Minimum wage

Fine then make it the next contract renewal following a triple increase of the minimum wage.

If the minimum wage were to triple tomorrow how much should the average union wage increase at the next contract negotiation?

I really would like an answer, billwald, since you are the go to union guy on the board.

 

Suppose----just suppose----the employer decides----this time around I ain't gonna raise my minimum wage like every other company

Instead

I will move my employees from hourly pay---to percentage of profit

As the company goes---you eat and buy gas---the more cars you sell for me---the more "Bula Bula" you take home

If you work at a fast food place----no minimum wage---just percentage of profit---the more customers come in and buy Whoppers---the more "Doughnuts" you put in your wallet!!!

How would that work?? Instead of a guaranteed minimum---theres no guarantee on percentage---so you gotta work harder and sweat more--but in the long run---I think it would work

I worked for a construction company and the owner moved us from hourly wage to percentage of the finished square footage---it made us work harder and faster---the faster we completed Job A--we could move on to Job B!!

 

I don't even need his answer - I already know what the unions would do.

They would want a pay increase.

I just wanted to have billwald admit it.

 

Would you please explain how minimum wages and union wages are directly proportional. Minimum wages are set by law. (you know, Congress passes a bill and the President signs it). Union wages are set by an agreement between a union and management of a company within the private sector.

Maybe I am misunderstanding. Does the President sit in on the negotiations on the managment side and Congressional leaders sit on the union side?

 

It's simple.

Union members look at how much minimum wage employees are making and then compare it to what they are making.

When the minimum wage goes up the union workers decide that they aren't making enough anymore - so they negotiate for a raise.

BTW - I did not say that that "minimum wages and union wages are directly proportional".

 

Well, aside from no evidence to support that unions ask for greater wages, the agreement that sets union wages is usually for a set amount of time, typically two to four years. Wages remain the same for that amount of time, at least. All of that ignored, that still does not explain how a governmental action and negotiated contract are interrelated.

 

Now you are simply being deliberately obtuse.

 

I don't understand why people are talking as if paying a minimum wage is a must for every person paying someone and thus not good.

Salty, YOU NEVER LISTEN TO ME! Okay, you do, lol. It's raining and I felt like yelling but actually, you did ask me the same question after I'd already answered it...the one about paying less than minimum for having a lawn mowed or babysitting of kids without special needs by a teenager.

I am not an employer when I personally hire a babysitter or someone to mow my lawn. Why does minimum wage have anything to do with this?

There are ways to get work done that do not require paying minimum wage. Like one person stated, he was paid a percentage. I've worked as an independent contractor and sometimes I made great per hour, sometimes what I made an hour could be counted in change. If I'm paid by production, and it is legal to do so, the person paying me isn't my employee...I'm either my own business or working on my one. I forget the difference, but when I worked on my own, I paid a ridiculous amount of taxes, but when I worked under a business name, I was able to claim deductions and reduce how much tax I owed overall. The first year, they offer a 50% deduction for first time business owners.

However, have any of you considered that a business may also be protected by minimum wage and that it may help the economy? Think about how it was before they started requiring waiters/waitresses to be paid minimum wage. Many would lie about their income and get away with not paying taxes on their total income. Then it changed (at least in the state I was in at the time) to the restaurants being required to pay minimum wage. All of a sudden, owners were MUCH more interested in just how much their employees were making and claiming, because the employer had to pay tax on those employees for at least the basis of minimum wage. So now they could only lie their income down to minimum, more taxes were paid, the cruddy servers received less hours, the better ones got prime hours. Those who were poor workers...many of them were lying an on welfare to boot anyhow, so they had to find another employer who would put up with them since welfare laws changed and it's very difficult to get cash benefits without working, and the employees who may have otherwise qualified for welfare didn't have to anymore because the low producers were gone and the good workers picked up their tips plus extra because many people are willing to tip hard workers better.

One of the things I noticed with that change was a sudden decrease in the desire of restaurants to hire illegal immigrants. Many stopped or at least hired less. It just wasn't as attractive anymore, although some still did, but the government is fairly decent at figuring out cost of operations and such and how many employees it takes to run a business who claims they bought x amount of product and such, so red flags go up and they consider the place may be using illegals if the numbers aren't typical enough. Less work for illegal immigrants meant more work for citizens and more money staying here in the USA since it wasn't being sent out of the country to relatives or saved up over the years to be taken out of country so they could go home and live much better there on the same amount than they ever could in the USA.

I don't like to see people losing jobs, but I do see a lot of people who need to. My husband recently took a job and it makes me really sad that he has less hours than he applied for, yet he's often told that he is their best employee and management is relieved when he comes in because they know things will get done. Then he goes and does other people's work because he's bored and like me, would rather be doing something on the job than just sitting around. Yet he gets paid the same. That's just poor business management. They could save a lot of money by having just him and the other person who works, rather than having a high producer, a medium producer, and two people who spend the majority of their time finding something to do in an area without cameras, which is usually nothing and even if they did find something to do, it isn't what they were hired to do.
So I don't feel too bad about the prospect of people losing their jobs. Often, it proves to a small business employee that he/she CAN manage with less workers and be paying less benefits and have less risks of accidents and such by reducing the number of workers. The lower end producers can go get more education or learn that the harder they work, the more likely they are to be retained.

Now have lots of good people lost their jobs anyhow due to our recent economy. Yep. My husband was one of those and it took a couple years for him to find another job, and it was a lesson in humility as is the pay for the job I ended up taking.

I don't blame the minimum wage for that though. In fact, I'm rather thankful for it because I'm pretty sure that if it wasn't for that, we'd be taken advantage of and not be able to provide for our kids. Minimum wage didn't tank this economy, idiotic spending with poor oversight of the spenders higher up managed to do that.

 

Gina, I don't care if minimum wage made the economy boom (although it actually does nothing). The government has NO RIGHT to interfere. A privately owned business should not have to take orders from the government. A private citizen should not be told the minimum for which they can work. I should be able to work for whatever I darn well please, and the government should butt out.

IT IS NONE OF THEIR BUSINESS. This is what a free society is all about. The government is (supposed to be) here to defend our rights, and provide infrastructure. Nothing more.

 

What is does is fuel inflation.

 

Theoretically, yes, it would. But historically I don't think it affects inflation much. I think it affects prices in those industries that employ minimum wage workers, like restaurants and fast food, but otherwise it's just a blip on the overall economy.

The minimum wage was raised from $5.15 to $5.85 in 2007, after 10 years of no increase. That's an increase of 13.6% spread out over 10 years or an average annual rate of 1.36%. Rate of inflation from 1997-2007 was around 3%.

We've had two increases since 2007: an increase of 12% in 2008 and an increase of 10.7% in 2009. The inflation rate for these years was:

2007: 2.85%
2008: 3.85%
2009: -.34%
2010: 1.64%
2011: 3.16%
2012: currently is 2.30%

 

Oh brother.

I joined the Navy, sent money home to help my family, and attended one of the top electronics schools in the world, in the process. And while I did it, I was making a lot less than minimum wage.

 

How willing are you to take a pay cut, since you said having more money to spend kicks up inflation?

Is there a single person on this thread, who believes as you do, that is willing to take a pay cut for the sake of protesting government interference in pay rates and/or help keep inflation down?

If no, why not? At least you'd get a lot of attention for your cause and maybe make a lot of people think twice. It could help educate people.

It would definitely get my attention to see this as a news story. I'd take your point of view a lot more seriously if you believed strongly enough to do this. I'm sure the news outlets would eat it up and your beliefs would get a lot of reaction and get people thinking very seriously about this issue.

 

I never said anything about college. You said people having more money to spend means there is more inflation.

So that must mean that if people have less money to spend, there would be less inflation.

So a great way to do that would be for people to take pay cuts!

Where am I wrong? I'm going by your own logic here, aren't I?