was there medical issues (i.e. was she paying for treatments/meds for a condition?). Was she paying alimony/child support to a former spouse? Did she max out her Amex card and making payments on a $30k balance? Was there a bankruptcy at some point? Was she not a frugal, bargain-hunting savvy shopper in the supermarket? Was she residing in an area with a high cost of living index?

So many intangibles to consider...

im reporting you for harassment. go bother someone else :2 cents: