Seattle Socialist Group Pushing $15/Hour Minimum Wage Posts Job With $13/Hour Wage

originally posted by: OccamsRazor04

originally posted by: TheToastmanCometh
a reply to: Domo1

All this over a two-dollar difference?

Sometimes I wonder about you guys sometimes...

Ummm no. They want unskilled/uneducated burger flippers to get $15/hour, and want to pay a Web Developer $13/hour when the median pay is $30/hour. So apparently they want burger flippers and Web Developers to make the same pay.

Take it from someone who has a degree in web development. They pretty much are the same, actually I think it's harder to run a fry machine than to write CSS or implement some JQuery.

a reply to: Aazadan

That is because you understand it and have a grasp of it. That doesn't make it easy for the masses. To run a fry-machine, you don't have to have logic (beyond, hot and beeping noises), conceptualization, etc. To equate the two doesn't take into account a lot of what is needed for the individual jobs.

A robot can accomplish the job of a fryer and for the most part does.
A robot may be able to write the code, but to accomplish or tackle a problem, more than pre-defined computing is needed.

originally posted by: Aazadan

originally posted by: OccamsRazor04

originally posted by: TheToastmanCometh
a reply to: Domo1

All this over a two-dollar difference?

Sometimes I wonder about you guys sometimes...

Ummm no. They want unskilled/uneducated burger flippers to get $15/hour, and want to pay a Web Developer $13/hour when the median pay is $30/hour. So apparently they want burger flippers and Web Developers to make the same pay.

Take it from someone who has a degree in web development. They pretty much are the same, actually I think it's harder to run a fry machine than to write CSS or implement some JQuery.

Regardless of how "easy" the job is, median pay is about $30 an hour. Do you work in web development? If so, did you work for minimum wage? Do you think Web Developers should only earn min. wage? This group apparently thinks so.

originally posted by: TheToastmanCometh
a reply to: beezzer

I do care about wage increase.

I just don't get why everyone is flipping their burgers over a two dollar difference.

I don't know about you, but I, and I'd guess most people, would find a 15% wage difference to be quite significant. In this case, its about $4,000 per year, assuming a full time position. For many of the people in my area, that difference could pay most, if not all of their house payment every month.

In any event, its quite hypocritical of this group to demand a $15/hr minimum wage but be unwilling to pay their own people that wage.

originally posted by: ownbestenemy
a reply to: Aazadan

That is because you understand it and have a grasp of it. That doesn't make it easy for the masses. To run a fry-machine, you don't have to have logic (beyond, hot and beeping noises), conceptualization, etc. To equate the two doesn't take into account a lot of what is needed for the individual jobs.

50% of the population is mentally unable to program, the flip side of that is that 50% of the population is able to. A skillset that 50% of people can learn is a pretty low value skill. Did you look at the job posting? here it is, this is what they want:
Duties

Change and format content on site using HTML/CSS
Light maintenance of Drupal and Wordpress-based websites
Updating content and graphics on a daily basis
Graphic design for web, and print (including designing for large-format printing)
Light copywriting and editing
Assist with planning and implementation of new features
Troubleshoot and fix problems as they arise
Provide training and assistance to other staff, as needed
General office assistance: answering phones, copying, light custodial, community outreach

Qualifications

Familiarity with HTML/CSS
Familiarity with Photoshop and an eye for correcting/cropping graphics
Ability to self-manage and problem-solve independently, while still maintaining quality control and attention to detail
Ability to communicate clearly and effectively to many people within the organization by phone, in-person and by email

Desired, not required

Experience with Drupal and FTP software
Knowledge of social media
An interest in ongoing political events
Spanish language proficiencies

That's more web design than development (art, layout, etc rather than backend coding) which is pretty low skill. Let me translate what they're looking for there. They want you to use drag and drop interfaces like Wordpress to put together websites that look good. Primarily they're wanting you to be able to create graphics in Photoshop, make them a proper file size, and put them on the webserver. Then they want you to update code to point to those graphics. They're looking for enough HTML/CSS knowledge to be able to format text, create hyperlinks, and know how to change text inside of HTML tags and they want you to be able to proofread the text before you publish it.

The sort of stuff they're looking for is something you could pick up in the first four weeks of a 9 week class on Dreamweaver.

originally posted by: OccamsRazor04
Regardless of how "easy" the job is, median pay is about $30 an hour. Do you work in web development? If so, did you work for minimum wage? Do you think Web Developers should only earn min. wage? This group apparently thinks so.

I don't work in web development, I have a degree in it and I do the occasional freelance project in order to keep my skills with the various languages up to date but I'm primarily a student going for another tech degree right now. The last time I touched that stuff which was a year ago the going rate was $10/hour and that was for a database driven website (I also had to build the database), point of sale system, virtual storefront, and I even had to build/configure the server it would run off of.

Lets flip this around, do you think that should be worth more than minimum wage? As far as tech skills go it involves some of the most basic ones around and sites like w3schools will even give you step by step instructions to do everything I just said to say nothing of what they're asking of a person. What they advertised is a very low skill position, I taught my mom how to do everything they're asking for here (in Joomla though not Wordpress) in an hour for a community website she runs and she is so non technical she doesn't understand how to download an email attachment.

To go back to what they're offering though, $13/hour is completely fair, the minimum wage is kind of weird. When you increase it everyone needs to play by those rules otherwise those who voluntarily increase it are working at a disadvantage. I don't see anything wrong with offering $13 while lobbying to increase it to $15.

a reply to: OccamsRazor04

Ummm no. They want unskilled/uneducated burger flippers to get $15/hour, and want to pay a Web Developer $13/hour when the median pay is $30/hour. So apparently they want burger flippers and Web Developers to make the same pay.

Now that is an interesting thought.

With the emphasis on income inequality, making the rich pay their "fair share," (raising taxes on the rich), and putting in extra taxes on the people in the middle, let me put on my ATS conspiracy cap.

Is it possible that they're looking for everybody to be paid the same, except for government employees, of course, and those the government approves of? It produces the whiff of another failed socialist state.

originally posted by: Aazadan
50% of the population is mentally unable to program, the flip side of that is that 50% of the population is able to. A skillset that 50% of people can learn is a pretty low value skill. Did you look at the job posting?

How many people have the mental ability to do the job doesn't matter, it's how many have the actual skills required, which is absolutely not 50% of the population.

I don't work in web development, I have a degree in it and I do the occasional freelance project in order to keep my skills with the various languages up to date but I'm primarily a student going for another tech degree right now. The last time I touched that stuff which was a year ago the going rate was $10/hour and that was for a database driven website (I also had to build the database), point of sale system, virtual storefront, and I even had to build/configure the server it would run off of.

I made more than that back in college working security at Target which required you to be 18 with no education and no skills.

Lets flip this around, do you think that should be worth more than minimum wage? As far as tech skills go it involves some of the most basic ones around and sites like w3schools will even give you step by step instructions to do everything I just said to say nothing of what they're asking of a person. What they advertised is a very low skill position, I taught my mom how to do everything they're asking for here (in Joomla though not Wordpress) in an hour for a community website she runs and she is so non technical she doesn't understand how to download an email attachment.

Minimum wage is no skill needed, minimum skill should always be higher than no skill. So yes, it should absolutely be higher than min. wage.

To go back to what they're offering though, $13/hour is completely fair, the minimum wage is kind of weird. When you increase it everyone needs to play by those rules otherwise those who voluntarily increase it are working at a disadvantage. I don't see anything wrong with offering $13 while lobbying to increase it to $15.

Except they are proof of why a high min. wage does not work. It's not affordable. They can not afford to pay those wages, and neither could any other business. The end result would be the cost of goods and services increasing lowering the value of the dollar so that buying power doesn't really increase that much, and good middle class jobs will not see much raise in pay, but will have the value of their dollar lowered so that middle class America ends up taking a pay cut.

originally posted by: OccamsRazor04
How many people have the mental ability to do the job doesn't matter, it's how many have the actual skills required, which is absolutely not 50% of the population.

I'll repeat my words. Did you look at the job posting? I even copied and pasted the requirements. What they were asking for here is super basic entry level stuff. Anyone could learn the skills they were asking for in the same amount of time it takes to learn a cash register.

I made more than that back in college working security at Target which required you to be 18 with no education and no skills.

That's great, but if you haven't noticed the economy has changed since you were 18.

Minimum wage is no skill needed, minimum skill should always be higher than no skill. So yes, it should absolutely be higher than min. wage.

I've worked many jobs for minimum wage that required skills. Previously I worked as a college tutor and I needed a degree in the field I was tutoring to do that... it paid minimum wage. Currently I work for an engineering company as an intern, it again requires a degree and it pays minimum... I'm actually just glad it pays anything at all.

Except they are proof of why a high min. wage does not work. It's not affordable. They can not afford to pay those wages, and neither could any other business. The end result would be the cost of goods and services increasing lowering the value of the dollar so that buying power doesn't really increase that much, and good middle class jobs will not see much raise in pay, but will have the value of their dollar lowered so that middle class America ends up taking a pay cut.

If other businesses were also paying that wage no one would be at a competitive disadvantage with each other due to wages. People would also have more money to spend, which would increase sales in the economy. Those sales would make up for the higher price of wages.