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Employers Switching From Payroll Checks To Prepaid Cards With Fees
An anonymous reader writes "The New York Times reports a growing number of American workers are being paid by prepaid payroll card. The cards often have fees attached to basic services like making a cash withdrawal or for inactivity. Some employees report that the employers pay by card by default, with paperwork barriers to opting out, and some report that their employers refuse to pay them by check or direct deposit. The issuing banks pitch the cards to employers as a cost-cutting payroll alternative, and sometimes even offer a financial reward for each employee they sign up."
Tell me again how it is the employee's responsibility to defray the employer's payroll processing costs?
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Its the sad old story. A century of gains to pay and conditions due to the hard work and often militancy of unions. Then everyone gets comfortable in the 80s ,decide reagans right and the unions are evil, and its all fine and dandy until the economy crashes and suddenly everyones up shit creek without a paddle because they abandoned the unions and theres no one left to stand up to this crap. Our chickens have come home to roost.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
The check cashing services are also closely allied with the pay day loan services that charge interests that work out to something like 240% on annualized basis. These check cashing services are one of the main opponents of Wall street reform, they are very well organized and media savvy. I would not be surprised if this sudden interest in prepaid card fees and the media blitz is actually organized by these loan sharks.
It costs money to process these transactions. It is not as much as the banks charge as fees and the fees can be unreasonably high. But still that is not as bad as what these check cashing services charge. I would rather work towards giving the regular banks some tax incentives to provide these prepaid cards without fees when they were given as wages for people below poverty line. Killing the whole idea of prepaid cards or demonizing the employers who provide them will prove to be very counterproductive.
Please educate yourself about the plight of the poor at the hands of check cashing services on one hand, checking account with fees on the other hand, people not having fixed addresses or visas who can not open bank accounts in the first place before jumping on the band wagon denouncing the wage card with fees or the employers who provide them.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
This has nothing to do with unions. It's all about the corruption of banks and the force that they can impose through government laws that they help write (which is why more laws is exactly the problem). Take Wal-Mart for example. The problem is not that Wal-Mart doesn't have unions, it's that Wal-Mart relies on it's employees taking advantage of government welfare programs. If those programs didn't exist, people wouldn't even work at Wal-Mart because it wouldn't pay the bills, and when you don't have employees it's awfully hard to have a business.
So that's step 1, if Wal-Mart was forced to pay actual market wages, you'd see a huge shift in the flow of money through retail. Couple that with all the laws that prevent small banks from flourishing and you have a scenario where people are literally forced, by government violence, into slave labor wages using a system that only exists because government masters have ordained the banks as rulers of the universe (with laws written by said bankers).
The problem isn't unions (or lack thereof)...it all boils down to government being the problem, as usual.
Actually, my union threatened strikes unless we were paid equally for equal work. They also cut out the effective overtime without pay that was going on (you must be available on cell at all times), and stopped the fire-rehire on lower contract that was threatened.
But, you know, your stories are good too.
I guess this is what you get when you believe unions are evil...
But they are! Unions have done nothing but raise costs and cause distress for all those poor whittle employers. Just think how much more work could be done without all the lazy people demanding "living wages" (they should be working 2 or 3 jobs instead of expecting decent pay!), 2 days off, working only 40 hours/week (and then if they work more many of these same fuckers expect time and a half!). And don't get me started on all the increased expenses just to make sure employees are safe at work. What country are we living in? The Soviet fucking Union!!! Even that name has that evil "union" word in it!
But more seriously, it is quite amusing since you know the same people who bash unions would throw a shit fit if they lost their weekends, 40 hour weeks, and other benefits that the average worker now takes for granted that took unions decades to get us.
Yes unions are so great that in many states and in many professions you are forced to join one. I have no problem with voluntary unions, but unions can be just as oppressive as employers.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
Do you really think they'd try this shit if there was a well-organized, fighting working class? No way. They only do it because they think they can get away with it.
This is my money, the state and its corporate partner shouldn't be making money off me when I try to get it.
I just wanted to interject this: conservative or liberal, I hope we can all agree that big business colluding with big government is often times a recipe for bad things to happen.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
Sometimes you need a bootstrap. People in low-wage jobs often run on razor thin budgets. Imagine you have no money and have to get a job and still come to the job dressed and clean. That's a real issue, not something made up.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
No, I don't think it is, because it is actually US dollars held by a FDIC financial institution. The case you can make is that it's a violation of contract to pay effectively lower wages by payment processing fees being taken from the worker's side instead of the employer's. Of course, these employees probably all signed contracts that prohibit class action lawsuits(thanks supreme court!), and individual suits are more expensive than the recuperated costs.... so... basically fuck you.
I switched to a credit union in 2010 after I got fucked over by S & T Bank. My credit union charged me $10.00 for membership.
If you're in a bad financial situation, it can be hard to come up with a spare $10.00 but isn't that better than getting charged $4.00 EVERY TIME you want to access your money?
Yes, being poor sucks. But at some point, you have to start making decisions with an eye towards the long term.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
When I'm in the car and want some cheap, fast, gut-filling goodness, do I say to my wife "Do you want to stop at McDonald's?"
Or do I say "Would you like to stop at that individually-franchised restaurant-like business that happens to have a McDonald's sign attached to it?"
Just sayin'.
Kid-proof tablet..
I'm saddened by this story, but not shocked. The fact that I'm not shocked makes me even more sad.
God is imaginary
And these cards don't help change that scenario either.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
If you have to be oppressed by someone, being "oppressed" by a Union is likely a far better option.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
You seem to be under the delusion that people are rational beings that are not subject to their upbringing. Even you would probably be in the same boat as they if you had their life. Just feel lucky that you had a better life that lead to you being in a superior position.
With all due respect sir, you don't know what my life and upbringing were like.
I've been luckier than many. Perhaps in some ways, I've been luckier than most. However, I have faced more than my fair share of hardship.
These are not perpetual infants that we're talking about. These are people who are presumably adults and are responsible for their own decisions, rational or not.
At some point, we become responsible for ourselves.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Please don't tell me these organizations aren't stocked to the gills, from head to tail with sociopaths. It's long past time we stop spending money to bail them out, undo the damage in other people's lives they've done, and in this case spend time writing new legislation to stop them from doing something they know perfectly well they should not be doing - exploiting the lowest paid workers in society for everything they can , until the Congress gets around to making it illegal.
It's so outrageous and such an egregious evacuation of all moral responsibility you have to ask yourself is it just a money grab until Congress acts or is it deliberately designed to provoke the legislation-reaction and designed to be used as a bargaining chip, something their political allies in Congress can use to bargain in exchange for some other , less immediately outrageous but more systemically poisonous , "deregulation".
The whole issue is virtually made-for-Democratiuc moral outrage and gives the Republican something to "trade away", something for the Democrats to parade around as a victory and all the while Wells Fargo, Goddamn Sachs and Bunch of Assholes are gorging themselves in their box seats watching their favorite blood-sport, raping the poor and defenseless.
Don't doubt for a minute is the META level the 1% thinks at, this is exactly what preoccupies them. When what you personally decide to do or not do results in legislation, then that's something worth considering the implications of. Of course, you and I don't spend time doing that because what we decide to do this morning doesn't result in legislation, but if for some reason it did, it wouldn't be long until you understood that you have the power to create horses for the horse-trading bazaar Congress ultimately is.
That is, when Congress is working at all.
I would go further and say that instituting these fees is an example of collusive signalling between banks. One does it and the others see. Each knows internally it's going to be legislatively forbidden soon enough. They recognize in it a Congressional bargaining chip, as do members of both political parties who know how to hit a softball when one is lobbed at them.
No one has to say anything explicit to anyone. Someone makes a move and everyone else follows on. From a certain, naive perspective, it's market based response, a decision to enter a profitable market on the part of competing players.
In reality it's an play to influence legislation on another, much more potentially profitable issue . No one can prove anything. There was no collusion to be proved (and we all know what high standards for proof the DoJ has for the coke snorting class ) and no one is coordinating to do anything.
I don't buy it. This goes well beyond the mere presumed sociopathy of Lloyd Blankfein and Jamie Dimon and their henchmen. I smell a too-stinky rat. Far far too stinky.
No, of course not, but for several reasons. 1) You really don't want to get too entangled with people that have that many problems in life; from what I saw, many of them had constant drama of some kind going on in their lives: relatives going to jail, relatives getting maimed in drug deals gone bad, one housekeeper even had a nephew who raped and murdered a small girl. And 2) they wouldn't know what to do with a CU account. These people operate solely on cash; keeping money in a bank is a foreign concept for them.
Yes, to an extent, people are responsible for themselves and their own decisions, but as a society, it's our (collective) responsibility to educate all our members so that they can function in a modern society, and American society is failing miserably in that regard. These basic life skills like having a bank account and managing money should be taught to kids in grade school and high school, and obviously that's not happening. I had to learn all that stuff on my own, which isn't so hard when you grow up in a middle-class household with a parent who already understands these things (my mom took me to get my own bank account (savings of course) when I was about 10 years old; this was back in the good old days of the 80s when banks didn't charge fees for every little thing), but if your parents don't understand this stuff at all, you're screwed in this society because no one's going to teach you. However, now with even poor people using the internet, maybe things will change because all this stuff can be easily looked up and read about.
But they are! Unions have done nothing but raise costs and cause distress for all those poor whittle employers. Just think how much more work could be done without all the lazy people demanding "living wages" (they should be working 2 or 3 jobs instead of expecting decent pay!), 2 days off, working only 40 hours/week (and then if they work more many of these same fuckers expect time and a half!). And don't get me started on all the increased expenses just to make sure employees are safe at work. What country are we living in? The Soviet fucking Union!!! Even that name has that evil "union" word in it!
But more seriously, it is quite amusing since you know the same people who bash unions would throw a shit fit if they lost their weekends, 40 hour weeks, and other benefits that the average worker now takes for granted that took unions decades to get us.
The problem that unions face is one of bad PR. When unions are going toe to toe with corporate giants, everyone cheers for the union, but many union rules pit the union and its membership directly against the supervisors and lower management. There then becomes the perception that the union protects the lazy workers against the poor hard-working supervisor (or other union members) who have to pick up the slack. That automatically creates an entire legion of people who are right at the beginning of their careers. Many of those young supervisors and mangers will eventually find their way into positions of policy making, and they wont forget how hard they had to work because the union protected people it had no business protecting. The end result is a large swath of the population willing to testify that unions are bad.
Unions need to get much more picky about their rules. Seniority shouldn't count for nearly as much as it does. It should get you preference on vacations, and more time off than those with lower seniority, but the pay discrepancy is far too large. The unions should also figure out how to reward their hard working members at the expense of their lazier members. This will induce their members to *want* to work hard, and everyone wins. The union gets a better reputation with the world at large, the hard working members get unions protection and the best wages they can get. The lazy members get compensated less if they choose to remain lazy, and the company gets a more reliable work ethic. Most importantly, you reduce the animosity between lower management and the workers, which is critical to keeping an anti-union sentiment from growing in the population at large. Such a union would have tremendous bargaining power at the negotiating table, as they would bring an elite workforce to bear, and present a much less complicated job of managing and supervising.
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
in states that don't engage in unions...wages are higher
I also fixed that for you.
You must be American. Having worked in countries with unions and without them, I can unequivocally say that the pay rate is higher where you have unions.
Unions only live by sucking funds from workers, remember.
Unions are the workers. They don't suck from themselves, the suck from the companies.
Everything is more expensive when you're poor. Not just a saying, entirely true. Can rarely purchase when stuff is on sale, get late fees on everything, interest to pay, higher interest and fees because you pay interest and fees. It's like saying, because you have little money, we're going to charge you more!
Was poor once.. it sucked. You get sick more often, meaning you get more bills and miss more work because you can't afford good food. I have been clawing my way out of the hole for many years now. Almost 50% of my gross income goes to paying debts, which are mostly medical, school, car, and credit debts from not having enough money to eat so I used my credit card to not starve.
I've learned to not judge people, they tend to be victims of their own circumstances.
The difference between Unions and other organisations (powerful or otherwise) is that they are set up to operate in the worker's interest. They are not flawless, but in the first place, their task is to protect workers from employer exploitation. Better this than no-one to stand up to scum employers like McDonald's. Except it isn't really them it's just one little franchisee, and "the two are completely separate, your honour."
But more seriously, it is quite amusing since you know the same people who bash unions would throw a shit fit if they lost their weekends, 40 hour weeks, and other benefits that the average worker now takes for granted that took unions decades to get us.
I don't think any sensible person would argue that many of the things unions accomplished in years past have been unambiguously good. Furthermore a union can be an important counterweight to management excesses. My father was a union member for many years and it probably kept him employed in the face of some pretty inept management. Unions even can help make companies more productive in some cases. Conceptually I'm actually a supporter of unions.
The problem is that many unions have ceased trying to fight for what is reasonable. They aren't fighting anymore for a reasonable work week or improved safety or to get benefits in most cases. They often seem to care little about the health and competitiveness of the company. They make the (false) argument that their own actions and demands somehow cannot have a detrimental effect on the company and that the only goal of management is to screw the union members. Once things become reasonable the unions seem unwilling to drop their adversarial position. I have NEVER seen a union go to management and say, "hey, I see that our retirement costs have become a big burden that is hurting the company. How can we help?" No, instead they simply fight tooth and nail for more even when more isn't really possible. Unions quite simply haven't realized that they've won and keep fighting to the long term detriment of everyone.
If companies tried to change the 40 hour work week then unions likely would enjoy a surge in popularity because then they would be fighting a worthy cause for reasonable working conditions. When work conditions and pay are already are reasonable, unions need to recognize that they need to serve a much more limited purpose. Should management start behaving unreasonably then a union has every right and obligation to take measures to protect the union membership.
The first thing you need to get into your head is: The "Free Market" is a myth. Like a frictionless bearing it is useful only in an elementary theory. You don't get to choose if you have to pay rent and feed children and there are no other employers near you.
This is The United States of America. How dare you expect anyone in this nanny-state to be responsible for their own decisions, good or bad. If you make good decisions and manage to claw your way up to the upper echelons of society, you need to pay your fair share. And if by some chance you are aren't one of the lucky few, then by god, the Federal govt will take care of you. Because bad decisions are never based on your decision making shares, but it must be someone elses fault.
21st Century Renaissance Man
I've long felt that schools have been doing a disservice to pupils since the 70's; preparing grade school kids for life should include basic money management, awareness of the state and federal tax code, family law, and the penal code. It takes an education to understand the responsibilities society places on you and the consequences of ignoring them, yet we toss our kids to the wolves as soon as they complete primary without any of that. Its really rather silly.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
I don't recall anyone sitting down with me and explaining taxes, the penal code, family law (with regard to chihldren out of wedlock), and how to manage my checkbook. Other than only cursory explanations from my parents and some half-assed sex ed in school I had to figure out on my own what the implecations are of handling any of that stuff incorrectly.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
Personal Anecdote FTFail!
Here are a few things you can "blame" on Unions:
Now, please regale up with more tales of flight and fancy and how the unions are to blame!
Yeah, right.
I find vegetables and fruit from the local market...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert
Stop talking like everyone shares your privileges.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
As I said there are exceptions, but as a general rule it's better to live in a state where there are strong unions than one where there aren't any.
Better for whom? The union-protected workers who know the union will leap to their defense if they screw off on the job, or the people who have to pay the union workers to get something done?
I used to go to trade shows in Atlantic City. That's the epitome of a "strong labor union" area. We had a display that needed to be set up after the boxes it came in were delivered, and then the boxes needed to be taken away. We had electrical equipment that needed power. Getting all this done required the benevolence of half a dozen unions. I say "benevolence" because if we dared to plug something in ourselves the other unions would react in solidarity with the electrical union and we'd get things done -- next week, maybe, maybe later. After the show was over. If we dared to try to put up our own display, same problem. Chairs? Well, the chair moving union didn't like us moving chairs without involving them. At union rates. (I was on a TV set one time and a chair needed to be moved about a foot to the left, so I moved it. You'd think a nuclear bomb was about to go off, all the consternation and brouhaha that went on. I did a stage hand's job! And I wasn't a stage hand! The HORRORS! I would have asked the union guy standing next to me to do it, but he was an electrician and he doesn't move chairs.)
The expense of going to that show was outrageous, and most of it was due to union wages for people to do menial tasks. And to pay for the union reps who did nothing else but watch to make sure nobody did anything a union worker had to be paid to do.
Unions raise the wages paid for jobs covered by their union,
Pray tell, what is the current value of someone plugging in an extension cord, compared to the union wage of the two people required to do that task? How about the cost of having to wait until they can be found and pleaded with to pretty please come plug this in and get the job put on the schedule for later that afternoon? And what is the expense to the public when the 'extension cord plugger in' union goes on strike and all the others go out in support so that nothing can be done, and if anything is done someone will come around and cut up your extension cord because you used scab labor to plug it in?
Some unions do some good things. Some unions take it to extremes and cost us all a lot more money. Unfortunately, the unions that need the most protection are the ones who do the most ridiculous things in the name of protecting their members.