This is a fine how do you douche:

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-los-angeles-minimum-wage-unions-20150526-story.html

Wow... kinda backhanded tactic to drive up union enrollments.

And this surprises me not at all.

 djones520 wrote:
And this surprises me not at all.

Pretty much my reaction as well

 whembly wrote:
Wow... kinda backhanded tactic to drive up union enrollments.

How so?

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Wow... kinda backhanded tactic to drive up union enrollments.

How so?

Businesses have the choice of either hooking up with a union, or playing the larger minimum wage.

It's scummy. And a nice sign of why unions as they are today need to go.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Wow... kinda backhanded tactic to drive up union enrollments.

How so?

I'd imagine that, as the article indicates, the unions want collective bargaining power rather than a minimum wage. So the only way to get a wage increase is to have the union fight for it. So you have to be a part of the union to benefit.

This actually makes a peculiar kind of sense. It allows unions to work out deals with their employers that really benefit their workers and might benefit the employer also.

For example, for many workers, they'd happily work for a buck or two less if they had health insurance. If the employer can work out a good deal for health insurance and the workforce is willing to take $13 an hour, it could be a win-win for everyone.

I think it's a pretty wise tactic for the Unions.

I got a better idea.
Go out, get real jobs and stop asking me to pay 12$ a hamburger so you can get new iphone15.
And just so you all know, NO im not kidding this is how I feel. We shouldnt be paying people 15$ an hour to flip burgers.
15$ is for people who do real work

Oh lol here he goes.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I got a better idea.
Go out, get real jobs and stop asking me to pay 12$ a hamburger so you can get new iphone15.
And just so you all know, NO im not kidding this is how I feel. We shouldnt be paying people 15$ an hour to flip burgers.
15$ is for people who do real work

In some ways, I agree with you.... however, when did McD's unionize? when did the people at burger king for BKWU? Did Dominos or Pizza Hut get a "United Dough Tossers" started up for all the disenfranchised, overworked pizza makers?

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Wow... kinda backhanded tactic to drive up union enrollments.

How so?

I'd imagine that, as the article indicates, the unions want collective bargaining power rather than a minimum wage. So the only way to get a wage increase is to have the union fight for it. So you have to be a part of the union to benefit.

The unions, understandably, want the ability to collectively bargain; the minimum wage increase is completely separate from this and if this proposal goes through (whatever it is), a union member could earn a wage under the minimum. If you work a non-union minimum wage job, you'll get the increased wage regardless. This won't make union membership increase.

The thing to remember is this: for a union member, you have your wage rate and total package rate. Your wage is what you earn per hour and is reflected on your weekly paycheck. The total package rate is the money you earn but you never see because your employer pays this directly to the union. This is where the medical benefits, training fund, pension, annuity, etc. come from. So the issue is that the new minimum wage law may force an employer to pay a worker the new minimum wage in the check and then have to stack their benefits on top of that, making them pay much more than the minimum wage in total while a non-union worker just receives the new minimum wage with no benefits. If that is the case, than this proposal levels the playing field for the worker: either make more money in the pocket and work non-union or make less in the pocket but have more benefits.

So to say that this is "back handed" is impossible, the story in the OP doesn't give any real details to Mr. Hicks proposal and what it entails. But don't let that stop the anger echo chamber guys!

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
I'd imagine that, as the article indicates, the unions want collective bargaining power rather than a minimum wage. So the only way to get a wage increase is to have the union fight for it. So you have to be a part of the union to benefit.

The unions, understandably, want the ability to collectively bargain; the minimum wage increase is completely separate from this and if this proposal goes through (whatever it is), a union member could earn a wage under the minimum. If you work a non-union minimum wage job, you'll get the increased wage regardless. This won't make union membership increase.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I got a better idea.
Go out, get real jobs and stop asking me to pay 12$ a hamburger so you can get new iphone15.
And just so you all know, NO im not kidding this is how I feel. We shouldnt be paying people 15$ an hour to flip burgers.
15$ is for people who do real work

And what exactly is "real work"?

If you're familiar at all with LA, you'd know that even at $15/hr, that's still rather questionable as a living wage in terms of just being able to afford rent, food, gas, utilities, and car insurance if you're working full time (much less the ability to purchase a car if need be), in fact, it probably won't even cover that (given that the average 1 bedroom apartment price in LA is $1800+/month, and electricity is probably another ~$100 on top of that alone, $300 easy if you're running AC when it's 90*-100* outside for months at a time), it's about the minimum you'd really need for each individual in a two-income household. When I first moved out on my own in San Diego, between me and my roommates, we easily were making comfortably into six figures for household income, and were very definitely not enjoying the lifestyle that most people assume with that sort of household income.

I think our combined household expenses, between rent, gas & insurance on three cars, food, and utilities was ~4500/month. Just the barebones basics(food, fuel, mandated insurance, water & electricity).

That's not including extras like entertainment, healthcare co-pays, girlfriends, Internet/Cable, cell phone bills, videogames, new iphones, vacations, emergencies (e.g. car breaks down), savings, alcohol, Warhammer, parties, eating out, etc.

Split three ways, that's ~$1500/month. If you're making $15/hr, after taxes, and with those expenses, you're looking at having ~$300 a month for literally everything but the basics in life. You want an internet connection, a cell phone? Bump it down to $200/month, or about $6-7/day.

If that's all "real work" gets you, someone's getting a raw deal.

And that's why I'm never gonna live in the big city.
and real work is work that if I go down to the local high school, I can't train the guy I pick up at random to do a job in a week.

Vacations? Video games? Hah!

Out of that list I can see the Imordant being
Health copays, internet, girlfriends, and cellphone.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

and real work is work that if I go down to the local high school, I can't train the guy I pick up at random to do a job in a week.

So.... basically speaking, there are literally zero "real jobs" in the world


Sure, there are plenty of jobs that we say require more training than a week but seriously, if you look at the day-to-day jobs of most people, I would say you could train someone in a week.

I'm sure no matter how good the Trainer, you can't train a 15 yr old to weld pipes in a week.

hotsauceman1 wrote:And that's why I'm never gonna live in the big city.

A lot of people don't have the choice, if you're born and raised there, it's hard to move away, especially if you don't already have a job at the other end.

and real work is work that if I go down to the local high school, I can't train the guy I pick up at random to do a job in a week.

Well, that depends rather wildly on the individual in question, and ultimately, there's tons of jobs that don't require extensive training that pay way better, and tons of jobs that do require extensive training and experience that don't pay $15/hr.

Ultimately however, that's besides the point. Even $15/hr is extremely marginal to sustain someone working full time in LA. If an organization wants to employ human labor, they need to pay a wage to adequately sustain that labor.

cincydooley wrote:Vacations? Video games? Hah!

hotsauceman1 wrote:Out of that list I can see the Imordant being
Health copays, internet, girlfriends, and cellphone.

Hence why I called them "extras". Anything above and beyond the minimum required for everyday life to function on a day to day basis. Not trying to equate them all.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I'm sure no matter how good the Trainer, you can't train a 15 yr old to weld pipes in a week.

I took metal shop class as a 15 year old and was able to quickly get a "prettier" weld than the teacher, anecdotal, yes, but true nonetheless.

And while the person wouldn't know WHY they are doing it, I'd bet you could train someone to do what most scientists do, as far as loading up testing equipment and running tests, etc.

You could train a "surgeon" where to cut, and how.... Yes, we place value on knowing "what and why" I mean hell... look at medicine pre-20th century, pretty much "anyone" with the stomach for blood and guts, and a couple books was able to be a "Doctor"

Yeah, that's why they tended not to be much respected.
And a lot of science is more than machinery. It's specialized knowledge that makes that machinery relevant

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
Yet as the article states the unions were campaigning that no one should have a sub-minimum wage, yet they are directly acting against that. Surely if these are separate, as you claim, them the union could have both. And why the last minute carving out of an exemption for themselves instead of taking this position from the start?

We don't know if this is directly acting against it. I haven't read the proposal or the new minimum wage laws that the city passed. All I am saying is it's probably a little more complicated that it's being currently presented, which is "unions are hypocrites."

Of course, that may end up being the case or they may have legitimate reason for this proposal.

Useful to know, thank you. You say that this "may" affect the wage rate and packet rate. Has this happened elsewhere?

I don't know, just passing along information. It all depends on the verbiage in the laws/proposals in question.

Comments like this don't really help the discussion.

You know what else doesn't help? All the other baseless, uninformed opinions being trotted out. However, thank you for pointing my accurate observation out as being the thing that doesn't help the "conversation."

 Vaktathi wrote:
And what exactly is "real work"?

Real work is an idea invented by people who want to gak on those underneath them. That's basically all there is to it.

I've spent approximately 7 lifetimes arguing with people on this forum about minimum wage, trying to dismantle one bad economic argument after the next. Only recently did I realise that people didn't give up on their bad economic arguments because they couldn't see the holes, it's because they didn't give a gak. The economic arguments are just a veneer to a basic underlying need to identify somebody beneath them in the social order, and to be contemptuous of that person.

 sebster wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
And what exactly is "real work"?

Real work is an idea invented by people who want to gak on those underneath them. That's basically all there is to it.

I've spent approximately 7 lifetimes arguing with people on this forum about minimum wage, trying to dismantle one bad economic argument after the next. Only recently did I realise that people didn't give up on their bad economic arguments because they couldn't see the holes, it's because they didn't give a gak. The economic arguments are just a veneer to a basic underlying need to identify somebody beneath them in the social order, and to be contemptuous of that person.

I think I have probably been one of those opponents you have argued against about Min. wage....

As time has progressed, I am now of the opinion that it isn't so much the minimum wage that's the problem, it's the "where is all the new money going" and that answer: the top 1% of the 1%. IMO, the problem isn't the minimum wage worker, or the middle class person who buys stuff needlessly, it's the "Walton's" of the world who, when laws and rates are adjusted, adjust themselves to rake in even more money, then rig the system so that instead of paying people for work, they rely on the government assistance programs.

I just wanted to add that if minimum wage was $15, I'd be willing to work for $13 if that brought me membership in a union, and some additional benefits such as health care, paid vacation, etc....

With every company in LA stretching to pay it's workers the $15 minimum, many companies will be looking to cut benefits. This is a great way for Unions to gain or keep benefits that their members enjoy. Benefits that will likely (to the worker) have a value of more than the pay cut.

An E-3 PFC has a base pay of $21.6k annually.

An E-5 Sergeant with 4 years experience has a base pay of $30k.

I'm sorry, but no burger flipper deserves as much as an an E-3, to say nothing of an E-5.

If you're an adult working for minimum wage at a zero-skill job, you don't deserve the wages of a professional soldier who puts his life on the line 24 hours a day.

Am i wrong in thinking a few unions wanted to be exempt from the ACA as well? Or am I misrembering that?

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I got a better idea.
Go out, get real jobs and stop asking me to pay 12$ a hamburger so you can get new iphone15.
And just so you all know, NO im not kidding this is how I feel. We shouldnt be paying people 15$ an hour to flip burgers.
15$ is for people who do real work

Hello hotsauceman1! I currently survive off of minimum wage and government funding. My job? I teach the mentally ill life skills, I help with their case management, and I assess their overall wellbeing and make informed decisions on whether or not I think they would be safe back in the community. Some of these people can be very violent. So much that I am required to wear an Oh Gak button in case of emergencies. I could train a person to do my job in a week. Do you feel I should only make $8.25 an hour?

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
An E-3 PFC has a base pay of $21.6k annually.

An E-5 Sergeant with 4 years experience has a base pay of $30k.

I'm sorry, but no burger flipper deserves as much as an an E-3, to say nothing of an E-5.

If you're an adult working for minimum wage at a zero-skill job, you don't deserve the wages of a professional soldier who puts his life on the line 24 hours a day.

There are a MULTITUDE of benefits (health, retirement, stipends of various types) that a Military Serviceman receives that bring his overall take-home "pay" far above that of the average minimum-wage worker in a service industry. To say nothing of the less-tangibles such as path to promotion, job security, etc. . To top it off a Military family is likely in an area with a much lower cost-of living than an urban min-wager. It's really not a fair comparison.

Lastly, not to nitpick or take anything away from our military, but a fairly small fraction of the active duty military actually has their "life on the line 24 hours a day".

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
An E-3 PFC has a base pay of $21.6k annually.

An E-5 Sergeant with 4 years experience has a base pay of $30k.

I'm sorry, but no burger flipper deserves as much as an an E-3, to say nothing of an E-5.

If you're an adult working for minimum wage at a zero-skill job, you don't deserve the wages of a professional soldier who puts his life on the line 24 hours a day.

But don't those soldiers also receive housing, food, medical in addition to their pay? That would make their effective wages considerably higher as a lot of extra costs are being carried by the military, where a civilian has to cover those thing out of that $30k pay.

One of my issues isn't just the whole ridiculous 15 USD minimum wage but (sorry to say it) some jobs that get more money for doing less work. I know waiters and waitresses that rake in the money and i get stuck doing minimum wage work for 3 years at a factory making parts around the clock and sometimes needing to make deadlines. I'd kill for a good tip. I can't say i see every job as being all equal and fair but i guess that's just the way of the world and how it'll always be.

 Eilif wrote:
I just wanted to add that if minimum wage was $15, I'd be willing to work for $13 if that brought me membership in a union, and some additional benefits such as health care, paid vacation, etc....

You would be a rare bird indeed.

Lots and lots of people don't think about their future (pensions, annuity, etc.) and would rather take more money in their pocket for the immediate gratification... this is a problem that unions have; too many of our members care more about getting an extra dollar an hour in their check than they do about securing their future.

 cincydooley wrote:
Am i wrong in thinking a few unions wanted to be exempt from the ACA as well? Or am I misrembering that?

You are indeed correct:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2013/07/15/labor-leaders-obamacare-will-shatter-their-health-benefits-cause-nightmare-scenarios/

Now they're trying to slime their way out of something else they foisted on others.

Raise it to 15. Who cares? In a few decades those jobs largely won't exist.

Most of our jobs won't.

Hopefully we figure out a way to handle that, but I know which way I'm betting.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
An E-3 PFC has a base pay of $21.6k annually.

An E-5 Sergeant with 4 years experience has a base pay of $30k.

I'm sorry, but no burger flipper deserves as much as an an E-3, to say nothing of an E-5.

If you're an adult working for minimum wage at a zero-skill job, you don't deserve the wages of a professional soldier who puts his life on the line 24 hours a day.

While I largely agree with you and some people have no idea what they're talking about when it comes to intangibles (positive and negative). Any discussion of military pay (the money that goes into the account every month) has to include BAH and BAS, so that E-3 in your example assuming he's single and living in LA is making roughly another 22k a year.

 Eilif wrote:
To top it off a Military family is likely in an area with a much lower cost-of living than an urban min-wager. It's really not a fair comparison.

As a former soldier I agree with this.... Places like Oak Grove, KY or Hopkinsville, KY have much much lower cost of living rates than a place like Louisville (keeping it in state), or on the other side of the border, Clarksville is "cheaper" than Nashville.... Some of this is actually artificially low, IMO.

Take for instance, the housing market in Clarksville... the vast majority of houses are affordable on "most" soldiers BAH, and rental rates are about the same (though some places are seriously ridiculously over priced).

In places like JBLM, where my wife is stationed now, we're receiving significantly higher BAH rates and such, because the cost of living is so much higher due to idiotic state taxes, Tacoma's "big city costs" and a housing market that is fairly inflated due to the number of "high paying" jobs at Boeing, Amazon, etc.

Is there also a "combat pay" or hazard pay or whatever you get when you are actually in a combat zone putting your life on the line?

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

If you're an adult working for minimum wage at a zero-skill job, you don't deserve the wages of a professional soldier who puts his life on the line 24 hours a day.

Most professional soldiers don't put their lives on the line at all, let alone 24 hours per day.

Sauce, dude: You've been utterly stellar this whole thread man. 10/10.

Now say something about wiener dogs!

Nope, I do Chihuahuas.
And no, I firmly believe the best way to help people isnt by effectevely making a dollar worth less.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
An E-3 PFC has a base pay of $21.6k annually.

An E-5 Sergeant with 4 years experience has a base pay of $30k.

I'm sorry, but no burger flipper deserves as much as an an E-3, to say nothing of an E-5.

If you're an adult working for minimum wage at a zero-skill job, you don't deserve the wages of a professional soldier who puts his life on the line 24 hours a day.

When they pay different tax rates (and with on-base commissaries often providing goods at cheaper than what someone going to the store would get, particularly if they don't have to pay state/local sales taxes) and have subsidized/provided housing and often food, medical care, and more, on top of potential signing/re-signing bonuses, they've got a lot more disposable income than the people we're talking about.

Likewise, a soldier is not putting his life on the line 24 hours a day. Only if deployed on a combat mission, in which case they get hazard pay on top of their normal pay, and only a very small minority of servicemen *ever* face enemy fire or fire their weapons in anger, many never leave the 'states. Otherwise they're not in any more danger than any other job that involves physical activity.

 sebster wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
And what exactly is "real work"?

Real work is an idea invented by people who want to gak on those underneath them. That's basically all there is to it.

I've spent approximately 7 lifetimes arguing with people on this forum about minimum wage, trying to dismantle one bad economic argument after the next. Only recently did I realise that people didn't give up on their bad economic arguments because they couldn't see the holes, it's because they didn't give a gak. The economic arguments are just a veneer to a basic underlying need to identify somebody beneath them in the social order, and to be contemptuous of that person.

Indeed. I mean, I understand there are some arguments against a minimum wage (I like to think that holding both a B.S. in Economics and a Master's in Business Administration that I have some idea of these sorts of things) but I think they largely only apply in certain circumstance. Most of the rest of the time, it's a whole lot of "well I didn't get that, they shouldn't either" without wanting to look at the economic realities.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Nope, I do Chihuahuas.
And no, I firmly believe the best way to help people isnt by effectevely making a dollar worth less.

What?

Sorry, no. That serviceman is on call 24 hours a day, period, and their pay in no way reflects that if you're saying a non-skilled person is "worth" $15/hr.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I'm sure no matter how good the Trainer, you can't train a 15 yr old to weld pipes in a week.

I took metal shop class as a 15 year old and was able to quickly get a "prettier" weld than the teacher, anecdotal, yes, but true nonetheless.

And while the person wouldn't know WHY they are doing it, I'd bet you could train someone to do what most scientists do, as far as loading up testing equipment and running tests, etc.

You could train a "surgeon" where to cut, and how.... Yes, we place value on knowing "what and why" I mean hell... look at medicine pre-20th century, pretty much "anyone" with the stomach for blood and guts, and a couple books was able to be a "Doctor"

To weld them, maybe (good pipeline welders are hard to come by and make lots of dough though, so I'm not too sure about that). To inspect the welds takes a lot longer. About two years before someone's ready to go in the field and inspect things on his own. And only then will you begin to see which of these inspectors understands what he/she is doing and which of them is just pushing buttons the way they were taught without understanding why they do what they do.
But then, I make waaaaaay more than $15 an hour, so that jives with what sauceman said.

Even so, I disagree with the assertion that difficulty is the only yardstick to be used to determine what deserves a good wage. Hard work, whether it's shovelling manure or brainsweat should be rewarded with (at least) being able to pay your bills.
I'm on the fence whether burgerflipping falls under that category.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I got a better idea.
Go out, get real jobs and stop asking me to pay 12$ a hamburger so you can get new iphone15.
And just so you all know, NO im not kidding this is how I feel. We shouldnt be paying people 15$ an hour to flip burgers.
15$ is for people who do real work

Yeah, screw people trying to make a living off of gakky jobs. They don't deserve a halfway decent lifestyle because the thing they do is worse than the thing i do.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Sorry, no. That serviceman is on call 24 hours a day, period,

O_o um...only for a very few select MOS's, the overwhelmingly vast majority are not "on call" 24 hours a day, unless you're counting the highly unlikely scenario of a major military act by an aggressor state a-la Pearl Harbor. In that case...maybe (even then, it took 6 months or more to really mobilize and start major offensive deployments)?. Those are also rarer-than-once-in-a-lifetime events. Even Sept 11th didn't result in an immediate mass mobilization across all branches and roles.

and their pay in no way reflects that if you're saying a non-skilled person is "worth" $15/hr.

The long term economic realities of self-sustainment beg to differ. If your workforce can't afford to live and commute to your workplace, you're workforce won't exist forever. Likewise, much of what's being done is simply shifting that cost of living gap from the employer to the state, the state essentially subsidizing the employer's unwillingness to pay a higher wage by providing food stamps, medicaid, housing allowances, etc to their labor force.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
I think I have probably been one of those opponents you have argued against about Min. wage....

As time has progressed, I am now of the opinion that it isn't so much the minimum wage that's the problem, it's the "where is all the new money going" and that answer: the top 1% of the 1%. IMO, the problem isn't the minimum wage worker, or the middle class person who buys stuff needlessly, it's the "Walton's" of the world who, when laws and rates are adjusted, adjust themselves to rake in even more money, then rig the system so that instead of paying people for work, they rely on the government assistance programs.

Pretty much. It gets more complex because the filtering of money upwards isn't as simple as a conspiracy by the very rich, it's largely a product of changes to the economy that have developed naturally. That doesn't mean we can't do anything about it, of course.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Nope, I do Chihuahuas.
And no, I firmly believe the best way to help people isnt by effectevely making a dollar worth less.

You can firmly believe it all you want, but it's gibberish.

I'll be honest here saying that raising the minimum wage is not the right way to help the less fortunate.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Indeed. I mean, I understand there are some arguments against a minimum wage (I like to think that holding both a B.S. in Economics and a Master's in Business Administration that I have some idea of these sorts of things) but I think they largely only apply in certain circumstance. Most of the rest of the time, it's a whole lot of "well I didn't get that, they shouldn't either" without wanting to look at the economic realities.

Pretty much. There are arguments against raising minimum wage that are strong - a loss of jobs being by far the strongest - but that argument doesn't automatically apply to every single market. So people just automatically arguing against any increase to minimum wage in any market are basically letting their ideology form their conclusions for them.

And that's before we get on to arguments that never work, like the inflation thing hotsauceman has hinted at.

Once you start seeing this, over and over again, and see the lack of interest in actually exploring how those economic ideas actually work (or don't work), then it's pretty clear that, simply, economics has nothing to do with it. People are just instinctively railing against the idea people with little income might get a little more.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sienisoturi wrote:
I'll be honest here saying that raising the minimum wage is not the right way to help the less fortunate.

Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. Depends on market conditions.

Arguing that it never is, or always is, is just hopelessly simplistic.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Sorry, no. That serviceman is on call 24 hours a day, period,

O_o um...only for a very few select MOS's, the overwhelmingly vast majority are not "on call" 24 hours a day, unless you're counting the highly unlikely scenario of a major military act by an aggressor state a-la Pearl Harbor. In that case...maybe (even then, it took 6 months or more to really mobilize and start major offensive deployments)?. Those are also rarer-than-once-in-a-lifetime events. Even Sept 11th didn't result in an immediate mass mobilization across all branches and roles.

and their pay in no way reflects that if you're saying a non-skilled person is "worth" $15/hr.

The long term economic realities of self-sustainment beg to differ. If your workforce can't afford to live and commute to your workplace, you're workforce won't exist forever. Likewise, much of what's being done is simply shifting that cost of living gap from the employer to the state, the state essentially subsidizing the employer's unwillingness to pay a higher wage by providing food stamps, medicaid, housing allowances, etc to their labor force.

The fact of the matter is that they can be activated at any time, for any duration. That's the deal.

If labor becomes scarce, then wages will naturally rise as if guided by an invisible hand. That is why a burger flipper in Manhattan makes more than a burger flipper in Des Moines. No minimum wage is necessary.

However, the abomination of a minimum wage only serves to reduce employment at the margins. $15/hr will definitely do that.

If you want a lower partcipation in the workforce, by all means, raise that minimum wage. That's what Obama has done, effectively driving the US workforce to the lowest level of civilian labor force participation in more than two decades. Keep raising that minimum wage, and even more jobs will disappear.

http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
If labor becomes scarce, then wages will naturally rise as if guided by an invisible hand. That is why a burger flipper in Manhattan makes more than a burger flipper in Des Moines. No minimum wage is necessary.

Thankyou for bringing us the latest economic principles that the 19th century has to offer. Economic analysis has moved on quite a bit since then. Go read about bargaining power.

However, the abomination of a minimum wage only serves to reduce employment at the margins. $15/hr will definitely do that.

If you want a lower partcipation in the workforce, by all means, raise that minimum wage. That's what Obama has done, effectively driving the US workforce to the lowest level of civilian labor force participation in more than two decades. Keep raising that minimum wage, and even more jobs will disappear.

That doesn't make sense, even by the damand & supply analysis you attempted above. I mean, think about it. If you put up minimum wage, then people are going to be more willing to work, while companies are going to be less likely to employ. So the primary impact would be on the unemployment rate - which under Obama has dropped from a peak of 10% to now below 6%. If minimum wage changes were having a negative national impact, then you'd see it immediately in the unemployment rate. The only reason to go looking at the participation rate is because the unemployment rate isn't telling you what you want to see.

In case you're interested, the change in workforce participation is driven by the aging population, and increased skill expectations meaning more people are extending their education before joining the workforce. It's a ten year trend that's expected to continue for another ten years, and has precisely feth all with any economic policy in place today. In fact, the current decline has been expected and talked about since at least the 1990s, trying to tie it to any current or past political policy is inane.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:


The fact of the matter is that they can be activated at any time, for any duration. That's the deal.

In theory, sure. In practice? It takes days, weeks, even months to activate and mobilize many military units, and again, aside from specific MOS's, we're talking something that may happen once a century historically, as most others will typically be warned that they're at risk of being called up long before it actually happens.

If labor becomes scarce, then wages will naturally rise as if guided by an invisible hand.

As someone who has two degrees in this sort of thing and has worked in just about every type of organization out there (government, higher education, government contractors, multinational corporations, single-owner small businesses, non-profits, etc), I can tell you that this sort of statement is absolutely bunk, there are all sorts of reasons why wages may not change and that will prevent the forces of supply and demand acting as they otherwise would. The fact that Employers are dealing with Employees on a 1 for 1 basis and a gross imbalance of bargaining power, instead of as a collective whole is part of it. Social attitudes and expectations, collusion (explicit and implicit) amongst employers, population self-selection, etc all play a role. The idea of a pure, unregulated "invisible hand" directing markets in a perfect way is a fantasy.

One will notice for instance, that In-n-Out burger pays significantly more than minimum wage even for starting employees (even if it's not $15/hr), and they don't have higher prices or lower growth than major chains. One will notice that McDonald's, originator of the term "McJob" for low skilled and low paid labor, is experiencing extreme financial difficulty.

That is why a burger flipper in Manhattan makes more than a burger flipper in Des Moines. No minimum wage is necessary.

Do you have a source for that claim? Because a bunch of NYC (including Manhattan) fast food workers just went on strike and they weren't even making $9 or $10/hr in most cases, which would put them roughly on par with Des Moines minimum wage.

However, the abomination of a minimum wage only serves to reduce employment at the margins. $15/hr will definitely do that.

And yet largely it's never done that except largely in cases where automation was an alternative, typically where it was already going to happen anyway and simply sped up that process by a couple of years.

If you want a lower partcipation in the workforce, by all means, raise that minimum wage. That's what Obama has done, effectively driving the US workforce to the lowest level of civilian labor force participation in more than two decades. Keep raising that minimum wage, and even more jobs will disappear.


http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000

That's a somewhat misleading graph there.a very small percentage decrease in labor force particupation portrayed graphically as a massive plummet.

That has largely nothing to do with minimum wage (which has risen relatively little or not at all in many places). There are a whole hell of a lot of far more explanatory factors at work there. The aging of the US population and retirement of the Baby Boomers (living proportionally longer than previous generationsr), people staying in school longer or returning to school, and things of that nature have a far larger impact than minimum wage.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I got a better idea.
Go out, get real jobs and stop asking me to pay 12$ a hamburger so you can get new iphone15.
And just so you all know, NO im not kidding this is how I feel. We shouldnt be paying people 15$ an hour to flip burgers.
15$ is for people who do real work

Sheer snobbishness. A job is a job. You don't have a right to cheap burgers, they aren't an essential service. How about you earn more if you can't occcasionally afford $12 for a burger? Jeeze, you should try living in the UK or other European countries where the cost of living on essentials like food and fuel is higher. But you whine about being forced to pay $12 for a McD. What someone spends their money on isn't your concern. So what if a kid lives with parents and is saving for a new phone? According to you, all McD workers should be paid less because their parents subsidise their living, so you can continue to have cheap burgers?

A 'real job' is just something invented by people who want to look down on the work of others and doesn't value their time, even those they know the work needs doing. I suppose you look down on the cleaning staff at your workplace or local hospital or school too too, because anyone can use a mop right? So hours of their life each day handling trash and wiping floors isn't worth squat because anyone can be shown how to use a mop so they deserve to earn rubbish.

Unskilled work does not mean the work has no value. No one is making you shop at McDonalds. And it's typical you paint the picture of the minimum wage worker as a kid flipping burgers and saving for an iPhone. Most minimum wage workers are people you don't see, sweeping floors and working on assembly lines. And they're earning money to put food on the table and keep the lights on. They can't go out and get a 'proper job' because they're unskilled. But their work is valuable, you'd soon whine if all the rubbish and dirt piled up at work and the toilets went uncleaned. You make me sick.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I got a better idea.
Go out, get real jobs and stop asking me to pay 12$ a hamburger so you can get new iphone15.
And just so you all know, NO im not kidding this is how I feel. We shouldnt be paying people 15$ an hour to flip burgers.
15$ is for people who do real work

Sheer snobbishness. A job is a job. You don't have a right to cheap burgers, they aren't an essential service. How about you earn more if you can't occcasionally afford $12 for a burger? Jeeze, you should try living in the UK or other European countries where the cost of living on essentials like food and fuel is higher. But you whine about being forced to pay $12 for a McD. What someone spends their money on isn't your concern. So what if a kid lives with parents and is saving for a new phone? According to you, all McD workers should be paid less because their parents subsidise their living, so you can continue to have cheap burgers?

A 'real job' is just something invented by people who want to look down on the work of others and doesn't value their time, even those they know the work needs doing. I suppose you look down on the cleaning staff at your workplace or local hospital or school too too, because anyone can use a mop right? So hours of their life each day handling trash and wiping floors isn't worth squat because anyone can be shown how to use a mop so they deserve to earn rubbish.

Unskilled work does not mean the work has no value. No one is making you shop at McDonalds. And it's typical you paint the picture of the minimum wage worker as a kid flipping burgers and saving for an iPhone. Most minimum wage workers are people you don't see, sweeping floors and working on assembly lines. And they're earning money to put food on the table and keep the lights on. They can't go out and get a 'proper job' because they're unskilled. But their work is valuable, you'd soon whine if all the rubbish and dirt piled up at work and the toilets went uncleaned. You make me sick.

Here here!

Unskilled work is often hard tiering work. It may not take long to learn, although by all accounts it takes longer than a week to learn the job in McDonalds. It may not be graduate level work, but getting each job right, learning how to cook each thing correctly, work the tills, time manager etc, does take time to gain the skills. It is also a hot, cramped, high speed, stressful environment in any kitchen and on top of that you have to deal with the public who will kick off because they have two gherkins rather than three or their fries are more salted than they would like. I have never done it myself (I did my public facing purgatory in a shop) but I have known people who have, and whilst they did enjoy it, mostly due to the team work, it is most defiantly not easy and is "real work".

It is disgusting how people can look down on others like that. Just because something is unskilled does not make it not "real work".

 dogma wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

If you're an adult working for minimum wage at a zero-skill job, you don't deserve the wages of a professional soldier who puts his life on the line 24 hours a day.

Most professional soldiers don't put their lives on the line at all, let alone 24 hours per day.

I feel a little insulted about this honestly. Not what you said, dogma, but what JohnHwangDD said. You know, I worked as a CNA for years. I have worked in nursing homes and hospitals. It is a very fulfilling and difficult job. I liked it a lot and I often went home feeling like I helped people. There were also days when I went home with other peoples body fluid on my scrubs. That was most days honestly. CNAs in most areas, I know for sure in mine, make minimum wage or barely above it at best. These are people that have to deal with diseases on a regular basis and on top of that, they work in a job where violence is almost commonplace. If you go in to nursing, there is a very very very high risk of being assaulted in one form or another. I have been threatened, punched, spit on, I have had jugs of urine thrown at me. I have had to deal with hostile patients with diseases you cannot get rid of and they will kill you. I have had to care for inmates while two armed guards stood over me.

But, you only need to take a 6 month course to be a CNA so I mean, they should probably only make $9 an hour. Right?

I am just going to leave this here. Maybe go take a breather.

Article Above wrote:Health-care workers experience the most nonfatal workplace violence compared to other professions by a wide margin, with attacks on them accounting for almost 70 percent of all nonfatal workplace assaults causing days away from work in the U.S., according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
Yet as the article states the unions were campaigning that no one should have a sub-minimum wage, yet they are directly acting against that. Surely if these are separate, as you claim, them the union could have both. And why the last minute carving out of an exemption for themselves instead of taking this position from the start?

We don't know if this is directly acting against it. I haven't read the proposal or the new minimum wage laws that the city passed. All I am saying is it's probably a little more complicated that it's being currently presented, which is "unions are hypocrites."

Of course, that may end up being the case or they may have legitimate reason for this proposal.

Useful to know, thank you. You say that this "may" affect the wage rate and packet rate. Has this happened elsewhere?

I don't know, just passing along information. It all depends on the verbiage in the laws/proposals in question.

Comments like this don't really help the discussion.

You know what else doesn't help? All the other baseless, uninformed opinions being trotted out. However, thank you for pointing my accurate observation out as being the thing that doesn't help the "conversation."

Scooty... I'm willing to listen, but c'mon man, it looks disingenuous on the surface dude.

My "backhanded" comment stems from my thinking that, if he's successful in getting that exemption, then it'll be easier for these Union shops to work with private industries (ie, retail/restarunts/etc..) to encourage new unions, in the effort to keep overall labor costs down.

He's asking for "special snowflake" treatments.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 cincydooley wrote:
Am i wrong in thinking a few unions wanted to be exempt from the ACA as well? Or am I misrembering that?

Nope. Not wrong.

They're going to get majorly ding'ed by the Cadelliac Plan Tax, if nothing changes.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I got a better idea.
Go out, get real jobs and stop asking me to pay 12$ a hamburger so you can get new iphone15.
And just so you all know, NO im not kidding this is how I feel. We shouldnt be paying people 15$ an hour to flip burgers.
15$ is for people who do real work

And what exactly is "real work"?

If you're familiar at all with LA, you'd know that even at $15/hr, that's still rather questionable as a living wage in terms of just being able to afford rent, food, gas, utilities, and car insurance if you're working full time (much less the ability to purchase a car if need be), in fact, it probably won't even cover that (given that the average 1 bedroom apartment price in LA is $1800+/month, and electricity is probably another ~$100 on top of that alone, $300 easy if you're running AC when it's 90*-100* outside for months at a time), it's about the minimum you'd really need for each individual in a two-income household. When I first moved out on my own in San Diego, between me and my roommates, we easily were making comfortably into six figures for household income, and were very definitely not enjoying the lifestyle that most people assume with that sort of household income.

I think our combined household expenses, between rent, gas & insurance on three cars, food, and utilities was ~4500/month. Just the barebones basics(food, fuel, mandated insurance, water & electricity).

That's not including extras like entertainment, healthcare co-pays, girlfriends, Internet/Cable, cell phone bills, videogames, new iphones, vacations, emergencies (e.g. car breaks down), savings, alcohol, Warhammer, parties, eating out, etc.

Split three ways, that's ~$1500/month. If you're making $15/hr, after taxes, and with those expenses, you're looking at having ~$300 a month for literally everything but the basics in life. You want an internet connection, a cell phone? Bump it down to $200/month, or about $6-7/day.

If that's all "real work" gets you, someone's getting a raw deal.

Where the do you live in LA where a one bedroom is $1800 a month? pro-tip working folk don't live there. They live in the Inland Empire.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Sorry, no. That serviceman is on call 24 hours a day, period,

O_o um...only for a very few select MOS's, the overwhelmingly vast majority are not "on call" 24 hours a day, unless you're counting the highly unlikely scenario of a major military act by an aggressor state a-la Pearl Harbor. In that case...maybe (even then, it took 6 months or more to really mobilize and start major offensive deployments)?. Those are also rarer-than-once-in-a-lifetime events. Even Sept 11th didn't result in an immediate mass mobilization across all branches and roles.

and their pay in no way reflects that if you're saying a non-skilled person is "worth" $15/hr.

The long term economic realities of self-sustainment beg to differ. If your workforce can't afford to live and commute to your workplace, you're workforce won't exist forever. Likewise, much of what's being done is simply shifting that cost of living gap from the employer to the state, the state essentially subsidizing the employer's unwillingness to pay a higher wage by providing food stamps, medicaid, housing allowances, etc to their labor force.

24/7/365 three numbers that are true for every single active duty person. Are you really using WWII mobilization timelines in a discussion about 2015 military readiness. I can't even begin to tell you how much that last sentence misses the reality of Sept 12 even if technically factually accurate

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
An E-3 PFC has a base pay of $21.6k annually.

An E-5 Sergeant with 4 years experience has a base pay of $30k.

I'm sorry, but no burger flipper deserves as much as an an E-3, to say nothing of an E-5.

If you're an adult working for minimum wage at a zero-skill job, you don't deserve the wages of a professional soldier who puts his life on the line 24 hours a day.

Well put.

Furthermore the living wage argument is irrelevant. There are plenty of big boy jobs that pay better and require little education, they just aren't as cushy as fast food (and before you ask, yes as a teenager I worked fast food jobs. They are cushy jobs that should be filled by high school students who live at home, not lazy adults.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Eilif wrote:
To top it off a Military family is likely in an area with a much lower cost-of living than an urban min-wager. It's really not a fair comparison.

As a former soldier I agree with this.... Places like Oak Grove, KY or Hopkinsville, KY have much much lower cost of living rates than a place like Louisville (keeping it in state), or on the other side of the border, Clarksville is "cheaper" than Nashville.... Some of this is actually artificially low, IMO.

Take for instance, the housing market in Clarksville... the vast majority of houses are affordable on "most" soldiers BAH, and rental rates are about the same (though some places are seriously ridiculously over priced).

In places like JBLM, where my wife is stationed now, we're receiving significantly higher BAH rates and such, because the cost of living is so much higher due to idiotic state taxes, Tacoma's "big city costs" and a housing market that is fairly inflated due to the number of "high paying" jobs at Boeing, Amazon, etc.

Smaller communities like Clarksville, the housing rates are determined by BAH, because those are the primary customers. 30,000 families in Clarksville and Hopkinsville get BAH. So the market is going to price it at what the people can pay.

And I'd say many many bases are in metro areas. Macdill AFB, Tampa. JBLM, and Naval bases like you mentioned, Seattle/Tacoma. Scott AFB, St. Louis. There is 3 or 4 Army and AF bases in San Antonio. Naval bases in San Fran and LA.

Soldiers are indeed on call 24/7. I had a first sergeant who thought he was clever who liked to schedule piss tests at three in the morning on Saturdays. We couldn't exactly say "nope, it's my day off."

Plus, especially if you live in the barracks, you have your boss - his boss and sometimes their boss walking through where you live whenever they feel like it. If you live in off post housing or married quarters it's generally less common but still perfectly legal for them to do.

And that's not bringing up random "Let's go hang out in the woods for a week, training!" crap that happens.

It's partly my fault, but I think we're getting sidelined in the details of what 24/7 danger means and where military bases might be located. The Important fact is that the overall compensation (pay and benefits) package for a serviceman is far more than $15 an hour.

As for whether an unskilled worker is "worth" $15 and hour is only part of the discussion. The fact is that for many folks, their location, educational level or life circumstances dictate that only miniumum wage jobs are in their reach.

There are plenty of big boy jobs that pay better and require little education...

…is just not the case for many people.

The point of the minimum wage discussion is society collectively deciding and balancing two factors. Will the wages of those workers going to be wholly dependent upon how low employers feel they can drive wages? Or, will society decide to ensure that every worker can make a wage that (while not technically "living") is going to assist them in building toward a better future?

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Nope, I do Chihuahuas.

phrasing?

 Frazzled wrote:


Where the do you live in LA where a one bedroom is $1800 a month? pro-tip working folk don't live there. They live in the Inland Empire.

Even in the Inland Empire, average rent is over $1200/month, and if you're having to commute into LA proper, you can probably count on spending an extra $100-200 in gas over living in LA proper, so while it's cheaper, it's still not exactly the most affordable place in the world and is still not easy to get by on even $15/hr, much less minimum wage.

Jerram wrote:


24/7/365 three numbers that are true for every single active duty person. Are you really using WWII mobilization timelines in a discussion about 2015 military readiness. I can't even begin to tell you how much that last sentence misses the reality of Sept 12 even if technically factually accurate

Because there's a difference between the theory of 24/7/365 and the reality? Most MOS's aren't going to get a call in the night and be told they're shipping out the next day, for many that would be a physical impossibility or simply isn't part of their job, particularly in response to JohnHwangDD's original blanket statement that "their life is on the line 24/7".

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
An E-3 PFC has a base pay of $21.6k annually.

An E-5 Sergeant with 4 years experience has a base pay of $30k.

I'm sorry, but no burger flipper deserves as much as an an E-3, to say nothing of an E-5.

If you're an adult working for minimum wage at a zero-skill job, you don't deserve the wages of a professional soldier who puts his life on the line 24 hours a day.

Well put.

Furthermore the living wage argument is irrelevant. There are plenty of big boy jobs that pay better and require little education, they just aren't as cushy as fast food (and before you ask, yes as a teenager I worked fast food jobs. They are cushy jobs that should be filled by high school students who live at home, not lazy adults.

The idea that everyone working these jobs is "lazy" is a projection of perception. There's a lot of reason people may work these jobs. Often there may be nothing else available.

Likewise, the idea that these jobs should be held by teenagers is somewhat ridiculous. They aren't available at all hours (usually just 4-9pm), and quite frankly most of them simply aren't doing fast food anymore. Hell, after moving out of Southern Califonia to where I am now, I'm seeing far more 40+ people working the fast food joint than teenagers, and quite frankly they're putting much more effort into the job than the teenagers are. I did my stint at a burger joint when I was a teenager too, but even then, during my time there, there was only one other teenager there. The guy that had to go clean blood out of the bathroom after two people had kinky sex in there wasn't us teenagers, it was the 45 year old dude who also worked there who simply grabbed the mob and did it after the other teenager I worked with squeeked "eww that's so gross I can't go in there!".

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I got a better idea.
Go out, get real jobs and stop asking me to pay 12$ a hamburger so you can get new iphone15.
And just so you all know, NO im not kidding this is how I feel. We shouldnt be paying people 15$ an hour to flip burgers.
15$ is for people who do real work

 Laemos wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Nope, I do Chihuahuas.

phrasing?

He does that a lot. Used to involve ponies. He improved (slightly).


Also, 'burger flipper' is the highest calling for sociology majors! Why rail against a pay raise that's planned for you before you even start?!

 timetowaste85 wrote:
[

Also, 'burger flipper' is the highest calling for sociology majors! Why rail against a pay raise that's planned for you before you even start?!

Oh hush. He's on the PHD Researcher Track. Duh.

I'm flip-flopping on if I wanna go the graduate school.

To those bemoaning burger flipping as not "real work" have you ever sat and watched a McDonalds crew? Those folks bust their bums. Working in fast food is just as the name suggests. It's often very fast-paced work.

Just because something doesn't require a degree, certification or even a high school education doesn't mean it's not real work.

I worked a summer as a gopher on a framing crew for a smidge over minimum wage. Anyone could have done that job, but it wasn't easy and it certainly wasn't any less or more deserving of the term "work" than burger flipping or upper management.

I don't deny that gopher has more physical labor, but I've done all kinds of low-wage jobs. Dogwalking, Walgreens, Theater Concessions. They were all "real work" and all deserving of respect. I'm really glad I'm not doing them anymore, but you won't find me demeaning the folks who do those moslty-thankless jobs. All this talk of "real work" strikes me as terribly class'ist and a pretty slippery slope. If fast food isn't real work, then what's next? What about other service industry jobs? Housecleaners? How about agricultural workers?

Work is work.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I got a better idea.
Go out, get real jobs and stop asking me to pay 12$ a hamburger so you can get new iphone15.
And just so you all know, NO im not kidding this is how I feel. We shouldnt be paying people 15$ an hour to flip burgers.
15$ is for people who do real work

its silly to pay more then what they are worth for sure, the market could justify a 15$ wage, but it clearly does not.

The free market allows for some places to pay that high, and why not really? around here, mc d's workers really do get 12-15$ an hour, because labour is in shortage and the local economy is good.

other areas of the country are around 10-11$ per hour or slightly less.

Despite what the SJW's say, companies really do tend to pay higher if economics dictate that they need to, but raising min wage to 15$ artificially command economy style in areas where there is an abundance of labour already will to work for a lower the 15% hourly wage is just silly and doesmt actually account for reality.

and we dont pay people more for hard work, we pay people more for skilled work, no matter how hard fast food work is (been there done that) anyone can do it, so its not worth much.

 Sigvatr wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I got a better idea.
Go out, get real jobs and stop asking me to pay 12$ a hamburger so you can get new iphone15.
And just so you all know, NO im not kidding this is how I feel. We shouldnt be paying people 15$ an hour to flip burgers.
15$ is for people who do real work

And superior service!

I see extremely few "minimum wage" jobs here that aren't ESL (very secondary) immigrant. Why get a surly useless teenager when you can get someone who may have litterally braved life and death just to get here to do that job?

 Sigvatr wrote:

Yup, these iPad kiosks replacing FOH staff are making their way into fast casual dining as well, Chilis, for example:

https://creativecahoots.wordpress.com/2013/02/19/tablets-take-over-restaurants/

Stax does the same, with pretty much all FOH tasks handled by kiosk, including the ordering; they just have cooks and food runners, so it's lean and mean.

But don't take my word for it, or the BLS - that's just an exaggeration. Nothing to see here.

Unsustainable minimum wages are going to push for faster automation of unskilled labor.

If someone isn't already making $15/hr, they can expect to be unemployed when the minimum hits $15.

So maybe it's not a big deal.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I'm flip-flopping on if I wanna go the graduate school.

Have you considered the exciting world of post mortem hair styling and fashion care?

Unsustainable minimum wages are going to push for faster automation of unskilled labor.

bingo!

once labour passes the tipping point, there will be no going back once the start up costs to automate have been justified.

mmmm free market, its delicious, you cannot beat it!

 easysauce wrote:


Despite what the SJW's say, companies really do tend to pay higher if economics dictate that they need to, but raising min wage to 15$ artificially command economy style in areas where there is an abundance of labour already will to work for a lower the 15% hourly wage is just silly and doesmt actually account for reality.

"Reality" in this case is relative and false anyway, the fact that a minimum wage exists at all is an artificial element in a capitalist system. I don't say this as a bad thing, rather it's a very good thing.

In some places Fast food workers make $15 already based on market forces, but there are also places where the labor market is crowded enough that companies could pay $5 an hour. Minimum wage exists because we collectively say that people shouldn't be expected to sell their time for less than ____ an hour. Knowing what we do about the buying power of the minimum wage, and how far it has lagged behind inflation, that the current national minimum is $7.25 is a black mark on our nation and should be a stain on our conscience.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

And while the person wouldn't know WHY they are doing it, I'd bet you could train someone to do what most scientists do, as far as loading up testing equipment and running tests, etc.

Not in a week. Use of some of the basic equipment certainly but there is far more involved in a Scientists day to day work than turning machines on and off. Science is one of those areas where you really need to know what you are doing and why you are doing it.

 easysauce wrote:

bingo!

once labour passes the tipping point, there will be no going back once the start up costs to automate have been justified.

mmmm free market, its delicious, you cannot beat it!

What happens when no one is able to afford all those widgets made by automated factories because they have all been made unemployed?

Automation was likely to push a lot of these jobs out at some point either way, much like it did in the manufacturing industry in many areas.

In some places, automation isn't practical and/or the consumer base simply does not respond to it well.

In places where this wasn't true however, automation was likely inevitable, and we're simply seeing a slightly faster replacement, minimum wage or no.

In fact, automation is likely to put a lot of people out of work eventually, in far more fields than people could ever have thought imaginable.

 Frazzled wrote:

And superior service!

I see extremely few "minimum wage" jobs here that aren't ESL (very secondary) immigrant. Why get a surly useless teenager when you can get someone who may have litterally braved life and death just to get here to do that job?

When I worked at a burger joint, this was definitely true of most positions. It certainly wasn't teenagers doing most of the work.

 Frazzled wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I'm flip-flopping on if I wanna go the graduate school.

Have you considered the exciting world of post mortem hair styling and fashion care?

If he wants real money, he should have trained to be a plumber.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:

Unskilled work does not mean the work has no value. No one is making you shop at McDonalds. And it's typical you paint the picture of the minimum wage worker as a kid flipping burgers and saving for an iPhone. Most minimum wage workers are people you don't see, sweeping floors and working on assembly lines. And they're earning money to put food on the table and keep the lights on. They can't go out and get a 'proper job' because they're unskilled. But their work is valuable, you'd soon whine if all the rubbish and dirt piled up at work and the toilets went uncleaned. You make me sick.

No, but it does mean their work is less valuable than more valuable work.

The value of a job is determined less by its necessity and more by its rarity. Sure, I absolutely need the floors and sinks and such in my restaurant cleaned. But its a job so simple a monkey could do it, and I can find a new person to do the job at the drop of a hat. Thats why its worth rock bottom in terms of wages.

Employees are sellers of labor. Employers are under no obligation to purchase any individual person's labor. And the price of said labor is not determined by what the Employee needs, its determined by what the Employer is willing to pay. You get paid relative to the value of the labor you are selling. If your labor isn't worth enough to cover your needs there shouldn't be some artificial requirement to pay you more than what you are worth. Its not your employer's problem that you aren't worth more than what you are.

If your labor isn't worth enough, it is your responsibility to make yourself more valuable.

Arguing otherwise would be akin to the following situation,

I make widgets in a particular market. There are 2 other widget makers as well. My widgets are of poorer quality than the others. I manage to get legislation passed which forces people to purchase my widgets for the same cost as they buy better widgets from the other sellers. Thats essentially what forcing overly high minimum wages does. It forces people to pay more for poorer quality labor.

Thou shalt not create a machine in the likeness of the human mind. . .

All I'm saying is the way to fix inequality isn't raising min wage. It's fixing a broken system in which education fails many people at every level. One that punishes poor people more for crimes than Those with money. a welfare system that is so broke you make more money living on welfare than not.
But I know how the world works in some ways. I know raising minimum wage will just shift. yeah, 15 dollars will be great for rent, until they Ellis law you outta your house.

 Grey Templar wrote:
[
Employees are sellers of labor. Employers are under no obligation to purchase any individual person's labor. And the price of said labor is not determined by what the Employee needs, its determined by what the Employer is willing to pay. You get paid relative to the value of the labor you are selling. If your labor isn't worth enough to cover your needs there shouldn't be some artificial requirement to pay you more than what you are worth. Its not your employer's problem that you aren't worth more than what you are.

Only partially true. The value of the labor can also be determined by what the society determines it to be collectively, which is where we get the minimum wage from. Pure unfettered captialism is a brutal system for most of it's participants, not to mention the environment. All this to say the price or value of USA labor is never totally in the hands of the market. And thank heavens for it. Does anyone with even a basic knowledge of history really want to go back to the days of pre-union industrialization and truely unfettered captialism?

Not true. Just because minimum wage is set at X, doesn't make the value of labor equal to X. If it was, nobody would get paid more than minimum wage for anything.

Even if the minimum wage is $15, if a job is only worth $10 its still only worth $10. Everyone is just overpaying by $5.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Not true. Just because minimum wage is set at X, doesn't make the value of labor equal to X. If it was, nobody would get paid more than minimum wage for anything.

Even if the minimum wage is $15, if a job is only worth $10 its still only worth $10. Everyone is just overpaying by $5.

It's not an "equal to X" equation. The minimum wage is society saying labor is equal-or-greater in value to X. The market can say whatever it likes, but the value of having the market subservient to societal/government regulation is that we can curb it's worst tendencies for the benefit of our citizens and the stability of our society.

To be clear I'm not embracing pure capitalism or socialism here, rather I'm looking to a society that takes the best of both for the benefit of the majority of it's citizens rather than surrendering to the severe inequality inherent in rampant capitalism (the way America is headed) or the dronish stagnation that characterizes run-amok sociailsm (see Venezuela and Greece).

Minimum wage isn't minimum wage. Enforcing it is stupid to say the least. Germany recently introduced minimum wage without debating it with the economy first. What happened? Minimum wage was introduced. Hooray. As a consequence, a lot of people now earn /less/ because several bonus payments such as holiday pay were cut.

Politics, gentlemen.

Minimum wage is a very good thing to have...but BY ALL MEANS, don't just enforce it. It WILL go wrong. 100%.

If you think the US is headed towards rampant Capitalism you are sorely mistaken. Rampant capitalism did once exist, we know exactly what it looks like. We're not even close to that, and actually trending dangerously towards socialism in the coming years.

 Sigvatr wrote:
Minimum wage isn't minimum wage. Enforcing it is stupid to say the least. Germany recently introduced minimum wage without debating it with the economy first. What happened? Minimum wage was introduced. Hooray. As a consequence, a lot of people now earn /less/ because several bonus payments such as holiday pay were cut.

Politics, gentlemen.

This is precisely why the Unions are trying to pull a fast one in LA, because they know a minimum wage triggers a chance for a renegotiation, which puts membership and automatic dues at at stake.

 Grey Templar wrote:
actually trending dangerously towards socialism in the coming years.

No such thing as trending dangerously close to Socialism.

 whembly wrote:

Scooty... I'm willing to listen, but c'mon man, it looks disingenuous on the surface dude.

My "backhanded" comment stems from my thinking that, if he's successful in getting that exemption, then it'll be easier for these Union shops to work with private industries (ie, retail/restarunts/etc..) to encourage new unions, in the effort to keep overall labor costs down.

He's asking for "special snowflake" treatments.

You're aren't 'willing to listen' because you've already made up your mind, Whembly. Have you read LA's minimum wage law or the proposal from Mr. Hicks? If the answer is "no" (which I'm positive it is), then your claim of being willing to listen is bs, because you've already decided to not listen at all and instead assume the worst about the people you already think you disagree with.

You're not fooling anyone.

 Grey Templar wrote:
If you think the US is headed towards rampant Capitalism you are sorely mistaken. Rampant capitalism did once exist, we know exactly what it looks like. We're not even close to that, and actually trending dangerously towards socialism in the coming years.

As a Swede, no, no you're not. Not even close.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 whembly wrote:

Scooty... I'm willing to listen, but c'mon man, it looks disingenuous on the surface dude.

My "backhanded" comment stems from my thinking that, if he's successful in getting that exemption, then it'll be easier for these Union shops to work with private industries (ie, retail/restarunts/etc..) to encourage new unions, in the effort to keep overall labor costs down.

He's asking for "special snowflake" treatments.

You're aren't 'willing to listen' because you've already made up your mind, Whembly. Have you read LA's minimum wage law or the proposal from Mr. Hicks? If the answer is "no" (which I'm positive it is), then your claim of being willing to listen is bs, because you've already decided to not listen at all and instead assume the worst about the people you already think you disagree with.

You're not fooling anyone.

I read it...

Start here bro:
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-minimum-wage-hike-20150518-story.html#page=1



By 2020 it'll be 15$ per hour.

Unions should NOT be exempted. Doesn't matter if unions offer 'more benefits'... which makes labor costs higher. It's the Union's job to convince the workers that.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
If you think the US is headed towards rampant Capitalism you are sorely mistaken. Rampant capitalism did once exist, we know exactly what it looks like. We're not even close to that, and actually trending dangerously towards socialism in the coming years.

As a Swede, no, no you're not. Not even close.

That depends on what people mean by dangerously close. Any closer to socialism than what we have is what I consider too dangerous. As for what Europe has, well, that's too far gone to save.

 Grey Templar wrote:
If you think the US is headed towards rampant Capitalism you are sorely mistaken. Rampant capitalism did once exist, we know exactly what it looks like. We're not even close to that, and actually trending dangerously towards socialism in the coming years.

You're at least half right. We're not heading as much toward Capitalism as we are towards Oligarchy. Thanks "Citizens United!" As long as money is speech, corporations and the rich will continue to exert undue influence over the government and the economy.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
If you think the US is headed towards rampant Capitalism you are sorely mistaken. Rampant capitalism did once exist, we know exactly what it looks like. We're not even close to that, and actually trending dangerously towards socialism in the coming years.

As a Swede, no, no you're not. Not even close.

That depends on what people mean by dangerously close. Any closer to socialism than what we have is what I consider too dangerous. As for what Europe has, well, that's too far gone to save.

That's...

Wow. I'm not even mad, that level of arrogance is impressive.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
If you think the US is headed towards rampant Capitalism you are sorely mistaken. Rampant capitalism did once exist, we know exactly what it looks like. We're not even close to that, and actually trending dangerously towards socialism in the coming years.

As a Swede, no, no you're not. Not even close.

That depends on what people mean by dangerously close. Any closer to socialism than what we have is what I consider too dangerous. As for what Europe has, well, that's too far gone to save.

I think you have a distorted and alarmist sense of left and right wing politics both in the US and internationally. You sound like someone worried about finding Reds under the bed. The US isn't anywhere near a socialist state and its not disastrous to be socialist should it ever go that way, which I rather doubt it will.

 Eilif wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
If you think the US is headed towards rampant Capitalism you are sorely mistaken. Rampant capitalism did once exist, we know exactly what it looks like. We're not even close to that, and actually trending dangerously towards socialism in the coming years.

You're at least half right. We're not heading as much toward Capitalism as we are towards Oligarchy. Thanks "Citizens United!" As long as money is speech, corporations and the rich will continue to exert undue influence over the government and the economy.

Citizens United really had nothing to do with that.

 Eilif wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
If you think the US is headed towards rampant Capitalism you are sorely mistaken. Rampant capitalism did once exist, we know exactly what it looks like. We're not even close to that, and actually trending dangerously towards socialism in the coming years.

You're at least half right. We're not heading as much toward Capitalism as we are towards Oligarchy. Thanks "Citizens United!" As long as money is speech, corporations and the rich will continue to exert undue influence over the government and the economy.

Screw giving power to those who finance a governmen and its citizen!

 Sigvatr wrote:

 Eilif wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
If you think the US is headed towards rampant Capitalism you are sorely mistaken. Rampant capitalism did once exist, we know exactly what it looks like. We're not even close to that, and actually trending dangerously towards socialism in the coming years.

You're at least half right. We're not heading as much toward Capitalism as we are towards Oligarchy. Thanks "Citizens United!" As long as money is speech, corporations and the rich will continue to exert undue influence over the government and the economy.

Screw giving power to those who finance a governmen and its citizen!

And who gives companies their power? Consumers. People can survive without companies, but companies can't survive without people.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:


And who gives companies their power? Consumers. People can survive without companies, but companies can't survive without people.

So companies are killing citizens now? Huh?

A company is made of people. The big ones gather the best who then lead others to excellence. Sure, you can have a state without companies. Enjoy no welfare, no insurances, a huge black market for everything etc. Law of the jungle applies. The big, mean, evil companies do more for the well-being of any state than any politican will ever do.

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

 easysauce wrote:

bingo!

once labour passes the tipping point, there will be no going back once the start up costs to automate have been justified.

mmmm free market, its delicious, you cannot beat it!

What happens when no one is able to afford all those widgets made by automated factories because they have all been made unemployed?

the same thing that happened when other industries like farming, cars, ect were automated.

Urbanization and automation of agriculture put a huge amount of people out of work, but was actually better for everyone in the long run and we got cheaper, more abundant food, and did lead to an improvement in overall quality of life as well as the creation of better jobs for skilled labourers.

And your theory is that only the people working at a factory are buying its products, when this is simply not the case.

after factory x automates and cuts its staff by 50%, its customers dont magically disappear, the 50% that got cut have to find new jobs is all, and often the goods become cheaper since its easier/cheaper to emloy 50% of the people and still produce the same amount or more of the goods. SO business improves in most automation case studies.

In addition he unskilled job of menial labour is replaced by a machine, and the skilled job of maintaining that machine now exists.

 Sigvatr wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:


And who gives companies their power? Consumers. People can survive without companies, but companies can't survive without people.

So companies are killing citizens now? Huh?

A company is made of people. The big ones gather the best who then lead others to excellence. Sure, you can have a state without companies. Enjoy no welfare, no insurances, a huge black market for everything etc. Law of the jungle applies. The big, mean, evil companies do more for the well-being of any state than any politican will ever do.

Companies (or, rather, greed) will also cause more misery and suffering than any politician will ever do. Politicians, in my opinion, exist to curb the excesses of companies to make sure they're actually benefitting people, as opposed to just benefiting themselves.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:


And who gives companies their power? Consumers. People can survive without companies, but companies can't survive without people.

So companies are killing citizens now? Huh?

A company is made of people. The big ones gather the best who then lead others to excellence. Sure, you can have a state without companies. Enjoy no welfare, no insurances, a huge black market for everything etc. Law of the jungle applies. The big, mean, evil companies do more for the well-being of any state than any politican will ever do.

Companies (or, rather, greed) will also cause more misery and suffering than any politician will ever do. Politicians, in my opinion, exist to curb the excesses of companies to make sure they're actually benefitting people, as opposed to just benefiting themselves.

More misery and suffering? Really?

When have companies ever caused war, or famine, or mass genocide, or any other horrible thing? Politicians are responsible for all those things.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:


And who gives companies their power? Consumers. People can survive without companies, but companies can't survive without people.

So companies are killing citizens now? Huh?

A company is made of people. The big ones gather the best who then lead others to excellence. Sure, you can have a state without companies. Enjoy no welfare, no insurances, a huge black market for everything etc. Law of the jungle applies. The big, mean, evil companies do more for the well-being of any state than any politican will ever do.

Companies (or, rather, greed) will also cause more misery and suffering than any politician will ever do. Politicians, in my opinion, exist to curb the excesses of companies to make sure they're actually benefitting people, as opposed to just benefiting themselves.

More misery and suffering? Really?

When have companies ever caused war, or famine, or mass genocide, or any other horrible thing? Politicians are responsible for all those things.

Have you looked at Africa recently?

Africa's misery is caused by vicious warlords, tribal culture, and general lack of ability to produce enough food for its population.

 Grey Templar wrote:
When have companies ever caused war, or famine, or mass genocide, or any other horrible thing? Politicians are responsible for all those things.

Dude, you're not familiar with the Warzone or Shadowrun backgrounds, are you?

 Grey Templar wrote:
Africa's misery is caused by vicious warlords, tribal culture, and general lack of ability to produce enough food for its population.

And why can't they produce enough food for their population?

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Africa's misery is caused by vicious warlords, tribal culture, and general lack of ability to produce enough food for its population.

And why can't they produce enough food for their population?

I've always wondered that too... they ought to be the breadbasket of the frick'n world.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Africa's misery is caused by vicious warlords, tribal culture, and general lack of ability to produce enough food for its population.

And why can't they produce enough food for their population?

Because Africa is severely underdeveloped, and it lacks fertile farmland in general. Cleared rainforest is terrible for growing crops. It remains underdeveloped because tribal culture prevents them from developing socially, the conflict stifles any major development.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:


And who gives companies their power? Consumers. People can survive without companies, but companies can't survive without people.

So companies are killing citizens now? Huh?

A company is made of people. The big ones gather the best who then lead others to excellence. Sure, you can have a state without companies. Enjoy no welfare, no insurances, a huge black market for everything etc. Law of the jungle applies. The big, mean, evil companies do more for the well-being of any state than any politican will ever do.

Companies (or, rather, greed) will also cause more misery and suffering than any politician will ever do. Politicians, in my opinion, exist to curb the excesses of companies to make sure they're actually benefitting people, as opposed to just benefiting themselves.

More misery and suffering? Really?

When have companies ever caused war, or famine, or mass genocide, or any other horrible thing? Politicians are responsible for all those things.

Clearly someone has never heard of the Dutch East India Trading Company or United Fruit...

 Grey Templar wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Africa's misery is caused by vicious warlords, tribal culture, and general lack of ability to produce enough food for its population.

And why can't they produce enough food for their population?

Because Africa is severely underdeveloped, and it lacks fertile farmland in general. Cleared rainforest is terrible for growing crops. It remains underdeveloped because tribal culture prevents them from developing socially, the conflict stifles any major development.

Or because the EU dumps excess food produced as a result of the current CAP in Africa for less than it costs local farmers to produce their own food, driving them out of business. But I guess that's just my inner white-guilt communist talking.

Sure,the EU dumps cheap food. Now tell me, is the EU a company or a political organization?

Political organization.

Why does the CAP exist in the first place?

So you are blaming people who produce food in the EU and not the people who are actually shipping it to Africa where it causes problems?

Yes, because without the demands of European agriculture the interest behind the CAP would not exist.

We're going off topic though, so I'll just agree to disagree.

The fact remains the politicians are the ones sending the food to Africa.

Bran Dawri wrote:


Even so, I disagree with the assertion that difficulty is the only yardstick to be used to determine what deserves a good wage. Hard work, whether it's shovelling manure or brainsweat should be rewarded with (at least) being able to pay your bills.

I agree with you on this point... That is why with some of the examples that I used, I added the caveat that the person would effectively be a "button pusher" and have no deep understanding of what's really being done, and why.

My job in the army took a year of training. Not because swapping out a computer is hard, or soldering a circuit board is difficult. It was training the ability to think on the feet, see a problem ask, "Why is this doing that?" and be able to actually fix the problem instead of pushing it off on someone else.

I think that there are some jobs out there that pay decently not because they are "hard" per se, such as shovelling something, but because there is an inherent risk involved in that trade. To follow that shovelling "something", I have read often that miners make good money. Is this more because the "shoveling" is hard, or because there's a significant danger of the mine shaft collapsing?

 whembly wrote:
I read it...

Start here bro:
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-minimum-wage-hike-20150518-story.html#page=1



By 2020 it'll be 15$ per hour.

Unions should NOT be exempted. Doesn't matter if unions offer 'more benefits'... which makes labor costs higher. It's the Union's job to convince the workers that.

Thanks Whembly, but I already read that and looked at your pretty chart and it still didn't answer the question of how the new law interact with existing collectively bargained wage packages (which cannot just be thrown out willy nilly because, you know, they're legally binding contracts) and what exactly the proposal entails. By the way, this kind of 'exemption' has already been done in other cities that have increased the minimum wage.

There is no valid reason to oppose a person from engaging in collective bargaining what they believe to be a fair wage rate with their employer, unless you don't believe that those people should have that right, which brings us back to my previous point: you aren't 'willing to listen' because you've already made up your mind. What I think a lot of it is people are afraid that allowing workers to organize is no good. McDonald's isn't happy about paying their workers more, so let them organize and decide what a fair wage rate is to save their payroll or pay them what the local government thinks they are worth.


Finally, I love it when you get prickly.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:


In my opinion, Companies (or, rather, greed) will also cause more misery and suffering than any politician will ever do and politicians exist to curb the excesses of companies to make sure they're actually benefitting people, as opposed to just benefiting themselves.

I've altered the quote a bit, leaving it at this properly reflects the truth as the logical fallacy has already been pointed out above and neither do I want to get more off-topic...although I wonder if it truly is off-topic.

Minimum wage is, ideally, a product of a state-economy collaboration both sides profit of. Realistically, it most often is a shackle forged by the state to bind the economy's strong arms, a vicious tool forced upon us by idealogists, fueled by lies and deception, supposed to blind the sheep believing in their petty politicians feeding them what they want to hear. While the state tries to put those shackles on, however, they get swept to the ground by the ever-marching economy's feet, bringing righteousness back to the table, shaking off the shackles and breaking free again. Those shattered shackles' remains then come raining down from the sky, ultimatively hurting those their fellow leaders swore to protect, too late for them to realize their mistake and slain by their leader's mistakes.

tl;dr: As long as politicians want to push agendas and enforce them upon the economy, people will suffer. Worse than before. But as long as people want to be lied to, they deserve no better.

That post is hilarious.

 MrDwhitey wrote:
That post is hilarious.

As hilarious as that may or may not have been, next time try and contribute a bit more...

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
Thanks Whembly, but I already read that and looked at your pretty chart and it still didn't answer the question of how the new law interact with existing collectively bargained wage packages (which cannot just be thrown out willy nilly because, you know, they're legally binding contracts) and what exactly the proposal entails.

As it stands, it appears, that the existing agreement would have to be adjusted with respect to wages. Hence, the exemption request. Why should union members not get the pay raise as well?

By the way, this kind of 'exemption' has already been done in other cities that have increased the minimum wage.

Source?

There is no valid reason to oppose a person from engaging in collective bargaining what they believe to be a fair wage rate with their employer, unless you don't believe that those people should have that right, which brings us back to my previous point: you aren't 'willing to listen' because you've already made up your mind. What I think a lot of it is people are afraid that allowing workers to organize is no good. McDonald's isn't happy about paying their workers more, so let them organize and decide what a fair wage rate is to save their payroll or pay them what the local government thinks they are worth.

If that's true, then why should the state interfere between a person from engaging in negotiation in what they believe to be a fair wage rate with their employer, by mandating a min wage?

Again, you're awfully defensive to any/all things regarding unions.

Finally, I love it when you get prickly.

Indeed!

 Sigvatr wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:


In my opinion, Companies (or, rather, greed) will also cause more misery and suffering than any politician will ever do and politicians exist to curb the excesses of companies to make sure they're actually benefitting people, as opposed to just benefiting themselves.

I've altered the quote a bit, leaving it at this properly reflects the truth as the logical fallacy has already been pointed out above and neither do I want to get more off-topic...although I wonder if it truly is off-topic.

Minimum wage is, ideally, a product of a state-economy collaboration both sides profit of. Realistically, it most often is a shackle forged by the state to bind the economy's strong arms, a vicious tool forced upon us by idealogists, fueled by lies and deception, supposed to blind the sheep believing in their petty politicians feeding them what they want to hear. While the state tries to put those shackles on, however, they get swept to the ground by the ever-marching economy's feet, bringing righteousness back to the table, shaking off the shackles and breaking free again. Those shattered shackles' remains then come raining down from the sky, ultimatively hurting those their fellow leaders swore to protect, too late for them to realize their mistake and slain by their leader's mistakes.

tl;dr: As long as politicians want to push agendas and enforce them upon the economy, people will suffer. Worse than before. But as long as people want to be lied to, they deserve no better.

Yeah, the International Association of the Kongo sure was a beacon of human enlightenment, the push to privatize water in Chile had no drawbacks, and Russia wasn't completely screwed over by letting the market run rampant all over it following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Quite frankly, your point of view is insane. The market wants to make money. That's it. If it's able to combine that with improving people's lives it probably will, but it's not like it'll go out of its way to do so unless there's something to gain.

You say that companies give states their power, and to a certain extent you're right. Ultimately, though, the power of the state rests on its ability to have its constituent members physically destroy dissenters. Your precious market earns much more from the existance of the state than the state does from private companies, because without law and order (not to mention contract law) you cannot run a successful company without also killing or subjugating your opposition. Thus, it is the companies that ought to be thankful that the state exists at all, not the other way around, because without the state there is anarchy.

You're staring yourself blind at all the lovely apples your precious companies are picking without realizing that you've stood on the shoulders of the state the whole time, and then you're angry that you can't keep all the apples for yourself. It's petty, and it's a rather frightening view of reality to be honest.

 whembly wrote:
As it stands, it appears, that the existing agreement would have to be adjusted with respect to wages. Hence, the exemption request. Why should union members not get the pay raise as well?

Because you cannot break a contract just because. A collective bargaining agreement more than falls into that category.

Source?

How embarrassed will you be when I tell you that it's mentioned in the article linked in the OP?

Well, in case you skipped over it, here it is again (the information in question is about two thirds of the way down in the article): http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-minimum-wage-unionized-20150527-story.html

If that's true, then why should the state interfere between a person from engaging in negotiation in what they believe to be a fair wage rate with their employer, by mandating a min wage?

Again, you're awfully defensive to any/all things regarding unions.

The state isn't interfering with anyone engaging in negotiation, at least not in this case.

Also, it's funny you accuse me of being defensive here, because I haven't defended anyone or anything, instead offering information on what I know about union labor. In fact, I'm pretty much the only person saying there isn't enough given information on the subject to make a truly informed opinion, which is why I have refrained from delivering one. This might also come as a surprise to you, but I wish there wasn't a minimum wage (like in the Nordic countries). That could become a reality, but workers and employers would have to be willing to collectively bargain and that just isn't going to happen in the United States.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
All I'm saying is the way to fix inequality isn't raising min wage. It's fixing a broken system in which education fails many people at every level. One that punishes poor people more for crimes than Those with money.

You simply can't educate everyone in to higher paying jobs. Some people simply won't be capable, no matter how many years you make them sit there learning. The unfortunate reality is that a reasonable number of people really aren't going to end up doing more than basic work.

Accepting that, we then have the choice to allow a decent pay for people who work those jobs, or to let them stay in poverty despite the fact they're putting in a full week's work.

a welfare system that is so broke you make more money living on welfare than not.

It's largely a myth, and even to the extent it is true, a higher minimum wage actually resolves the problem.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Not true. Just because minimum wage is set at X, doesn't make the value of labor equal to X. If it was, nobody would get paid more than minimum wage for anything.

Even if the minimum wage is $15, if a job is only worth $10 its still only worth $10. Everyone is just overpaying by $5.

It's pure gibberish to try and decide the 'worth' of any individual input. A burger place can't exist without staff, it can't exist without management, it can't exist without land and building, or without that meat type stuff they put in the burgers.

The market is pretty good at deciding a good enough kind of valuation for each input, but that's all. Trying to decide that the market price is the objective 'worth' of an input is basically nonsense.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grey Templar wrote:
That depends on what people mean by dangerously close. Any closer to socialism than what we have is what I consider too dangerous. As for what Europe has, well, that's too far gone to save.

You are welcome to have an opinion on where we should find the balance between free market and government command in the economy. There are as many good arguments for the US position as there are against it, just as there is for Europe and other countries.

But just, please, don't call anything in the US socialism. That term can only be applied to some parts of Europe if get really vague about the meaning of the word socialism, so trying to stretch it to describe anything near the US position is just stupid. Words have meaning.

And don't use terms like 'dangerously close', especially not when its something as mild as a minimum wage increase. That's just inane hyperbole.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 whembly wrote:
I've always wondered that too... they ought to be the breadbasket of the frick'n world.

Much of Africa exports food. The issue isn't a failure to produce food, but the product of massive wealth inequality - many locals can't afford food, while food is exported to parts of the world who can.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grey Templar wrote:
When have companies ever caused war, or famine, or mass genocide, or any other horrible thing? Politicians are responsible for all those things.

Holy crap that reads like parody. I mean sure, Africa has had more than it's share of terrible leaders, but to ignore the behaviour of multinationals in exacerbating many of the problems is real head in the sand stuff.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sigvatr wrote:
Minimum wage is, ideally, a product of a state-economy collaboration both sides profit of. Realistically, it most often is a shackle forged by the state to bind the economy's strong arms, a vicious tool forced upon us by idealogists, fueled by lies and deception, supposed to blind the sheep believing in their petty politicians feeding them what they want to hear. While the state tries to put those shackles on, however, they get swept to the ground by the ever-marching economy's feet, bringing righteousness back to the table, shaking off the shackles and breaking free again. Those shattered shackles' remains then come raining down from the sky, ultimatively hurting those their fellow leaders swore to protect, too late for them to realize their mistake and slain by their leader's mistakes.

Okay, no, this is the post that reads like parody. In fact, I think I wrote something almost identical to this when I was making fun of uni student politics, back in the day. Although I've never been very good a parody, so I didn't come up with anything as goofy as 'shattered shackles'.

I don't think Hotsauceman1 know how much we spend on welfare compared to everything else.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 whembly wrote:
As it stands, it appears, that the existing agreement would have to be adjusted with respect to wages. Hence, the exemption request. Why should union members not get the pay raise as well?

Because you cannot break a contract just because. A collective bargaining agreement more than falls into that category.

I wasn't trying to infer to breaking current contract (it did read that way, sorry). I meant, when the new contract is established, why shouldn't union members get the same pay raise?

Source?

How embarrassed will you be when I tell you that it's mentioned in the article linked in the OP?

Well, in case you skipped over it, here it is again (the information in question is about two thirds of the way down in the article): http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-minimum-wage-unionized-20150527-story.html

O.o I misread that... that seems awfully hypocritical. Why should union workers at large hotels be exempt? What about small hotels?

Again... special snowflake treatment.

If that's true, then why should the state interfere between a person from engaging in negotiation in what they believe to be a fair wage rate with their employer, by mandating a min wage?

Again, you're awfully defensive to any/all things regarding unions.

The state isn't interfering with anyone engaging in negotiation, at least not in this case.

Also, it's funny you accuse me of being defensive here, because I haven't defended anyone or anything, instead offering information on what I know about union labor. In fact, I'm pretty much the only person saying there isn't enough given information on the subject to make a truly informed opinion, which is why I have refrained from delivering one. This might also come as a surprise to you, but I wish there wasn't a minimum wage (like in the Nordic countries). That could become a reality, but workers and employers would have to be willing to collectively bargain and that just isn't going to happen in the United States.

Eh... there's a need for min wage.

The question is "at what point" and "at what pace the increase" should be.

To me, the gradual increase to $15 over 5 years doesn't seem all that unreasonable in the City of Las Angeles. I would have more of a conniption fit if they tried to raise it to $15 by 2016.

:shrug:

I see your point that we really need to see more info... If the exemption is requested only for current collective bargained contracts, I can see the merits for that. (contract generally last 2-5 yrs..right?)

But, I challenge the notion that there ought to be a blanket-wide exemption of min wages settings for new union contracts. Which is like the major union bosses wanting union health benefits exempted from PPACA laws... which is all kinds of hypocritical.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:


In my opinion, Companies (or, rather, greed) will also cause more misery and suffering than any politician will ever do and politicians exist to curb the excesses of companies to make sure they're actually benefitting people, as opposed to just benefiting themselves.

I've altered the quote a bit, leaving it at this properly reflects the truth as the logical fallacy has already been pointed out above and neither do I want to get more off-topic...although I wonder if it truly is off-topic.

Minimum wage is, ideally, a product of a state-economy collaboration both sides profit of. Realistically, it most often is a shackle forged by the state to bind the economy's strong arms, a vicious tool forced upon us by idealogists, fueled by lies and deception, supposed to blind the sheep believing in their petty politicians feeding them what they want to hear. While the state tries to put those shackles on, however, they get swept to the ground by the ever-marching economy's feet, bringing righteousness back to the table, shaking off the shackles and breaking free again. Those shattered shackles' remains then come raining down from the sky, ultimatively hurting those their fellow leaders swore to protect, too late for them to realize their mistake and slain by their leader's mistakes.

tl;dr: As long as politicians want to push agendas and enforce them upon the economy, people will suffer. Worse than before. But as long as people want to be lied to, they deserve no better.

Yeah, the International Association of the Kongo sure was a beacon of human enlightenment, the push to privatize water in Chile had no drawbacks, and Russia wasn't completely screwed over by letting the market run rampant all over it following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Quite frankly, your point of view is insane. The market wants to make money. That's it. If it's able to combine that with improving people's lives it probably will, but it's not like it'll go out of its way to do so unless there's something to gain.

You say that companies give states their power, and to a certain extent you're right. Ultimately, though, the power of the state rests on its ability to have its constituent members physically destroy dissenters. Your precious market earns much more from the existance of the state than the state does from private companies, because without law and order (not to mention contract law) you cannot run a successful company without also killing or subjugating your opposition. Thus, it is the companies that ought to be thankful that the state exists at all, not the other way around, because without the state there is anarchy.

You're staring yourself blind at all the lovely apples your precious companies are picking without realizing that you've stood on the shoulders of the state the whole time, and then you're angry that you can't keep all the apples for yourself. It's petty, and it's a rather frightening view of reality to be honest.

The State is not, and has never been, some benevolent, altruistic construct designed to benefit the masses. The State, in all its forms throughout history, exists as a system to grant a small minority of people the power to control/influence the lives of the vast majority. That's it.

There is no entity greater than yourself that is truly looking out for your best interests because there is nothing that the State or private enterprise gains from helping your individual interest.

Business just wants your money and the State just wants your consent to be governed. Both will only try to help you to the extent needed to keep you buying their goods/services or voting for them/consenting to be governed. The State and Business are two sides of the same coin, that's why they've been in bed together since we invented governance and commerce.

No one can stand on the shoulders of the State because the State has no shoulders. The State makes nothing, it is merely a vehicle for confiscation and allocation of funds. The State doesn't create law and order or infrastructure from nothing. It forcibly tithes the wages of the private citizens and private corporations upon threat of fines and imprisonment and then allocates those funds as the State sees fit. The state provides a conducive environment to commerce but it is wholly funded by the private sector. Without private citizens and private companies to tax the State would be unable to create anything.

It is the State's need for money from the private sector that empowers Business to commit their worst behaviors. The State needs money, Business lobbies the State officials, funds their (re)election campaigns and is given influence over the creation of the very legislation that governs their business practices. Regardless of the system of government the State is always willing to take money from Business and in return help Business make more money from which the State takes their tithe. The people who run companies only help people so that those people become repeat customers and the people who run the State only help people so that they keep those people in power. The representatives/officials in Parliament/Congress/etc. the ones who pass the legislation or issue the decrees that create the assistance programs the help the downtrodden, those officials are all rich. Nobody running the State is poor, they're not the ones dependent on State assistance, they all have high paying jobs, great benefits and the get to use State resources. The officials pander to the masses, handing out pennies of danegeld so that they can retain political power and use that political power to make fortunes for themselves.

Business and the State share the same ills and both run roughshod over the citizenry but the State is always the worse of the two evils because individuals can choose to not engage in commerce with any particular business but individuals are forced to fund the State.

 sebster wrote:
A burger place can't exist without staff, it can't exist without management, it can't exist without land and building, or without that meat type stuff they put in the burgers.

Well, that's sort of what's at the crux of much of this, isn't it?

A burger place can, in fact, exist without one of those (or at least a severely reduced number of them).

 cincydooley wrote:

 sebster wrote:
A burger place can't exist without staff, it can't exist without management, it can't exist without land and building, or without that meat type stuff they put in the burgers.

Well, that's sort of what's at the crux of much of this, isn't it?

A burger place can, in fact, exist without one of those (or at least a severely reduced number of them).

yeah... one has many *many* revolutions in history to choose from as case studies for this kind of thing,

the agricultural revolution, the first, second, industrial revolutions, the computer/automation revolution, and now the internet revolution.

All moved people out of jobs, and into new ones, and overall were beneficial as a whole acting as labour multipliers. they all had growing pains and people had to adapt of course, but they are all net gains.

its like people saying that you cannot dig a dtich 100 miles long without a whole whack of people... because they do not understand that yes, 90% of those peopel can be replaced when you use CAT's/steam shovels instead of man powered shovels.


just like that, yes, 90% of the people in a MC'D type job can be replaced with touch screens and robots, often making better product, faster, and cheaper then human counter parts.

Relapse wrote:
This is a fine how do you douche:

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-los-angeles-minimum-wage-unions-20150526-story.html

Unions being corrupt....there's a shocker....

Or maybe not...

Latest news says the union carve-out might not be happening.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-minimum-wage-union-exemption-20150529-story.html

 cincydooley wrote:

A burger place can, in fact, exist without one of those (or at least a severely reduced number of them).

I assume you mean the management.

 dogma wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:

A burger place can, in fact, exist without one of those (or at least a severely reduced number of them).

I assume you mean the management.

 cincydooley wrote:

 sebster wrote:
A burger place can't exist without staff, it can't exist without management, it can't exist without land and building, or without that meat type stuff they put in the burgers.

Well, that's sort of what's at the crux of much of this, isn't it?

A burger place can, in fact, exist without one of those (or at least a severely reduced number of them).

Wouldn't that cause their work to be harder, meaning they should be paid more?

Unless of course you meant the meat type stuff. I feel like all burger places can go without that and move back to the real meat type stuff.

 cincydooley wrote:

So you don't want to debate, much like other small business owners.

 whembly wrote:
Eh... there's a need for min wage.

The question is "at what point" and "at what pace the increase" should be.

To me, the gradual increase to $15 over 5 years doesn't seem all that unreasonable in the City of Las Angeles. I would have more of a conniption fit if they tried to raise it to $15 by 2016.

:shrug:

I see your point that we really need to see more info... If the exemption is requested only for current collective bargained contracts, I can see the merits for that. (contract generally last 2-5 yrs..right?)

But, I challenge the notion that there ought to be a blanket-wide exemption of min wages settings for new union contracts. Which is like the major union bosses wanting union health benefits exempted from PPACA laws... which is all kinds of hypocritical.

What I am saying is that there should need to be a minimum wage, much like the Nordic countries, because it can interfere with collective bargaining. Since a vast majority of their labor force in these countries are working under a collective bargaining agreement, everyone more or less gets along, because workers have the power to sit down with their employers and decide what is mutually beneficial.

It sounds hypocritical because it's being spun as such. If you sit down and think about why they are trying to do this it makes sense and goes back to a point I made earlier. The unions are pushing for an exemption because from an increased minimum wage because it can interfere with bargaining, but at the same time they recognize that most workers in a low-wage setting don't have the benefit of having a voice through collective bargaining and they are the ones that need the help. Does it look bad? Sure, I'll give you that... but Americans have been conditioned to automatically assume "union = bad." It's also worth pointing out that there isn't enough data to say that an increased minimum wage while allowing a collective bargaining exemption will cause an uptick in union membership or not. We'll have to watch what happens in the handful of cities where this has started to happen.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Eh... there's a need for min wage.

The question is "at what point" and "at what pace the increase" should be.

To me, the gradual increase to $15 over 5 years doesn't seem all that unreasonable in the City of Las Angeles. I would have more of a conniption fit if they tried to raise it to $15 by 2016.

:shrug:

I see your point that we really need to see more info... If the exemption is requested only for current collective bargained contracts, I can see the merits for that. (contract generally last 2-5 yrs..right?)

But, I challenge the notion that there ought to be a blanket-wide exemption of min wages settings for new union contracts. Which is like the major union bosses wanting union health benefits exempted from PPACA laws... which is all kinds of hypocritical.

What I am saying is that there should need to be a minimum wage, much like the Nordic countries, because it can interfere with collective bargaining. Since a vast majority of their labor force in these countries are working under a collective bargaining agreement, everyone more or less gets along, because workers have the power to sit down with their employers and decide what is mutually beneficial.

It sounds hypocritical because it's being spun as such. If you sit down and think about why they are trying to do this it makes sense and goes back to a point I made earlier. The unions are pushing for an exemption because from an increased minimum wage because it can interfere with bargaining, but at the same time they recognize that most workers in a low-wage setting don't have the benefit of having a voice through collective bargaining and they are the ones that need the help. Does it look bad? Sure, I'll give you that... but Americans have been conditioned to automatically assume "union = bad." It's also worth pointing out that there isn't enough data to say that an increased minimum wage while allowing a collective bargaining exemption will cause an uptick in union membership or not. We'll have to watch what happens in the handful of cities where this has started to happen.

Gotta love the US.
Unions = bad
Corporations = generally good
Capitalism = best thing evar
Socialism = anything at all that anyone disagrees with.

Look, I know people and it's not so simple that people can just jump into college, blaze through it and get into high education. One, our industry wouldn't work that way, two, look some people are just screwed over because life isn't fair.

And, dunno if it is just me but, unlike the revolution of agriculture and more, I'm feeling an increasing cynicism that, in the era of AI and automated machines that there will be a burgeoning of jobs (considering, from what it seems like the number is actually plummeting when it comes to new jobs and let's not even talk about America's deteriorating education system)

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
An E-3 PFC has a base pay of $21.6k annually.

An E-5 Sergeant with 4 years experience has a base pay of $30k.

I'm sorry, but no burger flipper deserves as much as an an E-3, to say nothing of an E-5.

If you're an adult working for minimum wage at a zero-skill job, you don't deserve the wages of a professional soldier who puts his life on the line 24 hours a day.

I say bump up E-3 and E-5 pay.

 Sigvatr wrote:

Minimum wage is, ideally, a product of a state-economy collaboration both sides profit of. Realistically, it most often is a shackle forged by the state to bind the economy's strong arms, a vicious tool forced upon us by idealogists, fueled by lies and deception, supposed to blind the sheep believing in their petty politicians feeding them what they want to hear. While the state tries to put those shackles on, however, they get swept to the ground by the ever-marching economy's feet, bringing righteousness back to the table, shaking off the shackles and breaking free again. Those shattered shackles' remains then come raining down from the sky, ultimatively hurting those their fellow leaders swore to protect, too late for them to realize their mistake and slain by their leader's mistakes.

I feel like I already read this, carved on a monument in a leaky dystopia at the bottom of the sea.....

 feeder wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:

Minimum wage is, ideally, a product of a state-economy collaboration both sides profit of. Realistically, it most often is a shackle forged by the state to bind the economy's strong arms, a vicious tool forced upon us by idealogists, fueled by lies and deception, supposed to blind the sheep believing in their petty politicians feeding them what they want to hear. While the state tries to put those shackles on, however, they get swept to the ground by the ever-marching economy's feet, bringing righteousness back to the table, shaking off the shackles and breaking free again. Those shattered shackles' remains then come raining down from the sky, ultimatively hurting those their fellow leaders swore to protect, too late for them to realize their mistake and slain by their leader's mistakes.

I feel like I already read this, carved on a monument in a leaky dystopia at the bottom of the sea.....

And so Sigvatr asked himself, in what country was there a place for men like him - men who refused to say "yes" to the parasites and the doubters, men who believed that work was sacred and property rights inviolate?

The other thing that occurs to me is that if people strop about the prospect of paying $12 for a burger takeaway, it's because maybe other things have their costs heavily subsidised and the real cost is hidden. A huge amount of white goods and furniture in the US is made dirt cheap by prisoners who have no unions, no insurance and very small pay. Those could be jobs to many decent people but they are not. If you always had to buy goods made by honest people at minimum wage, they would be quite a bit more. Unless you want convicts slaving away in McDonalds, you'll have to buy food that was made by people earning an honest wage.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
The other thing that occurs to me is that if people strop about the prospect of paying $12 for a burger takeaway, it's because maybe other things have their costs heavily subsidised and the real cost is hidden. A huge amount of white goods and furniture in the US is made dirt cheap by prisoners who have no unions, no insurance and very small pay. Those could be jobs to many decent people but they are not. If you always had to buy goods made by honest people at minimum wage, they would be quite a bit more. Unless you want convicts slaving away in McDonalds, you'll have to buy food that was made by people earning an honest wage.

By that logic we should launch a Butlerian Jihad against automated manufacturing. It requires far fewer people to build a car in 2015 than it did in 1955 because a majority of the assembly line work is automated. I can put gas in my car, buy groceries at the store and order goods online and never interact with human employee. The driving goal of technological advancement is increased productivity, technological progress means doing the same amount of work with fewer workers. If the amount of labor required decreases why would the cost of that labor increase? McDonald's needs less labor to make burgers today than ever before and the pool of qualified applicants is vast so does the government need to interfere with peoples' right to contract by artificially inflating the cost of that labor? The decreasing need for labor is a function of technological progress, which can't be halted and can't be mitigated with unionization, labor laws, or wage minimums.

McDonald's has no moral or legal responsibility to cover all of the living expenses of their employees. McDonald's only needs to offer a high enough wage to get qualified applicants to work for them. IF minimum wage is $15/hr a McDonalds employee who is single, young and lives in his/her parents' home now has more disposable income, a McDonald's employee who is a middle aged single parent with 3 children is still heavily dependent on government assistance programs to survive. Both have the same job skills they'd have if minimum wage was still $10/hr and consequently both are still "trapped" working at McDonalds.

You can raise minimum wage and employers can offset the increased cost of labor by increasing prices but the vast majority of private sector employees don't have salaries or wages that are tied to the Consumer Price Index. When the price of milk and bread and gasoline goes up I don't suddenly get an automatic raise from my employer to help defray my increased cost of living. Likewise, if burgers cost more at McDonald's it doesn't trigger a raise for everybody else so McDonald's can raise wages and prices but doing so will shrink their customer base and hurt their bottom line potentially leading to franchises/restaurants closing leaving the employees jobless. Increasing prices will decrease commerce which reduces jobs and job growth.

In the US, a lot of union labor is tied to minimum wages, CPI and COLA. Depending on the contract, a lot of people get automatic raises tied to inflation.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
In the US, a lot of union labor is tied to minimum wages, CPI and COLA. Depending on the contract, a lot of people get automatic raises tied to inflation.

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2014 only 6.6% of the private sector was unionized and 35.7% of the public sector was unionized. The vast majority of employed people in the US are nonunion and don't get raises triggered by CPI increases. Raising wages in a way that raises prices only makes it harder for most Americans to afford things.

It also depends on the specific type of job, some are more unionized than others. Which means specific areas will get hit by wage hikes as a result of minimum wage while others won't.

Either way, expenses rise for everyone, but only a few people get the benefit of a higher wage.