Most things go...some holds barred...say what's on your mind (to an extent).
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footballguy51 wrote:
Why people ever thought that doing something basic that requires little or no skill should equate to a living wage for a large family is beyond me. If you want to get paid more, increase your productivity. Be the best employee you can be. Stand out so the company wants to pay you more to keep you. Capitalism, anyone?
If you don't pay the "unskilled" workers a wage they can support their families with, who's going to buy the product you are producing?
I've been on both sides. I went to college (have the mountain of debt to prove it). Between college and the engineering office I worked in, some of the dumbest people I've ever met. I got tired of screwing off for 6 hours a day so I started working construction. One of the things the company I worked for did for me was put me in the plant for a day and let me work the machines. I couldn't even do half the parts as the regular operator. To say they are unskilled is totally untrue. They have skills.
Funny thing is, the majority of people who say "that person is unskilled, they shouldn't be making that much," are usually the first ones to say "I wouldn't do that job." You need someone to do it. Why don't they deserve to support their family? Or should they live off of government support?
footballguy51 wrote:
Why people ever thought that doing something basic that requires little or no skill should equate to a living wage for a large family is beyond me. If you want to get paid more, increase your productivity. Be the best employee you can be. Stand out so the company wants to pay you more to keep you. Capitalism, anyone?
If you don't pay the "unskilled" workers a wage they can support their families with, who's going to buy the product you are producing?
I've been on both sides. I went to college (have the mountain of debt to prove it). Between college and the engineering office I worked in, some of the dumbest people I've ever met. I got tired of screwing off for 6 hours a day so I started working construction. One of the things the company I worked for did for me was put me in the plant for a day and let me work the machines. I couldn't even do half the parts as the regular operator. To say they are unskilled is totally untrue. They have skills.
Funny thing is, the majority of people who say "that person is unskilled, they shouldn't be making that much," are usually the first ones to say "I wouldn't do that job." You need someone to do it. Why don't they deserve to support their family? Or should they live off of government support?
By large family, I mean a family of 6. A family of 4 or less I can see.
I qualify unskilled labor as labor that does not need to possess special training or certifications before stepping on the job on day 1. As you said, you couldn't do what they did when you walked in, but after a week you probably could have. I formerly worked at Walmart. I didn't know how to do most of the job on my first day, but after a week or two I was able to perform my tasks up to standard and at an acceptable pace.
I feel the pay for a job should reflect how much time is necessary for a person to adequately perform said job and should also cover hazard pay. To that end, if you must go to school for 4 years, 6 years, 8 years, etc. for a job, then the pay better compensate for that. Unfortunately, there is one job out there that isn't compensated well at all considering the pre-job training and education necessary, and the continuing education required: teaching. I took my job at Walmart because I would make more than I would if I were a teacher.
In my current job, I am required to have 6 years of education and have prior leadership experience just to get hired. To think that a job like that should not require greater compensation than one of my first jobs (Walmart worker, dishwasher assembler at Whirlpool, or concession stand worker) is laughable.
footballguy51 wrote:
Why people ever thought that doing something basic that requires little or no skill should equate to a living wage for a large family is beyond me. If you want to get paid more, increase your productivity. Be the best employee you can be. Stand out so the company wants to pay you more to keep you. Capitalism, anyone?
If you don't pay the "unskilled" workers a wage they can support their families with, who's going to buy the product you are producing?
I've been on both sides. I went to college (have the mountain of debt to prove it). Between college and the engineering office I worked in, some of the dumbest people I've ever met. I got tired of screwing off for 6 hours a day so I started working construction. One of the things the company I worked for did for me was put me in the plant for a day and let me work the machines. I couldn't even do half the parts as the regular operator. To say they are unskilled is totally untrue. They have skills.
Funny thing is, the majority of people who say "that person is unskilled, they shouldn't be making that much," are usually the first ones to say "I wouldn't do that job." You need someone to do it. Why don't they deserve to support their family? Or should they live off of government support?
By large family, I mean a family of 6. A family of 4 or less I can see.
I qualify unskilled labor as labor that does not need to possess special training or certifications before stepping on the job on day 1. As you said, you couldn't do what they did when you walked in, but after a week you probably could have. I formerly worked at Walmart. I didn't know how to do most of the job on my first day, but after a week or two I was able to perform my tasks up to standard and at an acceptable pace.
I feel the pay for a job should reflect how much time is necessary for a person to adequately perform said job and should also cover hazard pay. To that end, if you must go to school for 4 years, 6 years, 8 years, etc. for a job, then the pay better compensate for that. Unfortunately, there is one job out there that isn't compensated well at all considering the pre-job training and education necessary, and the continuing education required: teaching. I took my job at Walmart because I would make more than I would if I were a teacher.
In my current job, I am required to have 6 years of education and have prior leadership experience just to get hired. To think that a job like that should not require greater compensation than one of my first jobs (Walmart worker, dishwasher assembler at Whirlpool, or concession stand worker) is laughable.
Teaching-Counseling-Social Work...I could go on. You must be much more specialized and licensed even to be a clinical counselor or social worker and you don't make near what a teacher makes. Imagine that.
"Pay people more so they can buy more" is just the kind of ephemeral, sounds like a good idea until you think about it concept that I'm talking about. How do you quantify that? What is enough? What is too much?....
So far as "jobs people won't do"....again...that's not a conept I can relate to. I've worked all kinds of lousy jobs to pay my bills...
It's not the fall that hurts...it's when you hit the ground.
Why You Shouldn't Shop at Walmart on Friday
Robert Reich, Posted: 11/21/12 1:51 PM
Updated: 11/21/12 2:00 PM
A half century ago America's largest private-sector employer was General Motors, whose full-time workers earned an average hourly wage of around $50, in today's dollars, including health and pension benefits.
Today, America's largest employer is Walmart, whose average employee earns $8.81 an hour. A third of Walmart's employees work less than 28 hours per week and don't qualify for benefits.
There are many reasons for the difference -- including globalization and technological changes that have shrunk employment in American manufacturing while enlarging it in sectors involving personal services, such as retail.
But one reason, closely related to this seismic shift, is the decline of labor unions in the United States. In the 1950s, over a third of private-sector workers belonged to a union. Today fewer than 7 percent do. As a result, the typical American worker no longer has the bargaining clout to get a sizable share of corporate profits.
At the peak of its power and influence in the 1950s, the United Auto Workers could claim a significant portion of GM's earnings for its members.
Walmart's employees, by contrast, have no union to represent them. So they've had no means of getting much of the corporation's earnings.
Walmart earned $16 billion last year (it just reported a 9 percent increase in earnings in the third quarter of 2012, to $3.6 billion), the lion's share of which went instead to Walmart's shareholders -- including the family of its founder, Sam Walton, who earned on their Walmart stock more than the combined earnings of the bottom 40 percent of American workers.
Is this about to change? Despite decades of failed unionization attempts, Walmart workers are planning to strike or conduct some other form of protest outside at least 1,000 locations across the United States this Friday -- so-called "Black Friday," the biggest shopping day in America when the Christmas holiday buying season begins.
At the very least, the action gives Walmart employees a chance to air their grievances in public -- not only lousy wages (as low at $8 an hour) but also unsafe and unsanitary working conditions, excessive hours, and sexual harassment. The result is bad publicity for the company exactly when it wants the public to think of it as Santa Claus. And the threatened strike, the first in 50 years, is gaining steam.
The company is fighting back. It has filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board to preemptively ban the Black Friday strikes. The complaint alleges that the pickets are illegal "representational" picketing designed to win recognition for the United Food & Commercial Workers (UFCW) union. Walmart's workers say they're protesting unfair labor practices rather than acting on behalf of the UFCW. If a court sides with Walmart, it could possibly issue an injunction blocking Black Friday's pickets.
What happens at Walmart will have consequences extending far beyond the company. Other big box retailers are watching carefully. Walmart is their major competitor. Its pay scale and working conditions set the standard.
More broadly, the widening inequality reflected in the gap between the pay of Walmart workers and the returns to Walmart investors, including the Walton family, haunts the American economy.
Consumer spending is 70 percent of economic activity, but consumers are also workers. And as income and wealth continue to concentrate at the top, and the median wage continues to drop -- it's now 8 percent lower than it was in 2000 -- a growing portion of the American workforce lacks the purchasing power to get the economy back to speed. Without a vibrant and growing middle class, Walmart itself won't have the customers it needs.
Most new jobs in America are in personal services like retail, with low pay and bad hours. According to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, the average full-time retail worker earns between $18,000 and $21,000 per year.
But if retail workers got a raise, would consumers have to pay higher prices to make up for it? A new study by the think tank Demos reports that raising the salary of all full-time workers at large retailers to $25,000 per year would lift more than 700,000 people out of poverty, at a cost of only a 1 percent price increase for customers.
And, in the end, retailers would benefit. According to the study, the cost of the wage increases to major retailers would be $20.8 billion -- about one percent of the sector's $2.17 trillion in total annual sales. But the study also estimates the increased purchasing power of lower-wage workers as a result of the pay raises would generate $4 billion to $5 billion in additional retail sales.
This seems like a good deal all around.
ROBERT B. REICH, Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, was Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration. Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written thirteen books, including the best sellers "Aftershock" and "The Work of Nations." His latest is an e-book, "Beyond Outrage," now available in paperback. He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine and chairman of Common Cause.
Religious or political discussions will not be tolerated, nor will personal attacks. The forum will be policed offending posts will be removed, and offending posters will be warned and/or disciplined.
