Not playing that game again. I can easily go all thesaurus and use different words to say the same thing. Someone will just read their trigger words between the lines. Waste of effort.
it isn't a serious question at all. or are you really so disingenuous as to claim that people at that level have any bargaining power with either the employer or employment agent?
They don't have much bargaining power because they don't have anything valuable to sell. Sorry if that stings, but that's reality. There are already significant interventions that force businesses to pay more for low skilled employees than their market value.
The little guys can form a Voltron, they're called unions, and righties hate them with the fire of a thousand suns.
just about any low wage gig, really... but here I was thinking service industry or line workers (i.e.: factory temps). we've fallen a long way from making the best products for the lowest price while paying the highest wages...
That's the tune they sing until there's a strike, and their machine stops, then the sneers turn into bawling and spit bubbles preeetty fucking fucking quick.
it isn't a lack of value, it's more that there's always someone desperate enough to take what's being offered, even if it will eventually deteriorate them. Nobody takes a shitty job expecting to stay there, but they do get stuck for whatever reasons. and really? their "market value"? sounds like indenture, if not outright slavery. Or is that what you want? I mean you seem quite contented by an America with economic disparity that matches that of the 1850s, so it'd stand to follow...
"Hey, I want a job." "Okaaay...what can you do?" "I can push a mop." "So can just about everyone. What else?" "I can pick things up and move them around." "So can just about everyone else. What else?" "I know how to use a shovel." (sighs) "Well...all I got is basic labor type jobs. Starting pay is minimum wage. Maybe..." "I neglected to mention: I've got degrees in mechanical engineering from Stanford, and 10 years experience at tier one manufacturers. Here are my references and a list of patents in my name." "$180k/year plus a nice benefits package. Start Monday?"
Again, it comes down to how one defines "prove" and how one defines "worth." What one person might accept as proof will be too flimsy to another. And if one defines "worth" exclusively as "what the market is willing to pay," then you've got close to a tautology that if the market is only willing to pay someone $X for their work, then that work is only worth $X. Fortunately, we don't have to accept that formulation. For an example of why, let's look at slavery, or its modern day equivalent of prison labor. By any reasonable definition, enslaved people were and prison laborers are bringing in far more value for their employers than they are being paid in wages. I hope that everyone would agree that just because enslaved people and prison laborers aren't able to get more money than they are paid that their worth isn't simply what they got paid. Then we get into the concept of discrimination. Take the general principle established by various studies that women generally earn 79 percent of what equally qualified men in the same position do. (Yes, I'm sure there are caveats and issues with this as a concept.). That doesn't mean that the women are only doing a job worth 79 percent of their male counterparts' pay. This hopefully illustrates the greater principle that sometimes a worker does not have a free and fair ability to negotiate for what they are truly worth. Sometimes private or public actors are going to drastically limit those abilities. Sometimes, it's just circumstances. The ability to maximize wages may have to take a back seat because of the need for health insurance, the notion that three-quarters of a loaf is better than none, that some other factor makes taking a cut in income worthwhile, etc. etc. Even taking as a principle that one is only worth what the market is willing to pay, various factors in basic economics would say that someone's inability to get the market rate at a given moment does not mean that they are not worth the market rate. If the average salary for a person in a given profession is $90k, there may be no employers at a given market who are willing to hire people at that rate. But they may be willing to hire someone to do that job at $80k. That doesn't mean the person's worth isn't $90k. It just means that they were willing to swallow less than the market rate for whatever reason. Along similar lines, say market rate for someone's work is currently $80k, but over time the market rate rises to $90k. The inability for John Doe to get someone to immediately pay the new market rate does not change the fact that the work he does has now been deemed by the market to be worth $90k. One could, in many jobs, make the argument based on some set of metrics that they deserve more than the market rate. If a salesperson, for example, can point to them generating far more in sales than their competition, then that is evidence for them deserving more than the average salesperson at that company, regardless of whether the company is actually willing to so compensate them. I probably could go on, but you get the gist.
Uh...it kinda is. No, it never plays out that way, but I'm contrasting two near extremes to illustrate that there's a big difference between the value of unskilled and skilled jobs. The only ways to correct for that difference are to restrain the price the skilled can charge or to force the business to pay a higher than market price for the unskilled.
If laborers aren't worth anything, why are restaurants closing because no one wants to work there? If janitorial work isn't valuable, why do janitor strikes shut down hospitals to a grinding halt? The last boss who thought he could just plug-and-play me into a position was was unqualified and untrained for found out really quickly what a stupid idea *that* was.
is it irony that I jsut posted a picture of Haymarket Square? because that's a shit load of straw you got going on here real question though: what would you pay that mechanical engineer to ride a shovel?
Yes, minimum wage is a thing, as are various worker protection laws. But that does not change that large employers in particular have far more bargaining power than any employee, regardless of the skill level. Even someone who offers as valuable a service as whatever it is you do (an engineer of some variety?) could be replaced by probably a dozen similarly qualified candidates in a month, or sooner, if your company wanted to. By contrast, the average high-skilled employee could not guarantee a new job with a similar company in that time frame. And that is not even touching on the notion of how the political/legal system favors employers over individual workers or unions.
Each person and each position is so unique that there's no universal set of metrics to evaluate them, let alone to determine their "correct" market value. Let me state at the outset (because a lot of people just don't get this): there is no objectively "correct" wage for an employee or price for any good). The market rate is based on supply and demand (Econ 101 again!), market conditions, and perceptions and estimations of future value. If there is 1 position available for someone with a particular skillset and 100 qualified applicants, competitive pressures will force the price down. With that many people vying for one job, the answer to the question "Why should I hire you?" will often be "Because I'll do it for less." The value of an employee can change with changing circumstances. The software engineer that was getting big bucks because he knew some hot web technology three years ago may be less valuable if that technology goes obsolete. Professionals: you gotta keep up with changing business conditions! Similarly, a star salesman may think that he is underpaid if he's getting the same as his lesser performing colleagues. He's probably right if he can either get the business to pay more or get an offer from another firm more inline with his self-appraisal. The estimation of value is vindicated for the seller if he can get offers at his price. The validation for the buyer is the same. The buyer and seller agree on the price or the transaction does not take place. That's as close to fair as it gets. Buyer and seller are free to use whichever criteria they like, but it's always constrained by the market. Any third party intervention in that process is inevitably an attempt to bias the process in favor of one side or the other.
The same price I'd pay anyone else to. His engineering pedigree is of no value to me if he only wants to shovel.
No, bec No. Because you are using the collective corporation, but forcing the applicant to use his self. A corporation doesn’t hire individuals. It hires a workforce. What is the collective value of the workforce? That should determine pay. THEN, the individual is judged by their individual performance.
As someone who is involved in hiring, I can tell you unequivocally this is generally false. The more skilled you are, the more difficult you are to replace. The difficulty in replacing you is reflected in your wage. Side note: I have a friend who was a fairly senior aeronautical engineer at a BIG defense firm. I forget the specifics, but his job title was something like Aeronautical Engineer 6, which had very specific education and experience requirements. When he left the company, he was asked by some manager if he could spend an afternoon with an Aeronautical Engineer III and bring them up to speed as his replacement. He flat out told them: that you think the difference in an AE3 and an AE6 can be covered in an afternoon is not only ignorant, but insulting. If you could make an AE6 in an afternoon, all your engineers would be AE6s. Depends on market conditions. Right now is a great time to be an engineer looking for a job, for instance. I'd need specific examples to comment.
Let me get this straight...pay should be determined by the collective value of the entire workforce, but the individual is judged on their performance? So, if the individual performs well, no raise? If poorly, still gets the same as everyone wlse in a similar position?
That's why we have -- what's the bumper-sticker platitude I'm looking for -- oh yes, laws to prevent exploitation.
See also: "If you won't work for peanuts, then business owners will just automate your jobs! Ha ha, take that, peasants!" (people start refusing to work for peanuts) "We have to close because nobody wants to work! I demand that you feel sorry for me! Why, oh why, does nobody want to work?"
Didn't say "not worth anything." And people who work in restaurants may be semi-skilled to skilled. Restaurant owners would rather stay open, yes? And they'd rather stay in business and make something if they could, yes? Then the answer is: restaurants cannot find workers to fill the needed jobs who will work for wages that are viable for the business. They could offer more to lure workers, but conditions put that price too high. Because laws protect striking workers. Without such protections, they wouldn't strike because they'd be fired and replaced. As I said, any intervention (like a law) is about biasing the relationship in one aide's favor. See my response to Raoul. Generally, skilled workers are not so quickly and easily replaced. Generally, the higher one's salary, the harder one is to quickly replace. In fact, that's the basis for the salary. If you're easily replaced, you're not so valuable. (And by "replaced," I don't mean merely hiring someone to fill your chair, but to replace you in the sense of capabilities.)
