The Best Fast Food Chain To Work For?
Should fast-food chains pay workers more than federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour? As fast-food workers and labor activists threaten yet another big walk out for next week, there is one fast food chain that already has the answer: It's a resounding yes.
Boloco, a Boston-based burrito chain, pays entry-level floor workers $9 to $10 an hour and managers from $12 to $14 an hour. The cost of the meals are in line with other fast-food chains, too, running from $4 to $7. Business is thriving, with 464 employees and 21 outlets sprinkled from Washington D.C. to Rhode Island.
To Boloco CEO John Pepper (pictured above), the pay, however, is a matter of fairness. "How could I justify as low a salary as the minimum wage?" he said in an interview with AOL Jobs.
Pepper said he actually feels he should be paying all his employees even more -- the "living wage," which is according to MIT is the "hourly rate that an individual must earn to support their family, if they are the sole provider and are working full-time." For Suffolk County in Massachusetts that is around $12.85 an hour for a single adult, according to MIT's living wage calculator. But he said he "feels the same pressure to get the right bottom line. So it's about finding the right balance -- and that includes doing the right thing."
Boloco also tries to make working conditions appealing. There are "relaxation lounges" that contain flat-screen televisions, a $50 monthly transportation budget for each worker and subsidized English as a second language instruction, as the Washington Post reported.
"The hypothesis is that you if you pay it forward, you'll have loyal employees who will help improve sales," he said.
Pepper said he actually feels he should be paying all his employees even more -- the "living wage," which is according to MIT is the "hourly rate that an individual must earn to support their family, if they are the sole provider and are working full-time." For Suffolk County in Massachusetts that is around $12.85 an hour for a single adult, according to MIT's living wage calculator. But he said he "feels the same pressure to get the right bottom line. So it's about finding the right balance -- and that includes doing the right thing."
Boloco also tries to make working conditions appealing. There are "relaxation lounges" that contain flat-screen televisions, a $50 monthly transportation budget for each worker and subsidized English as a second language instruction, as the Washington Post reported.
"The hypothesis is that you if you pay it forward, you'll have loyal employees who will help improve sales," he said.
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