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After Amazon Increases Worker Wages, Whole Foods Responds By Cutting Worker Hours (theguardian.com)
schwit1 shared this article from the Guardian:
In response to public pressure and increasing scrutiny over the pay of its warehouse workers, Amazon enacted a $15 minimum wage for all its employees on 1 November, including workers at grocery chain Whole Foods, which it purchased in 2017... But since the wage increase, Whole Food employees have told the Guardian that they have experienced widespread cuts that have reduced schedule shifts across many stores, often negating wage gains for employees.
"My hours went from 30 to 20 a week," said one Whole Foods employee in Illinois... "We just have to work faster to meet the same goals in less time," the worker said. An internal email shared by the employee from their department manager cited the across-the-board shift cuts as "the direct result of guidance from our regional team". In Maryland, another Whole Foods worker said their regional management is forcing stores to cut full-time employee schedules by four hours, to 36 hours a week. "This hours cut makes that raise pointless as people are losing more than they gained and we rely on working full shifts," the worker said...
In September 2018, several Whole Foods workers organized the group Whole Worker, with the goals of forming a union and providing workers a resource to organize since Amazon took over... "There are many team members working at Whole Foods today whose total compensation is actually less than what it was before the wage increase due to these labor reductions," said a Whole Worker spokesperson in an email to the Guardian.
Neither Amazon nor Whole Foods responded to requests fo a comment, the Guardian reports -- while the workers that they interviewed "were reluctant to speak on the record for fear of retaliation."
"My hours went from 30 to 20 a week," said one Whole Foods employee in Illinois... "We just have to work faster to meet the same goals in less time," the worker said. An internal email shared by the employee from their department manager cited the across-the-board shift cuts as "the direct result of guidance from our regional team". In Maryland, another Whole Foods worker said their regional management is forcing stores to cut full-time employee schedules by four hours, to 36 hours a week. "This hours cut makes that raise pointless as people are losing more than they gained and we rely on working full shifts," the worker said...
In September 2018, several Whole Foods workers organized the group Whole Worker, with the goals of forming a union and providing workers a resource to organize since Amazon took over... "There are many team members working at Whole Foods today whose total compensation is actually less than what it was before the wage increase due to these labor reductions," said a Whole Worker spokesperson in an email to the Guardian.
Neither Amazon nor Whole Foods responded to requests fo a comment, the Guardian reports -- while the workers that they interviewed "were reluctant to speak on the record for fear of retaliation."
What did people think would happen?
higher wages require high productivity. It is a net gain, regardless of what these whiners think. They are getting the same gross pay with several extra hours a week of free time / family time.
And before anyone jabs at the comment about it not making sense for companies to fire good employees: Most people overvalue their own worth and labor-value. You are never as integral or irreplaceable as you think you are.
Each of the 13 original colonies should have stood up to Great Britain individually. If they were truly strong, they would have gone it alone. Why do you hate America?
Extra spare time that they can use honing their C#/Unity skills and doing more research for their investment portfolios!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Proves my point: The larger states did all of the heavy lifting and the smaller states were essentially dead weight. New York or Virginia could have successfully repelled the British on their own because people wildly overestimate the British position in North America in the late 18th century.
Having a steady job with a good wage, though with slim hours, can be great for students and people who are trying to launch their artistic career or whatever and just need to get the basic bills paid. I'd have loved a 20 hour a week job that paid $15 an hour when I was in college. That's twice minimum wage and part-time jobs just didn't approach that kind of money.
If you've got a side-hustle income that isn't consistent, it can help a lot to have some measure of stability.
In a world of the blind, the one-eyed man is king--and the two-eyed man is a heretic.
Amazon will just be Bezos. No other staff needed. Everything will be done by Robots. Even the repair of the Robots will be done by other robots.
Get used to it people. Buy stuff from Amazon and this is the future you will encounter when they become the only store anywhere.
The Guardian article mentions speaking to a single worker in Illinois, one in Oregon, a disgruntled slave wage in Maryland, and another in California... none of who can be independently verified because of fear of repercussion. If you speak to enough hourly employees in any industry, you will find a few disgruntled individuals willing to speak negatively of their chosen employer, especially off the record.
Not to explicitly assume a small sample size, but it's a more interesting narrative if the great evil corporation is putting it to the little man.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
This simply illustrates the obvious reason why minimum wage is not a good form of welfare. Universal basic income combats the same problem (workers without the economic value being able to earn a living wage) but without fighting against the supply/demand curve. It has been obvious for at least a century that market forces are insufficient to promote the general welfare of all citizens, but the answer is not to combat market forces. Just let wages fall where they may and provide for general welfare in another way.
The economic value of any individual is exactly what they would be paid without any minimum wage. That is fine. Just make sure society is providing basic means for all citizens without relying on wages. Minimum wage is a very poor way of doing that.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Where did people really think that new wage money would be extracted from? Profits?
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
If the common workers have more money to spend, the economy will be better for everybody!
They'll be able (and willing) to spend more money, and will do so where they get a decent price on their stuff.
Don't they make enough profit corporately that the increased wages make little impact on the overall profits, or are they too money-grubbing to really care?
I'm betting on the latter, personally.
Businesses especially small ones can't always absorbed rapid increases in a minimum wage. Many times too these jobs are low skilled and available workers for those jobs will dictate what the wage is. Many times above minimum just to get quality dependable workers. If your going to raise it, then do it in a gradual year by year increase not all at once. The negative outcomes of reduced hours, reducing employee's and even closing up businesses was predictable. Also some businesses resorted to automation reducing human labor because the increases in labor costs were incentive enough to automate.
Work 2/3 the hors and get the same pay?
that sounds like a good thing to me. these people cant stop conplaining. plenty of time for a second job.
Then again, a cut to hours that exactly negates wage increases is still quite a good gain for the employees.
Amazon needs to be split up. Along with Facebook, Google, and Apple. Terrible that the richest man in the world keeps sticking it to the little people.
Where were all the reports in the Guardian on unhappy Whole Foods workers before Amazon bought Whole Foods?
If management spot a productivity opportunity that reduces net cost to the organisation then they're likely to pursue it whether they've just given the staff a payrise or not.
It's perhaps ironic that there wouldn't be a story had the hours reduction been implemented without pay rising, as that would merely be a business seeking to optimise its operations.
Polish up that resume, or improve your driving skills
The situation will cycle through further measures until the company brings in third party consultants to "streamline operations" or cut back on staff (being frank here, mind you) to "improve overall effectiveness" yadda yadda and could deteriorate even further
Welcome your robot co-workers, too.
Best of luck to you people. Maybe take that long-postponed vacation to think things through; pick some place remote that might do wonders for your mental health, if not your spirit.
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
SO was any one surprised this happened, Where did you think this extra money was coming from, Prices of products is already to high...
Profits are not going to suffer... So hours get cut... Just Like mcdonalds, Raised the salaries then installed kiosk to take orders.
Are those benefits flat or tiered? Do they receive the same benefits, without adjusting for hours?
There is certainly some truth to that but, on the flip side if you raise wages then job expectations also rise because you can attract better people. This means that those less competent workers are going to be let go and replaced with fewer, more effective workers.
The end result may not actually affect a companies bottom line much but it will mean that those less capable workers are going to find it harder and harder to find jobs as they are squeezed out by automation and higher job expectations. So while raising wages may reduce the number of people in poverty for some it is likely to make things a lot worse.
It's all about metrics these days. Upper management coming straight out of school think that metrics matter. No, they don't. Keeping both customers and employees happy is what actually matters. The whole increasing minimum wage thing was nothing more than a PR stunt - "oh, Amazon cares!" Obviously they don't give a damn about their employees which have kept them in business for so long.
But at the same time, people are going to be outraged at Amazon over this, but just like people that claim to hate Walmart, are going to continue to shop there.
Socialism is fine until you run out of other people's money. A retail worker is not worth $30,000/year. When politicians, who hypocritically tout the wants of "the people" for their own purposes pass legislation purporting to seek a higher wage floor, corporations have no choice but to respond by slashing hours and benefits.
...and I'll bet the Whole Foods bosses also give themselves a nice bonus for raising productivity.
You don't become wealthy by treating people fairly, duh. Nor being 'nice'.
These fucking gazillionaires need to start getting run out of goddamn town on a rail. Not fucking emulated, revered, fawned over, and held up as some kind of fucking 'model'.
Start fucking forming unions again, people.
Of course they won't, because by and large, people are fucking stupid, and you can't fix 'stupid'.
Crappy part time job. Anecdotal story(ies?) that claim they got hours cut. "We just have to work faster to meet the same goals in less time". Smells like bullshit to me. Unless they weren't doing shit at 30 hours for one third of the time, then no way can they meet the same goals.
No low wage business keeps (or cuts the hours of) employees they don't need. If some business owner claims that a minimum wage increase caused them to lay off workers they are either lying or really bad at business.
Closing up shop due to increased labor costs, that I can believe.
SLOWER TRAFFIC KEEP RIGHT
In this era of very low unemployment, doubtless there are other non-Whole Food options for workers (even unskilled) to move to that aren't quite so shark-like.
We got exactly what we expected.
Yes, there are going to be some isolated incidents. That's why you need to have a _Federal_ minimum wage. That way when a bad manager responds by cutting hours and telling everybody to work harder the employees can do this .
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it sets a floor you can't fall below. It says "If you work 40 hours a week you should be able to get by".
It also raises _your_ wages, because it increases job mobility on the low end and makes it less likely somebody at the low wage sector is going to start gunning for the next job up the pole, pushing wages down in that sector and causing a cascade effect that eventually hits your end.
An economy without worker protections is always, always a race to the bottom.
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the problem here is Minimum wage in Illinois (where the person interviewed is) is $8.25/hr and their boss knows it. That means they can't just quit and go find better work. This is exactly why minimum wage is Federal. Economies aren't tiny, local things.
I've pointed out elsewhere on the thread that the studies show actual minimum wage increases help workers. That includes that Seattle study that was originally misinterpreted.
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As a hiring manager, I staff people who get shit done and a have a good attitude. If someone's hours got cut from 30 to 20, it's probably cuz they suck. Also, as an employee, I work at an engaging pace, and if the higher ups want more frantic, they can shove it, but I found if that's the case, there's always a better job out there for me. This article smacks of a liberal agenda as do many of these posts. Ugh
It's like UBI and Medicare For All, infinite amounts of money magically appears from thin air.
Well, let's see....Trump's tax cuts are adding a trillion and more to our deficit AND debt over the years. Made the rich richer.
We burned through a couple of trillion in the Middle East for nothing other than keeping oil flowing- made the rich richer.
And something that would make ALL of our standard of livings go up is being resisted because of stupid reasons invented by millionaire conservative pundits who are paid by billionaires who want to keep the status quo.
Raise taxes on people earning $10 million or more, tax assets above $50 million and we'll have plenty of money. It's be no skin off of your ass.
so Amazon increased wages for the company they owned but didn't increase labor budget?
Something doesn't add up here. There's one of two possibilities.
a. Amazon didn't increase labor budgets, in which case raising their employees wages was a cynical PR stunt pulled specifically so they could then point to and say "See, we tried to help, but minimum wage just doesn't work".
b. Amazon _did_ increase labor budgets, in which case these are just asshat managers exploiting the raise to cut hours without taking the blame for it. If you've ever worked a low wage manager job you know your bonuses are tied to costs.
Either way somebody is blowing smoke up our asses.
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I'm betting on the latter, personally.
I'm betting one of the choices you left out: not enough profit means the business will close
Sears went out of business because their customers were the middle class - which is rapidly disappearing in the US. JC Penny is in the same boat. Sears got big because of all those high paying UNION manufacturing jobs during the most economic vibrant and highest taxed time in US history.
And what none of the arm-chair economists here don't know is that housing has become too expensive for many many people. On average, one needs to make $38,000 per year just to have a place to live in most place in the USA - it's over six figures in the SF Bay Area and NYC.
And the arm-chair economists don't know is that those shit jobs don't have healthcare. Nor could the workers afford it from the exchanges - especially if they live in some shit Republican controlled state that didn't expand Medicaid because - Obama!.
Healthcare is now a luxury in the USA - just like some shithole third World country.
It's easy to pontificate about wages when one has a cushy overpaid STEM job that, for now, is in high demand.
Its a funny thing about the very liberal people who run these companies. They will verbally support causes, give great interviews, and say they "right" things, but when it comes time to pay a personal cost...crickets.
Google/youtube "I believe in free speech, just so long as you don't disagree with me." Or, "Do no evil" unless it gets in the way of making money in China."
Apple: "Go green! but, design all your computers so they can't be repaired or upgraded, because the chemical processes in chip making are soooo very ecco friendly." or "We support the environment and workers rights, this is why we do all our manufacturing in places where we can abuse both, but you won't see it so that is ok."
Amazon "We believe in equity, just so long as it doesn't effect our bottom line."
One could go on. I just find the utter hypocrisy hilarious.
"Liberalism is a very noble idea, currently controlled by some very bad people. Be sure you do not get the two confused.
"... looking at the complete picture."
The complete picture: It seems to me that there are many areas in which Amazon is badly managed.
I've seen many misleading items on Amazon. For example, this King Size 100% Cotton Sheet Set was advertised as costing $7.45. On Amazon it says "+ $11.55 shipping". The true cost with shipping is $19.
The top reviews say that the sheets are NOT cotton.
most of you make well over minimum wage, many of you are well educated.
14USD an hour does not THE WORLDS LARGEST CORPORATION break.
this is politics. this is the operating system of the matrix: "there are levels of existence we
are willing to tolerate"
what the F happened to The Guardian? This is some crap reporting here. You went to press with nothing more than a few employees complaining about hours dropping? I'd expect that from Fox News since this fits their narrative and they'll print anything that does, but not from the Guardian.
I'm seeing a lot of left wing sites I used to read seemingly going to the right. Politico was always kind of establishment...ish but lately they're worse than MSNBC. I've even seen Vox get into the act. The only one that hasn't is Motherjones. Maybe Al-Jazeerez and the BBC but they're not left wing so much as balanced.
I'm wondering if they establishment types are getting scared of the progressive left and turning up the dial? Bernie's got a good shot at the presidency if the DNC doesn't cheat again and AOC is basically the face of the Democratic party at this point. Hell, there was a member of the House that called out AIPAC for Pete's sake and when they tried to shut her out the best they could do was pass a milktoast "anti-hate" resolution (for those wondering, the actual left wants the Israeli gov't to stop shitting all over the Palestinians so we can have actual peace while the Establishment among the Dems would like to keep soaking up the gravy train of campaign donations).
Either way as a Democrat it looks like the Establishment types are sweating, and that can't help but be a good thing for all of us.
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"My hours went from 30 to 20 a week," said one Whole Foods employee in Illinois... "We just have to work faster to meet the same goals in less time," the worker said.
By this logic, they should be able to pay them $30/hr and knock down their hours to 10/week. Even better. ... Heck, $300/hr for 1hr/week.
Or how about $60/hr and 5hrs/week
There's an old saying from Computer Science, nine women can't make a baby in one month.
To put it simply, there is an amount of work that needs to be done, there is an amount of time it takes to do that work, no amount of money will make the amount of work decrease. So, according to this employee, they are doing 30 hours of work in a 20 hour work week. So either your employees have really been slacking or you're going to burn through employees like crazy.
This was a plan I joked about for government when my friend had worker cuts in his department: take a 10 person job, lay off 1/2 the people, make the remaining 1/2 do the work of the full crew, when they burn out, rehire the other 1/2 - rinse and repeat.
and collect the cats, spay them, and let 'em go. I knew a gal who worked for a catch and release outfit funded by the local gov't and donations. Worked great at reducing feral cat populations in a humane way.
OTOH if you just leave it up to random chance or an imaginary free market you get bad outcomes. As always ask yourself this: When, in your lifetime, has the best answer to a complex problem been "leave it alone and hope it sorts itself out"?
TL;DR: raise federal minimum wage and the workers can quit and go elsewhere when a manager pulls this crap.
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If you increase wages then you increase the supply of workers. The last I checked, working 30 hours a week qualifies you for benefits like insurance. So if they just hire more works, then they can work everyone part time with no benefits. This is simple economics. Because of automation, I think everyone is eventually going to be working part time, so I think the long term solution is to decouple health insurance from employment. I personally feel it should be replaced with a single payer system.
and the problems go away. The trouble here is that this wasn't a minimum wage increase. It was a pay increase by Amazon.
I've pointed this out elsewhere on the thread, but either Amazon didn't increase payrolls and set their store managers up to fail or they did and the store manager is taking advantage of the situation to lower his wage costs in the hopes of netting a nice fat bonus.
In either case the solution is to fix the systemic problems at the top. To wit:
1. Raise Federal minimum wage so the employees can go find other work at the same pay.
2. Implement Medicare for All so employers no longer fear paying benefits just because they gave somebody 30hr/week.
As an added bonus you'll get a stronger economy from increased spending by low wage earners (who tend to spend 100% of their income), studies show you won't see inflation and you'll save $5 trillion every 10 years on healthcare while giving everyone access.
There is literally no reason not to do this except "I feel like I earn less when somebody earns more".
True story, a bud worked for a shitty call center that cut everybody's pay. This caused a ton of backlash so they company said that, as a reward for their years of good service, they would be starting new employees at $2/hr less than the existing employees.
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We are not
This wasn't a minimum wage increase. Amazon increased their wages. If we'd done a federal increase then the workers could leave or go get second jobs and do just fine. If we did Medicare for All they wouldn't have to fear losing health benefits (and the employers wouldn't have to worry about paying for them).
Progressive policy works when it's not being actively sabotaged by bad actors.
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Correct me if I'm wrong.
Open Source Socialism works on a pay it forward model (workers below living wage). Capitalism works on a pay it backwards model (costs are accrued and passed along). If one person is paying it forward to a CEO, and another paying it backwards, the benefits of profit are then centralized, no?
A worker working below the cost of living is subsidizing the business, typically in the hopes of getting a return on that investment, for entry level that return is in the form of training and experience in addition to some wages, so it balances out. Open Source is free labor.
Subsidizing via depressed wages unfortunately has a nasty side effect of potentially lowering the value of goods. If perpetuated it may be difficult to correct and return to a self-sustaining model, and thus may have lasting implications for the economy.
are these Job Creators making a better living who deserve a break? Because that's the narrative I keep hearing. If these Job Creators can't create good paying jobs then why do they deserve all the special privileges (low taxes, low regulation, extra say in public policy) that we've been giving them?
If the Job Creators filed to create jobs, isn't it time for a New Deal? That's what we did the last time, and it lead to the biggest prosperity humanity has ever seen.
On a side note, if you look into it you'll find most of those businesses you linked to are closing because they were ladened down with debt from venture capitalists who used leveraged buyouts to extract the money from successful businesses. Again, Job Creators at work.
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Economic growth happens when productivity increases faster that population. This is exactly what's been happening. See here. We've doubled productivity while decreasing labor by 1/3.
The problem we have is that the increase is from automation. Meaning that it's machines, and not workers, adding the value right now. This means a worker cannot simply bargain for better pay anymore because the value of their labor isn't raising. It's the opposite. Automation is decreasing the value of labor. So we have more of everything but less to go around. Here's a much more succinct explanation of the phenomenon
TL;DR;You do not "run out" of money because economies grow. But without public policy to manage where that growth goes you end up with out of control inequality & robber barons. Exactly like we did pre-New Deal. Time for a New New Deal.
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So, basically Amazon has terrorized its employees into remaining silent.
And given that this is a very politically-motivated topic, I'm just going to call Jeff Bezos the richest fucking Terrorist on this planet.
Someone bomb that terrorist fuck into oblivion.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
"This isn't sold by Amazon."
Amazon managers are allowing the abuse of customers. Apparently Amazon managers are doing nothing to prevent dishonest sales practices.
Higher pay includes the respect from an increasing presumption of competence.
Amazon just respects you more.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Nations that outlawed evil corporations had dirt-floor poverty. By allowing them the past 20+ years, these evil greedy corporations are providing enough job money to leave that level of poverty.
Nobody there thanks people with your attitude. This "race to the bottom" is lifting up the average worker worldwide.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
"We just have to work faster to meet the same goals in less time"
NO.
No you don't.
This is how they win.
The implication here is that after being forced to work so hard, they spend the entirety of extra non-work time (which is not compensated) recovering from the extra work.
If you do the math that way, this is actually a net loss, as represented.
But any formulation that puts a non-zero (or non-negative value) on the extra non-work time exposes this for the passive-aggressive grousing it probably is.
I've never believed in the Randian uberfable of the lazy dragging civilization into the mud, though I do believe that the industrious value their time on this earth positively 23/6.
[*] Modulo misguided, heroic medicine. Once upon a time, we feared doctors because they couldn't save you, and now we fear doctors because they can save you—as evidence by your withering shell—when they probably shouldn't.
You have to work harder? That's strange.. I wonder who could have thought of this.
If I may point out: for anyone who has other responsibilities, such as a single mother or student, working fewer hours for the same take-home pay is still an improvement. It might not be the choice that person would make over more pay for the same hours, but 20 hours/week leaves more time for kids, for study, or for a second part-time job.
because when poor people have money they spend it.
The reason why trickle _down_ doesn't work is that no matter how greedy you are there's only so many hours in the day to spend money, and only so many yachts to buy.
Give a rich man money and he sits on it to use it as a power broker tool to get what he wants. Give a poor man money and he spends it. Multiple studies have shown that demand side economics works. That a dollar given to a poor person circulates far, far more than even two given to a rich man.
The other way minimum wage "trickles up" is that it sets a floor nobody can fall below, reducing desperation. Desperate people will struggle. Most will collapse under the weight of those struggles, but a few will make it. Those few will compete with you for your jobs, putting pressure on your wages. The guy what would have been happy in life at $20/hr in a factory is now gunning for your $90k/yr job because that's what it takes to get by. Sure, he'll fail, but there's a million guys behind him. If even 1% make it into your industry you wages will go down.
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See my other post here.
The study was intentionally misread to make the minimum wage increase look bad. What actually happened is a small number of newer workers were forced to get jobs outside Seattle in the suburbs and periphery where the wage increase didn't take place. Making the $15/minimum national would solve that, which is exactly why we have a national minimum wage.
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and there's always a problem, cats or not cats. A Raccoon is a surprisingly hardy animal and would make short work of a feral house cat.
Mice and Rats are generally easier to control than cats. For one thing they're not a cute so folks don't mind killing them. For another they'll mostly steer clear of human dwellings in cities. And finally you can put up some of these and they'll go away.
The folks who run these catch and release programs know what they're doing. We're not talking about indigenous species. These are feral house cats. In fact, getting rid of them has a benefit to the environment. They kill a _lot_ of birds which can lead to mosquito problems.
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Everyone "demands" a so called livable 15 dollar an hour wage (which MOSTLY only benefits union employees, which is why you see "big labor" and democrat politicians pushing it...kickbacks & union automatic wage increases). If labor costs to a business go up. Two things can happen. Either you INCREASE the price of the goods you sell, or YOU CUT LABOR costs.
Nom, nom, nom, nom.
the studies show that unemployment didn't increase when minimum wage went up. So yeah, I am answering your comment directly.
Also, we're at under 5% unemployment, which economists call "full employment". Now, I know damn well that number is bullshit because it includes a ton of 'gig' economy workers getting taken advantage of. But minimum wage increases help there too. The trouble we have is we've pushed too much money to the top. Not enough dollars are circulating in the economy. It's exactly what happened during the Dark Ages just on a smaller scale (so far).
The solution is higher minimum wages and perhaps a federal jobs program. I'm not entirely certain we need the jobs program, but I want it anyway. We need to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure and if we don't do something about climate change we're all going to die.
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and ignoring your role in the large economy as a whole. That's why you think in terms of selling your labor and not in terms of your labor being bought.
As it stands your labor will generally decrease in value unless you're one of the top of the tops (e.g. a specialist surgeon or cryptography expert) because the investor class is well aware of the value of your labor and is always working to reduce it. Either through offshoring/onshoring (e.g. H1-Bs), flooding the market with new grads or Automation.
Economic growth can increase the value of your labor... to a point. That point is stops when the things I've listed above become bigger factors than the ability to make more money with extra workers. That's how wage growth happens. It's why the biggest wage increases happened after WWII. America was the only country left with a functioning infrastructure and manufacturing base, Unions were strong and fear of communism meant outsourcing wasn't a thing.
Those factors are gone. Unions are dead and the factories are automating or going over seas and the communists are more capitalist than most capitalists are (re: China).
As a result we've had massive downward pressure on wages even as the economy is the biggest and most profitable it's ever been.
At this point we've got plenty to go around, the only question is will we use public policy to guarantee a right to a decent life or will we slide into a new Dark Ages for 1000 years? I've made my decision, the question is what's yours? I think you can still be convinced.
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More desperate searches for insight and humor on today's Slashdot. Not actually surprised by the lack of humor, since the topic doesn't seem to offer much. (The recent topic about the unbootable left shoe produced the best jokes I've seen in a long time, so it's still possible.)
The insight I was looking for involves weighing the interests of all the parties. For example, the customers have interests in quality and price and convenience, which is often reduced to "best value" in the typically simpleminded way. Shareholders have been officially defined to have only one interest, the maximum return on investment, which again masks a pile of complications, but mostly the opinions (or delusions) of other investors (or suckers) who might want to buy the same shares and the trade-off between immediate dividends and investments in the future. High level managers (CxOs) get to make those decisions, though are influenced by how much of the money they can divert into their own pockets. (Carlos Ghosn offers an interesting example. I'm reasonably certain he felt that he was well worth every penny re received.)
Each worker (below CxO level) also has interests, but most workers have almost no leverage as individuals. There are a few superstars, but most workers can easily be replaced. Unless there is some counterbalance, such as a union, this situation of atomic workers results in a race to the bottom, where the other interests crush the workers' interests.
The resulting problem is that the workers are also customers, and if succeed in minimizing their earnings you fail in getting their business. They don't have any money to buy the products you are making. When you drive their wages low enough, they can't even afford the essentials such as food and shelter.
Government has interests, too. Sometimes it wants to keep its citizens alive, even when corporate cancers like Amazon and Facebook don't care so much.
Then we get into the crisis of hyper-productivity by robots. Seems to make the shareholders happy, but the robots tend to be the worst customers of all.
Okay, now I know some more of the keywords to search for...
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Mandatory minimum wages prevent younger (inexperienced) people finding entry level jobs and getting 'primed' for important skills they need in the job market.
They also promote inflation.
And they accelerate the automation of these industries.
UBI is probably going to become rife with fraud, as all the other gov't programs have, and UBI devalues the importance of work.
Medicare for all sounds great, but we can't afford it, nor are there enough Dr's even if we could.
Private insurance now is TOO regulated, torts are too why which is why medicine is so expensive AND the quality sux. The free market gave us quicky medical places which at least are decent hours for simple things.
All these government programs also encourage illegal immigration which lowers wages.
Printing money leads to inflation which hurts savers.
The real problem is workers need to add more value to the available jobs, or create their own business.
The current educational system that values teaching stuff kids won't need-- say european history, or PC b.s. instead of emphasizing more practical stuff they could turn into a career: STEM, tradeschool, entrepreneurial courses, etc. No problem if they want to minor in Shakespeare, but they should be majoring in highest best use for their lives they can handle.
These majors might be considered HARDER, but giving everyone an out to major in Renaissance Poetry because it feels good postpones their and society's reckoning with reality.
Properly done, you should always take care of your employees.
Getting your hours cut doesn't negate wage gains. You can use the time you're not working for Amazon to work somewhere else. Or just relax and enjoy yourself, earning the same $ for fewer hours-worked.
and when something doesn't work you take a step back, research and learn from your mistakes. In other words, you apply the scientific method.
If you want a fantastic example of what happens when you leave shit up to chance take the entire first half of the 19ths century. The Great Depression and both World Wars were basically people letting stuff happen.
Post Great Depression, for example, we heavily regulated banks and had no major crashes for decades. Then we started deregulating things and blamo, Savings and Loan scandals. Same thing happened with the 2008 crash where we let Main Street and Wall Street banks interact (we didn't used to). And then there's stock buy backs. They are absolutely wrecking our economy as businesses pour capital into them instead of investments. Pre-Reagan they were illegal market manipulation, now they're standard practice.
Yes, Human beings can solve our problems. If we couldn't we'd still be at the mercy of the elements. But the thing is, we have to try. And we can't just throw up our hands and say "Welp, that didn't work, I guess we'll never solve that". That kind of defeatism is what gets us the Dark Ages all over again. Thousands of years with no progress.
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If you didn't sell stuff so cheap and deliver it so conveniently, I would boycott Amazon. But not AWS. AWS is great. Damn you, JB!
"cut full-time employee schedules by four hours, to 36 hours a week"
How exactly does that work America? In my country full time is around 38 hours. In my case it's 37.5 but the lunch breaks don't get counted in that figure so it's 40 hours at work.
I can be made to work less hours but will always receive pay for 37.5
http://www.econtalk.org/jacob-vigdor-on-the-seattle-minimum-wage/
huge amount of capital moving around to rebuild the shattered cities. A ton of ex-soldiers came home with a sense of entitlement and demanded better lives from their ruling class. And the cold war put the kibosh on outsourcing for a while.
The New Deal was working, but very, very slowly. Mostly because it wasn't enough. Band aid on a machete wound that. There was a _lot_ of pushback on it and a lot didn't get done. Think of Obamacare. Lousy program but better than nothing. As a progressive I'm all about progress. Something is always better than nothing. And positive action is better than doing zilch.
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As is always the case, when fascists try and attack socialism, they're describing the the flaws of capitalism. It is capitalism that rewards laziness, corruption and graft. It is capitalism that is dependent on a never-ending stream of cash and assets to sustain itself.
It doesn't "cut both ways" because poor people having more money to spend means more economic activity. Local economic activity. Give a rich person a tax cut and he'll just invest it in another overseas tech stock. Give a poor person money and they'll spend it at Target or Home Depot.
More economic activity means more jobs, because there is more demand for goods and services. It also boosts wages for workers currently making more than minimum wage. No reason to keep working at that high stress call center job for $15, if stocking shelves at Walmart now pays the same. So now the call center has to pay $20 an hour. If a salaried manager at a company makes $20 an hour, why keep working 60 hours a week if he can make that much at the call center. And so on.
Any guesses as to when Amazon will unload Whole Foods?
Your premise seems to be invalid.
Let's say your story is true, and not just an elitist pile of BS you just made up. Your real problem is with the management of that store, as they are the ones responsible for...wait for it...managing the employees. If all you have is pot smokers who show up late for work, then either management isn't doing their jobs, or you're getting what you pay for and need better wages if you want better workers
It has been pointed out repeatedly and I have dismantled that suggestion every time it's come up in these discussions. The problem is that it's not as simple as "less hours at same pay = more free time, yay!" In this particular case, workers went from about 30 to about 20 hours per week. Glassdoor says the average wage is $11-$12 per hour for cashiers and "prepared foods" workers, so they're getting about a $3/hr nominal wage increase, but $11 * 30 = $330, $12 * 30 = $360, and $15 * 20 = $300. The lowest-paid cashiers lose the least, but that's still $30/wk or $120/mo, a net loss about 10% of their total pay. It's not the same pay with less hours, it's less pay with less hours. Hours don't necessarily adjust to maintain the same wages, they adjust to what the employer decides to adjust them to be.
Further complicating factors: your single mother will still have to find childcare and pay for it to go to that job, your student may have to deal with increased volatility in shifts, and both will be expected to work harder since they're being paid more per hour. They will have to deal with more stress because they're doing 30 hours of work in 20 hours of time. If the new schedule becomes more volatile due to stores having to allocate employee resources more strategically, there may be too many conflicts to do the productive things the worker would like to be able to do with their spare time. It can be difficult to find evening childcare. There are a lot of factors that go into this equation. It's a complex system and it has to be viewed as such.
I agree completely that the trade-offs can be complex and work out poorly. I simply sought to point out that there is a notable benefit to to the employees who are working fewer hours for the same weekly wage.
There is, no doubt about it. It's just that we're not seeing that in this case. There is also the possibility that the fewer hours get scheduled at less predictable or less ideal times which can limit the utility of the extra free time. If you want to get a second part-time job to supplement the income from the first job but you have no idea whether you'll be on morning, afternoon, or evening shift for any given day on any given weekly schedule, that job effectively stops you from getting another one. Less hours for more pay requires more strategic allocation of employee resources by the employer and that might mean moving them around in the weekly work schedule more often.
That's just repeating the (false) trope that rising wages lead to fewer jobs.
Hang on isn't that exactly what happened here? Amazon increased the hourly wage and then immediately cut back on hours. How is this "false"?
I can also provide another example of this. The university where I work is in a province which recently significantly increased the minimum wage. Unfortunately, we employ students using research grants which did not similarly increase so now we have fewer research jobs for undergrad students which means fewer students gaining research experience.
I'm not saying that increasing the minimum wage to a "living wage" is not the right thing to do but we have to realize that there are real, negative consequences along with the beneficial ones and we should weigh up both to make sure that ultimately we are helping people and not making things worse. Sticking your head in the sand and pretending that there are no negative consequences is not a helpful strategy.
Because it's propaganda. Amazon is a ruthlessly efficient company. If they thought they could save money by cutting workers from 30 hours a week to 20 - they would do that with or without a wage increase and pocket the extra profits. A wage increase is just the excuse, to sow FUD on paying more than poverty level compensation. Same goes for the talking point that higher wages will just result in higher prices. If you're middle management and go into the CEO's office to tell him you've just increased prices in response to a hike in the minimum wage, and that the higher prices shouldn't result in customers moving to the competition - he'll ask why you didn't do this a long time ago. Before telling you to clean out your desk.
And because demand is the only real job creator. Not capitalists, not the rich, not investors. Demand. And what does the most to increase demand? Giving workers at the lowest end of the totem pole more money to spend. Because spend it they will, most of it in the local economy. That means more jobs, not less.
Sounds like workers are leaving for higher paying jobs....not job losses as in people being unemployed or underemployed.
The only "negative consequences" are for those businesses that actually do close because they can't pay their workers a living wage. Good riddance. Any business that has to pay poverty-level wages doesn't deserve to exist. And aside from poor people having more money leading directly to more jobs created, a higher minimum lifts the floor for other workers as well. Why work a high stress job paying $15 an hour if low-stress jobs now have to pay just as much. So the high stress job has to offer more money to their workers. And to management, as they have to be paid more than the workers. etc
The only way way we as consumers can take a stand against such reckless corporate behavior is to boycott Whole Foods. Amazon is owned by the richest man in the world now. You donâ(TM)t see his CEOs taking pay cuts do you? #Wholeno
Stand up for the rights of people whoâ(TM)s hours have been stripped. The people who made more than minimum wage never got a wage increase and now have their hours cut too. This is corporate greed my friends. We need to stand together now or the divide between the poor and the rich will only get bigger.
The only way way we as consumers can take a stand against such reckless corporate behavior is to boycott Whole Foods. Amazon is owned by the richest man in the world now. You donâ(TM)t see his CEOs taking pay cuts do you? #Wholeno Stand up for the rights of people whoâ(TM)s hours have been stripped. The people who made more than minimum wage never got a wage increase and now have their hours cut too. This is corporate greed my friends. We need to stand together now or the divide between the poor and the rich will only get bigger.
udachny is a sock puppet of roman_mir. the latter uses the former to try to convince more people that the foundational principles of his cult are righteous and sane. they both often post at -1 (and have their postings limited here on slashdot) because they have poor karma scores here as a result of repeated abusive behavior and their consistent religious proselytizing that is seldom on topic with the discussion thread. don't let him convince you that his doctrine would actually benefit you, or even result in him being less offensive.