Yesterday, Fox News’ “Cost of Freedom” block did its best to convince viewers that an NLRB victory for union-backed McDonald’s workers organizing for higher wages and better conditions would cost Americans their freedom and maybe just about everything else they probably hold dear.
Host Charles Payne “asked” if the ruling would be bad for jobs. “Fox on top of a government move that could send jobs way down,” he also said. “Could this ruling violate all workers?”
Panelist Dagen McDowell was pessimistic. She said, “It’s going to eventually destroy jobs, and it just upends, basically, many industries as we know them: hotels, fast food, you name it, they’re going to get hurt.”
Panelist Charlie Gasparino called the ruling “a really dumb thing.” For good measure, he took a gratuitous swipe at the Obama administration. “It seems like the Obama administration wants to destroy a business model that has worked very well and has hired a lot of people,” he said.
”How about millions and millions?” Payne amplified. “They’re going after the most vulnerable.” When he said “most vulnerable,” Payne seemed to mean the McDonald’s franchise owners.
”They’re attacking thousands of small businesses around the country,” Gasparino also said. “They’re not attacking GE, they’re not attacking JP Morgan.”
Payne added, “If you force these small businesses to go ahead and pay $15 an hour, instead of 25 employees, they’re going to have 17 employees, and in my mind the whole thing backfires miserably.”
Panelist Gary Kaltbaum piled on. “Everything they do is illogic,” he said. “They go after the great success stories like McDonald’s, like Walmart, and in a case like McDonald’s, if you start forcing the $15 down, here’s what’s going to happen: …People that would get a job for $10 or 11 would not get at 15. …If you have 10 stores and you have 100 employees, I guarantee you, you’re going to end up with only 90.”
Payne called it “just so backwards to me.” He said, “We want to go to war with job providers, with institutions and organizations that are creating jobs, we want to go to war with them on behalf of the workers.”
McDowell took a gratuitous swipe at Democrats: “Those jobs aren’t good jobs unless they’re union jobs in the minds of Democrats. …It’s about control. It’s shocking that this decision at the National Labor Relations Board could upend industries. It could upend the entire franchise model in this country with one decision.”
Gasparino added, “How low can the labor movement go, that they’re attacking small businesspeople who run hamburger stands?”
Adam Lashinsky was the only panelist to stick up for the decision. He told Kaltbaum, “There’s no worker protection clause that you like – just the way there’s no tax that you like.”
That prompted Payne to start shouting.
Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich laid out a number of reasons why a minimum wage raise can help create jobs and boost the economy. But clearly, the “fair and balanced” host was not interested in hearing about those possibilities.
Watch it below, from the December 27 Cavuto on Business.