Slashdot Mirror
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."
The NYTimes talks about the fees that come along with the use of a preloaded debit card, but in some states (e.g. California), there is a legal requirement that the employee be able to get their pay without any fees, etc. , and at a location convenient to them. No paycheck drawn on a bank in some other state with only 3 branches in that state, etc.
Mind you, that doesn't mean that employers actually follow the rules, or that the employees, who typically are spending all their time just staying alive, will pursue this with the Dept of Labor Standards Enforcement, but at least it is the law.
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.
This frustrated me this year. I received a pre-pair card from the State of Oklahoma for my OK Tax Return. I swear I filled out the direct deposit info, but perhaps I didn't (I could check my copies...). What upset me is the fees for funds withdrawals/etc. This is my money, the state and its corporate partner shouldn't be making money off me when I try to get it.
The card did allow a single withdrawal without a fee at an ATM. I couldn't find an ATM it would work in. Finally logged in to the associated website and transferred to my banking account, with a $0.75 fee. What a crock!
Here's the Oklahoma website pdf detailing the info: http://www.tax.ok.gov/it2011/RefundCard.pdf
and their FAQ: http://www.tax.ok.gov/faq/faqDEBITCARD001.html
I should have mentioned -- I'm also paid via direct deposit. If my 'default' pay were via one of these crappy cards, I'd do *whatever* paperwork was needed to get a normal check or direct deposit...
bork bork bork!
McDonald's is being sued for allegedly paying less than minimum wage using this method.
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
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
Ostensibly, this is a means to help folks who don't have a bank account to carry electronic money around. In some cases, it's on the up-and-up; many of these cards charge monthly fees that are lower than what, say, Bank of America will weasel out of you on a monthly basis. I had a NetSpend card for awhile as an experiment of sorts, and it worked out very well... enough to get me to drop my old BoA account for about a year, until I found a credit union that better suited my needs.
OTOH, many of these cards are shady as hell, and little wonder some employers push them - the kickbacks have got to be extremely tempting, to say the least. Then again, many banks are just as bad, if not worse.
Long-term, I see it as an overall move towards ditching cash altogether - the poor are the last barrier to such a society, and these card programs are aimed squarely at them. Most are unable to get a bank account (bounced checks, etc), they often get state assistance nowadays in the form of debit cards now. OTOH, cash has a wonderful way of getting paid without the IRS knowing about it, so I can see government's angle in wanting e-money over the regular stuff. Cash also makes it hard for police to track money flow, etc... so yeah, I can see the allure from that viewpoint. I can also see the allure of not having to print and distribute paychecks from the employer's end.
All that said, I wonder how long it will be until cash is done away with altogether, and what the drawbacks to society will be from doing so. Cash is a beautiful means of buying things without the purchase being tracked (and yes, most times it is not only legit, but done for good reasons), and it has the advantage of being accepted pretty much anywhere (even if you have to convert currency first. Finally and most important, cash doesn't require a transaction fee every time it gets used - way too much room for abuse and corruption there.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
This one makes the point well.
http://consumerist.com/2013/06/17/ex-mcdonalds-employee-sues-because-she-doesnt-want-her-paycheck-on-a-prepaid-debit-card/
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 agree this is heinous, but it's just a symptom of a problem that's beem going on for decades. Why are bank transaction fees acceptable *at all*? Banks used to pay interest for the privilege of using/investing my money while I have it in their bank. I shouldn't have to pay to use what belongs to me, and I don't understand why people put up with it. I personally use baning services that don't charge fees; they exist, why dont more people uae them?
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 what you get when you believe that ever freer markets will do anything and everything more efficiently than ever before -- Chaos.
Any company that cannot handle its own payroll should not be licensed to trade. It's that simple.
May the Maths Be with you!
McDonald's is NOT being sued. McDonalds has nothing to do with employee payroll processing in individual restaurants. The franchisee pulling this stunt is the business getting sued.
1) You can, indeed, get free checking from Credit Unions pretty easy. Some banks too. There really are places that'll do business with you for no money up front and they won't charge you fees so long as you don't do things like overdraw.
2) They say companies are trying to do this instead of direct deposit. DD costs companies next to nothing. The Automated Clearing House (which is how they all do it) charges $0.35/transaction. This is why companies like to pay people that way. It adds just a trivial cost, and it all automated, the money comes out of their account in to yours. Well the only reason to go prepaid cards instead would be because the bank is bribing them, not because it is cheaper because the ACH cost is just fucking trivial.
This is not a matter of being nice to poor employees, this is a matter of fucking people over.
I could certainly understand offering it as an option. Maybe some employees would find it convenient or financially advantageous. But trying to force people on it? That is just trying to screw them over for a very minor benefit. Like I said, ACH is $0.35/transaction (or 0.06% of a minimum wage paycheck, not counting payroll tax and all that jazz if you want to look at it that way) and it is good bookkeeping wise since the transaction hits right away so you know the status of your current accounts.
To the Anonymous Coward,
While unions have a potential upside for some workers, in an unregulated fashion, just as corporations, they will expand and abuse their power. In non-right to work states, this is very prevalent. Unions in such states have become mafia run organizations, bullying business for more contributions and bullying workers to participate and pay into these unions. They play both sides of the isle because they can, not helping either.
The point is Unions, unchecked, are no better than any other organization competing for your money and tend to lead to worse market conditions.
Brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.
I've mostly seen it used by companies that insist on direct deposit, with employees that refuse to have a bank account for whatever reason. Mostly labor workers, not skilled workers.
and my union negotiated away double time overtime in favour of time and a half in exchange for union dues being deducted from the lump sum signing bonus...
But, you know, your stories are good too.
I worked at one time where I was paid with one of those cards.
We were paid weekly because we were peon min wage packers.
It was free to transfer to a bank account. There were no fees if we kept a balance - I moved my money out of the card as soon as the company deposited money into it because I didn't trust them.
Anyway, I don't have the fee schedule in front of me to make further comments about the particular card I have.
But the point is, peon min wage jobs pay weekly.
That was a shitty job. You had to show up over an hour before you could even clock in with the hopes of getting selected to work that day. If you got selected, you were able to go to the head of the line the next day. If you had to take a day off, you lost your spot and back in line.
If you weren't selected, you just spent you morning -5AM - 6AM waiting around for no pay. A lot of folks got discouraged and never cam e back after a couple of days waiting around and not working.
The body shop that brought the workers in was ALWAYS recruiting more and turning away more in the mornings - it was retarded.
They would train people on a machine, and the operator would work for a month or two, and then when business dropped they would not call anyone into work.
There were many times as a machine operator where if you still needed to work, they would demote you and you were back to min wage loading machines or packing games.
And when business was slow, no work at all.
And then after work, you had to stand in line for about a half hour - UNPAID - in order for security to search you to make sure you're not trying to smuggle out a video game.
So, you would spend at least 90 minutes a day at the plant unpaid.
Don't like it, you don't have to work there.
And the treatment by the company! It was clear that you were crap. Nothing. That you could be replaced at ANY time - and it was true. There are so many desperate people WANTING to work - contrary to what the conservative pundits say -that they can replace you at ANY time.
The poor are treated like garbage in this country. They are treated as subhuman. And when you're constantly treated that way you start to wonder if it's true.
We, the US, are a class based society - with very little mobility. And if you fall off your rung on the ladder, good luck getting back up it's nearly impossible. Just try saying in an interview - if you actually get one - "when I was out of development work, I worked a min wage job 11 hours a day."
And the industry still expects you to keep your skills up having to live that way.
Indeed. Here in Australia many of the top professions (lawyers, doctors and the like) are both union shops and closed shops. The professional bodies set the rules and decide how many people to allow in.
Funny though, these bodies are never called unions. What's good for the goose does not appear to be good for the gander.
It started with some states, getting rid of both checks and direct deposit for unemployment benefits. Yeah, you get your card, and there's some way to get some cash for free, but there's all sorts of limits and restrictions. You either use it to buy stuff so that the merchants end paying the issuing bank, or you get your cash to your checking account in one payment and it costs you.
As an employer I can attest that payroll services have been pushing this on me hard since at least 2008. They're obviously getting a commission, or they would not be promoting it so aggressively. My default is always direct deposit, but I do pass along the paperwork for the debit card to new hires--this results in a blank uncomprehending stare as they process the idea; "why in the hell would I want to do that???" ;-)
If the banks could charge us fees for paying in cash, they would. From their point of view this is the next best thing.
Union won't cover embezzlement? Oh deary me, how cruel.
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.
Recognize:
(1) This situation is often better than the alternative, where the employee gets a check and has to go to a check-cashing place, which charges even higher fees.
(2) The card fees are generally transaction-based, so the fewer transactions, the less in fees: The guy in the article who spends $40/month on fees is a moron: He should take all the money out in one fell swoop. That might cost him $1.75, but that's far less than he would have paid at a check-cashing place.
(3) Despite what the article says, this is usually what happens when the employee doesn't choose direct-deposit. There may be a few employers out there who are actually dropping direct-deposit, but the majority of employers are using these cards only for those people to whom they usually issued checks.
I don't understand why so many low-income people don't have bank accounts. Free checking still exists at smaller local banks and credit unions (check out first citizens, for example). If they got bank accounts with direct deposit, they could move away from these cards.
That said, it is disgusting how the big banks seem to be gleeful about making money on the ignorance of poor people.
Quite true! Once you find yourself in ChexSystems (I think that's what they're called), you're blacklisted from all traditional banks.
But then, hardly anybody takes checks anymore, and those that do often process them electronically on the spot, eliminating much of the "benefit" of checks for poor people (namely, "floating" checks a few days before you get paid when you don't have the balance to cover it.)
I was young and poor once. Juggling checks so I could get by without bouncing any is an art all its own, and a much harder one to accomplish nowadays.
Check out my world simulator thingy.
Well, yeah, if you like to skew your history to suit your political bias, that's the story.
There's plenty examples of cycles like that in history. What really happens is that there's an inequality (employers vs employees), the employees band together to address the inequality (unions), then the inequality slowly slips the other way (union corruption), forces gather to displace the unions, and the cycle starts again. It's an alternation between two inequalities, with only a brief period of equilibrium. Portraying either the employers or the unions as pure of heart is equally disingenuous.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
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
Yes, that $10 (which at most CUs is refundable when you close your account) is better than being charged $4 every time you want access to your money, but a lot of poor people simply don't think that far ahead, and have zero financial management ability whatsoever. I've seen it with people I've hired for domestic duties; they use check-cashing stores for absolutely everything.
I live in a country free from unions.
Last month our boss did not pay out R&D salaries. "Project is late, nobody gets paid until you deliver." From experience we know
that the first one to file a suit is fired, possibly with false accusations of sexual misconduct at work. Seen it happen.
Too bad I am dependent on the company to stay in the country, if I quit I am thrown out within five days, with nowhere to go. So
I am hoping I get my June and July salary in August (because the project is still not on par with management expectations).
That is what you get without unions. Someone who can gather everyone at the company and say: "nobody works until you pay".
And these cards don't help change that scenario either.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
The benefits to monthly payroll are purely for the employer- they don't have to spend as much processing payroll since it happens half as often, and they can earn more interest on the money before giving it to you.
By this argument, everyone ought to get paid daily, assuming banks calculate interest daily where you are. At some point, it just becomes absurdly inefficient.
Paying monthly in arrears is the standard for salaried work here in the UK, and since most household bills are also monthly and the related government tax calculations tend to be monthly, everything lines up just fine.
And it's not your money they're holding on to, if your contract says you'll be paid monthly in arrears. It's theirs until payday, in black and white. If you don't like that, negotiate yourself a tiny payrise or something to compensate for your lost interest.
By the way, you're pretty much wrong about the whole interest-earning thing for businesses as well. Here in the UK, businesses earn about 0.1% annual interest rates on money in most bank accounts. The amount they save by deferring salary payments to monthly instead of some more frequent interval is negligible. The saving is in halving the admin overhead (relative to fortnightly payments) and making fewer financial transfers (for which banks will charge a fee).
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I remember when they started this....I thought it was a great thing to see checks clear instantly. Then i realized, banks still kept their "hold" on the money. So it was the worst of both words, the check writer has no float time, AND the person cashing it still has to wait that whole float time. Basically, the banks stole the float time for themselves.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
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.
1, if they've written bad checks, the bank simply won't give them an account. 2, when your money is in the bank, it can be easily taken without your consent - various kinds of debt, credit agencies, lawyers, even the feds. Cash money in hand (or hidden wherever), much harder for third parties to access, hence, you can live easier when in trouble. 3, banks keep shitty hours: when you need your money in the evening and you can't get it, that can be a problem when the issue at hand is diapers, etc. 4, even when "free", make an error (common with low income types), and the bank will hose you with a huge fee (or fees... they can be pretty tricky about things like the order they cash/bounce when you overdraw. 5, location can be an issue if you're not mobile. There's probably more than this too; these were just off the top of my head.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
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
About low-income people and bank accounts --- in many cases, they don't have one because they don't want to accumulate more than $2000. In many states, that's the asset limit for Medicaid. So if you go over that limit, you have to pay all your medical bills. So people get into the habit of living hand-to-mouth and never save any money.
In 2014, the asset limit for Medicaid disappears! So theoretically, people will be able to open bank accounts and start saving up money. But after all these years of not saving, I don't expect any sudden shift to people being smart about money.
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.
Seriously, Detroit isn't a state, and right-to-work West Virginia lost the same quantity of coal-related jobs when the U.S. de-industrialized a bit over the last decades. There are multiple factors in play, which makes cherry picking easy, and people in union allowing states are better off on average.
A bit more detail on just how dramatic the difference in wages is, and yes, there is a rising tide effect where non-union employees earn more in a union state: Not just an opinion
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.
The Nigerian scam still works on this principle. They send you a check drawn from a foreign or at least out of state bank. You deposit it and the check clears. One business day later all of the funds are available. If you're stupid enough to send them the money, when your bank finally figures out that the check was worthless, they back-charge your account. You end up several thousand dollars negative that you have to repay out of your own pocket.
Despite the instant clearing, this process can sometimes take 8 weeks to play out.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
and the banks have fun with the float time. If they see a check come through for a high amount that can drain the account, it will go through fast. Instead of one bounced check, that big one magically finds its way to the front of the line so that all the little checks that had not cleared yet have insufficient balance.
Right... this is the whole strong helping the weak philosophy at play here. My only statement is that the weak need to remember it's a choice for the strong to help them, not a right.
What you'll find though is pride gets in the way, when I was younger I did try to help people I didn't really know that well only to get "who is this guy and why does he thing he knows better" type attitudes / responses.
So... as a result, call me a terrible person, but I leave people to their own problems now no matter how basic, I have my own to deal with.
And when I read something like TFA, I immediately flag atm fees and know that I would mitigate them (my bank has free atm withdrawals at their atms), but passing that knowledge on? Words to the wind.
Here's another one:
If you're low-income, you could live in low-income housing. Which, for reasons related to abuse of the system (think about Steve Jobs' $1 salary and apply that to someone with absolutely zero shame), is not based on your actual income (cash flow), but is instead based on your net worth including savings. But it has the effect of making low-income housing dwellers either A) not save anything and never improve their lot in life, or B) save, but keep it under the mattress because keeping it in a bank makes it traceable and will get you kicked out of your home.
I have a friend that lives in low-income housing, and he fits into scenario B. He makes probably $15k/year and definitely needs the low-income assistance. His savings is a wad of cash, locked up in a box in his closet. If he put it in a bank, he wouldn't qualify to have his apartment. But his savings isn't near enough to live anywhere else and his income is still low. He'd be homeless.
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.