Workers Win Fight For Living Wage, Then Lose Jobs

I do odd jobs for people in the area where I live, sometimes I only make $20 a day, sometimes more.

My income is no more reliable than any of your incomes, but I can get by just by keeping control of my outflows.

If you own a car, and it takes you an hour to get to work, that is an hour of your time you are wasting for nothing, you are donating it unless your hourly wage easily covers your time and expense. If not, get a job closer to home, ride a bicycle or take the bus or train to work.

I don't care who you are, or what you do for money, you do not have control of it.

It's up to you.

reply to post by Hoosierdaddy71

So, if you are too poor to buy a reliable car, buy a good manual and tools and make it reliable all by yourself.

I have always been poor and if I couldn't fix it myself I would have to do without.

Stop depending on others so much, you can't afford to pay someone else to change your oil and wait a half hour when you could just as well crank up the stereo and do it yourself in 15 minutes for half the price.

reply to post by daskakik


How does that defeat everything else I have said?

reply to post by MyHappyDogShiner


You and I have a different idea of what a reliable car is. I don't want to work on my car all the time. If it needs maintenance every other week that's not reliable to me. That is something that I don't have to do anymore thank goodness. People just starting out and ones that are less fortunate for whatever reason may have to do what you suggest. I have also found that someone in my current position is better off paying a mechanic to fix my cars. I make more money working than I save working on my own cars. The old expression ( time is money ) is true.

I think the little maw & paw shops shouldn't have to pay a living wage, but the BIG chains like McDonalds, etc., SHOULD have to. These companies turn record profit of billions annually. Why not let your employees live a better life? Some people work hard all week and still don't make enough to pay their bills-the pay doesn't match the high cost of living. Not everybody can go to college, and not everybody is a trust fund kid. The rich are so out-of-touch with what's real and how hard it is to make it, not to mention, A lot of the rich that I ever met could care less about other people--they only care about $$$$$$$$$$$$$$.

The president needs to put a cap on inflation, push the oil prices down, and by that, I mean run a wrecking ball through Wall Street and punish the speculators who are keeping the cost of living high just so they can line their pockets with record profits while everybody else suffers and scrapes by. My family and I live pay check to pay check, and quite frankly, I'm tired of it. Gas alone takes a lot of my extra money. I need to buy new shoes for my boys but I guess I'll have to wait 'til 'tax time' to do that. But the people who get rich from the little man could care less. They eat steak and lobster tonight while we eat bologna sammiches. They don't have to worry when they have their assistants fill up their gas tanks.

I'm all for capitalism, but it's run off the rail by the greedy. Share some of that damn record profit so people can have a little better quality of life. What's that ya say? Too bad? Suck it up and find another job? I guess I'll see you at the next revolution.

reply to post by Xtrozero


WOW... I just figured it up, out of curiosity because I never knew anything about Canadian minimum or their taxes...

Canadian minimum wages in Manitoba at 10.45 an hour has the exact same take-home pay that someone in the United States making 8.00 an hour has when you figure in the higher Canadian taxes and the currency exchange rate.

So, the reality is, Canadians aren't paying more out in minimum wage, it just sounds like more. And that 8 dollars an hour is not universal, depending on where you live in the US, the minimum can be between 9 and 10 dollars an hour. Those places, actually make more than the Canadian making minimum wage.

Thanks, you taught me something today.

reply to post by OpinionatedB


Damn thats got to be back breaking for small business's not to consider that less money is eventually circulating the economy.

Thats really bad politics and general economics right there.

OpinionatedB
reply to post by daskakik

 

How does that defeat everything else I have said?

You started off by saying that the problem was that people want to work 40 hours but want to live like they are working 80-100 hours. You then go on to tell us how you went from working 80-100 hours to working for a "living wage" which let you spend more time with your kids.

So, basically you went from working long hours to earning a "living wage" on just 40 hours after telling us that those who seek that are the problem. So you became the problem?

reply to post by daskakik


I said: (in paraphrase to make it simple)

For myself, I learned that family was more important than wealth and what it takes to accomplish that was taking away from family, so I gave up the wealth in order to have what I considered better. In order to do that in the manner in which I personally felt to be adequate, I got a trade. ie: nursing, and gave up the lifestyle of someone with money.

That was my personal choice. My personal choice does not diminish my personal achievements or the fact I achieved them without any college, or the fact that if I could do it then anyone can, if they have drive.

People have three choices and those choices should depend on what they personally consider important, if wealth is important to people, then they need to go after it themselves, and not expect that it comes easy. Most certainly no one should expect the wealthy who worked extremely hard to be supporting them.

If family and a living wage is important to people, rather than expecting others to provide the living wage while doing nothing and having zero responsibility, then they need to seek a way to earn that living wage which comes by way of a trade. Which takes a slight amount of drive, but not too much, in order to achieve this way of life.

If people want zero responsibility, then they need to figure out how to live on minimum wage, not exceeding one's budget and then expecting others to cover it, but actually figure out how to live within their means. This also can be done.

But you cannot choose #3, and expect others to pay for it as if it was lifestyle #2, or choose #2, and expect others to pay for you to live like lifestyle #1. That is what is insane. If you have the drive, anyone can accomplish anything, even wealth. But people need to actually do what it takes to live the way they want to live or learn how to live differently.


(End Paraphrase)

To me, that is what is so great about this country, that anyone can do anything, be anything if they work for it. With drive, anything can be accomplished.

In my life, I have had a couple bumps in the road, from a bad marriage, to a disability. But here, in this country, anyone can rise out of the ashes, and achieve whatever is important to them.

The disability prevented me from working until I could gain the physical strength once again and also overcome my disability on a mental level, since that is where much of the fight is... but once more, I am working. I am working toward achieving my own goals, and not expecting anyone else to provide for me. I live within my own means, and am taking the responsibility of my own life.

I understand needing help from time to time, more than most probably, but that help should be a hand up, not just a hand out. It distresses me that in a land with no limit to personal achievement, where no lines of class cannot be crossed, there are people who want to destroy that greatness, in order to get others to pay for their living.

The laws of natural selection have been suspended until further notice.

Mankind is basically a herd of hunter-gatherers. We started out that way, and have not fallen far from the tree up to this very day. We now have different means and methods of hunting-gathering, dressed it up to look like something else, but it is still the same old game, and always will be. From the Wairana tribesmen in the Amazon to the corporate raiders on Wall Street, and everyone in between, is hunting and gathering when their livelihood is boiled down to it's most basic form.

Now, under the laws of natural selection, the most efficient hunter-gatherer wins the game. In the old days, no one worried over a illusory "living wage", they worried over very real basic survival. In order to accomplish that, they had to actually get off their asses and go find the wildebeest, then kill it, then cook it.

There was a name for those who bitched and whined and cried that the wildebeest needed to walk into their camp and commit suicide so that they could cook it. That name applied to those sorts of folks was "deceased".

That was natural selection at work. It produced and propagated the most efficient hunter-gatherers, and killed off the unfit to survive. Now it's not working, because the law has been suspended, and we are being overrun with folks who think the wildebeest ought to sacrifice itself to them, rather than they having to go get it. What people are doing, in effect, is hunting squirrel and expecting that squirrel to magically transform into a big old wildebeest.

Not gonna happen. The illusion is fostered because someone else gives them enough to make up for the difference in bulk, and then they whine for MORE. It's not through any effort of their own. If they get used to that, it's going to get ugly when the laws of natural selection are reinstated, and they start dying like flies because their fantasy bubble burst, and they no longer have the "other guy" to kill that wildebeest for them.

Carry your own water, hunt your own wildebeest. Don't expect some nice gent to bring it to you, because those "nice gents" always expect something in return for THEIR prowess at killing wildebeests.

You just might not be wiling to pay that price - and if you're NOT willing, well, there is still that word to describe you...

reply to post by Cabin


Than I simple buy my hot dogs from the grocery store and stay home.

No hot dog is worth $8.

If I'm going to spend $8 at a restaurant, I better be getting something that is worth laying out $8.

nothingwrong
reply to post by xuenchen

 

What a load of carp!

Tell me the casino was so broke it could not afford to run these extra prices! Who ever heard of a casino that was short of cash!? LOL

It is the disingenuous way in which they do their accounting which is behind this. Sure, perhaps the restaurant was running at a loss, but it was owned by the casino which I bet makes millions. By making this a separate entity to their central business they were able to reduce their tax burden, making huge savings, whilst the place was still doing business. Then once they had to pay their people a fair wage, they shut it down rather than pay back some of that additional profit.

This is what is wrong with the corporate world, especially in the USA. Greed before compassion - profit before people.

Was the restaurant part of the casino or a separate contracted enterprise in it?

There is a difference. If the restaurant isn't actually part of the casino, but only a contracted enterprise, then why should the casino care?

reply to post by ketsuko


You know, the type of post you responded to is what sparked my little rant above. You see, they don't carry the example to it's logical conclusion - they stop at the collectivist version, as if that is the end.

It's not.

In that example, they fall short of accounting for the hunter-gatherer instincts that keep progress alive. When Robber Baron B drops his wages and "exploits" his employees, the more survivally-oriented sort have that hunter-gatherer instinct kick in, look around, and say to themselves "why am I working HERE, when the bigger wildebeest is to be killed OVER THERE". In other words, why am I working for 5 dollars an hour here when I can make 12 an hour over there doing the same thing?

Then they migrate to happier hunting grounds - i.e. the higher paying job, and Robber Baron B finds that he has to carry his own water, because the peons are deserting him in droves. Then he has but there choices - 1) try to do it all on his own,which will bury him if his business is that good, 2) close up shop, which again will bury him, since it makes for hungry winters, or 3) RAISE HIS WAGES.

Now, it's true that as long as there is someone still willing to work for the lower wages, he will be able to find peons for his hot dog shop. However, those sorts of employees will eventually kill themselves off by starvation, when the laws of natural selection get reinstated.

Then he will have no more peons.

See, the collectivist mindset has it that making a law will make people more "moral". It won't. It will just force them to be more surreptitiously immoral. Starving them out, now THAT is the way to change a mindset! When they find their system is no longer working due to a lack of sufficiently motivated peons, they will have to change or die.

Most choose to change over die, because death is so permanent...

See, people pay more (even wage-wise) for quality. When all the quality peons stampede over to Robber Baron A and his bigger wildebeest, Robber Baron B is left with the dregs, and that ain't no way to run a successful business - not if you intend to STAY in business...

reply to post by oblvion


That's pure bull.

I have an uncle whose a silicon valley millionaire. He grew up dirt poor with my daddy and two sisters and three other brothers living in small 2-bedroom house in a tiny town no one has ever heard of in Western Kansas. He went into the military like one of his of his other brothers and when he got out he went into business in computers with two others guys. He has retired once already after making his first million, but he got bored and went back to work as a higher up in Apple.

No college.

My husband grew up adopted into a family of poor folks who moved all over the American southeast. His father could barely hold down a job for any length of time. He was left at one point with two years of college under his belt, $50 and a bicycle after his mother's death when his father abruptly moved again and said he would either move with him or lose all support. My husband chose to stay at his university where he had two years invested. He's now very successful in the bioscience industry. We aren't millionaires, but if I could get a full-time job, we'd be fairly comfortable instead of tight.

He had a poor background with no support.

It's all about what you make of yourself and how you are willing to work. Much of the "luck" you cite is related to personal intiative and willingness to take risks.

reply to post by nenothtu


Some people think somebody owes them a living. The entitlement mindset has taken over this country and most of Europe as well. Like you said, people migrate to better hunting grounds/ ie jobs to improve their lives but some want better lives brought to them. Used to be if a kid failed in school the kid was responsible, now the teacher is blamed. That mindset has taken over in adults now and this is the result.

reply to post by teslahowitzer


Tell me, what 18 year dishwasher deserves $15 an hour. At that age, they are more adept at picking their nose than actually working.

ketsuko

Was the restaurant part of the casino or a separate contracted enterprise in it?

There is a difference. If the restaurant isn't actually part of the casino, but only a contracted enterprise, then why should the casino care?

At least here in Detroit, there are Signature Restaurants in the Casinos, they seem to be non Casino run. For example there was a Wolfgang Puck place at one of them that folded.

HanzHenry
IF the rich don't want to pay a living wage. FINE,

don't let THEM make ANY profit..

And next hopefully people will find ways to destroy them. When 10 hungry unemployed people KNOW the rich guy has food. Hopefully they will take the rich out.

If everyone cant be rich then die fighting and making sure NOONE is.

Interesting perspective.

So all these poor folks "take out" the rich guy for his food.... they eat for a week... then what?

They come to take out the next richest guy, which might be YOU. They have no skills other than looting, raping, and pillaging. If your skill at such tasks does not surpass THEIRS, guess who gets to eat YOUR food?

For a week or so.

Then they move on to the next victim.

A species cannot survive when it starts predating on it's own, as ours has... and as you apparently promote.

That is, in a nutshell, the problem with Collectivist viewpoints. the only way they can survive is predation on their own kind. Right now, we put people in jail for stealing. I'm guessing the days of that sort of thing are numbered... if the Collectivists have their way. Mob rule, mob mentality. Hope and pray that YOU are never in it's sights.

Home Depot starts at 13.50$ and a friend of mine's son won't work for that. The guy is 20 and hasn't got time to get away from his x-box. He has to be out by the first of March the parents have had enough. 20 years old and has had probably 20 jobs now he has his freedom.

nenothtu

See, the collectivist mindset has it that making a law will make people more "moral". It won't. It will just force them to be more surreptitiously immoral. Starving them out, now THAT is the way to change a mindset! When they find their system is no longer working due to a lack of sufficiently motivated peons, they will have to change or die.

Most choose to change over die, because death is so permanent...

See, people pay more (even wage-wise) for quality. When all the quality peons stampede over to Robber Baron A and his bigger wildebeest, Robber Baron B is left with the dregs, and that ain't no way to run a successful business - not if you intend to STAY in business...

The first thing all of us need to understand is less than 4% of jobs out there are actually minimum wage or less, and a huge chunk of them are in the food business and with jobs where tips are a big part of the job. Many of these tip jobs pay well so they really do not count. This leaves very few jobs where a person actually makes only minimum wage.

With that said, an area near Seattle raised minimum wage to $15 per hour and the response from employers is they can not survive if their employee cost exceeds 30 to 35% gross, so they will need to reduce the number of employees and automate the rest to get back to acceptable expenses.

It will be interesting to see what kind of unemployment numbers that areas has in a year or two.

There is one thing you brought up in your post and that is back in the day people move to better hunting grounds and what we see today is people are unwilling to move even when there are no job at any wage in their area. Personally I would not live in an area where the masses fight over scraps and in this case, a few minimum paying jobs.

When I retired from the military I was asked "Where are you going to live?" and my answer always was "I don't know, it will be where my next job takes me" many thought this was a confusing answer....