Seattle just passed a $15 minimum wage...

Discussion in 'The Red Room' started by Volpone, Jun 3, 2014.

  1. Volpone

    Volpone Zombie Hunter

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  2. garamet

    garamet "The whole world is watching."

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  3. Ancalagon

    Ancalagon Scalawag Administrator Formerly Important

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  4. garamet

    garamet "The whole world is watching."

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  5. T.R

    T.R Don't Care

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    A wise decision to phase this in slowly though I do think 15 an hour is a bit high. Still, I won't be mourning the restaurant's inability to expand.
  6. Ancalagon

    Ancalagon Scalawag Administrator Formerly Important

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    Having the companies that profit from the workers labor, actually start to pay the cost of providing that labor is a much better strategy than having the government subsidize it (through food stamps, rent support, direct payments etc).

    One thing about low wage jobs is that when you look at them, they can't really be moved. Can't really move a janitor, a hotel worker, or fast food worker to the suburbs. It also has the added benefit of raising the wages in areas around the city. Now, even if you are outside the political boundary of Seattle, unless you want all the best workers working in the city and you just get stuck with the rejects, you'll have to raise your wages as well. Maybe not to $15 a hour, but enough that when commuting is taken into consideration you are competitive. Thus the whole region will benefit.

    Contrast this with raising a tax on say all businesses or people in Seattle in order to subsidize that labor (through food stamps, rent support, direct payments etc). Many of those residents and jobs can move, so not only do you help push out people and business from your city, but those areas around you start competing in a race to the bottom, which hurts them as well.
    Last edited: Jun 3, 2014
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  7. Ancalagon

    Ancalagon Scalawag Administrator Formerly Important

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    Yes, the phase in is key. An added benefit is that it allows it to be tweaked as we get more data.
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  8. Tuckerfan

    Tuckerfan BMF

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    We had a discussion about this on another board I post to. One of the posters there is a European who works in the restaurant industry and he was talking about something he noticed at an equipment convention he attended. In Europe, restaurants have a higher labor cost, so the Europeans were all looking at the automation equipment, because it'd help cut the number of people they have on staff. The Americans, meanwhile, couldn't give a shit about the automation gear, because their labor costs were so low in comparison to the Europeans.

    Of course, once corporations have completely automated the manual labor jobs, they'll look at ways to get rid of other jobs as well.
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  9. Diacanu

    Diacanu Comicmike. Writer

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    Everything at the big fast food chains can be assembled in a factory, flash frozen, and nuked back to life at a self-service cubicle.
    The soda's already self-serve, let's finish the job.
    Fucking McDonalds/Burger King/Wendy's/could be a self service checkout line surrounded by concrete picnic tables.
    Put a little roof over it in winter time.
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  10. Ancalagon

    Ancalagon Scalawag Administrator Formerly Important

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    Bringing back the Automat:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automat
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  11. Steal Your Face

    Steal Your Face Anti-Federalist

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    I would be fine with that. I wouldn't have to deal with some dumbass teenager fucking up my order. McDonalds is like wrestling, it's a facade. Some people still believe that they're burger is being cooked to order.
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  12. Ancalagon

    Ancalagon Scalawag Administrator Formerly Important

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    There is a place near my office that has a bank of iPads. Scan your credit card and it pulls up whatever you have saved as your favorites as well as your last five orders. I dig it.
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  13. garamet

    garamet "The whole world is watching."

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    Automats were cool. The last one closed in the Eighties. I still miss them. :(
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  14. Steal Your Face

    Steal Your Face Anti-Federalist

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    I'm sure this or something like this will be the future of fast food regardless of minimum wage hikes.
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  15. garamet

    garamet "The whole world is watching."

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    And maybe someday we'll grow up enough to realize that human potential is better spent on other things than flipping/nuking burgers.
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  16. T.R

    T.R Don't Care

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    Mcdonalds is already rolling out self order machines and many grocery stores have self checkout lines. The writing is clearly on the wall for these jobs.
  17. Ancalagon

    Ancalagon Scalawag Administrator Formerly Important

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    Yep. Many of those jobs will go away. Reducing labor costs by process improvement and automation has been at the heart of the fast food industry ever since the McDonald brothers introduced their Speedee Service System almost 70 years ago. Which is why we need to stop subsidizing the jobs that do that stay, instead plowing that money into creating newer, good paying jobs and preparing workers to fill them.
    Last edited: Jun 3, 2014
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  18. Nova

    Nova livin on the edge of the ledge Writer

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  19. Ancalagon

    Ancalagon Scalawag Administrator Formerly Important

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    Why Seattle raised our minimum wage, and why America should too
    By Sally J. Clark
    updated 3:10 PM EDT, Tue June 3, 2014

    Editor's note:
    Sally J. Clark serves on the Seattle City Council and was part of the unanimous vote Monday to raise the city's minimum wage to $15 per hour. She chaired the Council's Select Committee on Minimum Wage and Income Inequality. You can follow her on Twitter @sallyJclark. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.


    (CNN) -- The Seattle City Council just voted to put low-wage workers on a path over the next several years to earning a $15-per-hour minimum wage.

    You may think, "There goes the crazy upper left corner of the country again" -- but there's method to our madness.

    This historic measure came after a five-month process that brought together business and civic leaders, unions and nonprofits in tough negotiations. But the real fuel for Seattle's action came from a growing unease across the United States with income inequality.

    You could argue that some level of income inequality is required for our system. That inequality is tolerable, though, because it's coupled with a promise: "Work hard and you'll get ahead."

    [​IMG]
    Sally J. Clark

    But more of us every day worry that the promise is fading. After the job losses of the Great Recession, the rise of the 1 percent, the headlines showing CEO pay at 257 times average worker pay, the evidence that race and gender exacerbate income inequality, doubts that this generation of kids will be better off than their parents, crushing student debt burdens, and relentless foreclosures, many are left wondering if the middle class was a fleeting 20th-century phenomenon heading toward extinction.

    Over the course of the last five months, as we've debated whether and how to raise the minimum wage in Seattle, I've talked with business owners and workers alike concerned with the widening distance between low-wage workers and the rest of the economy. They all had different thoughts, but they were almost unanimous that we can't keep going the way we're going.

    We just can't expect the people who prepare our food, care for our elders and children, and clean our homes and offices to earn wages that keep them trapped in poverty.

    These conversations are playing out in cities and towns all over America as people look at their wages, their household expenses, their hopes for their kids and their dreams of retirement.

    Am I worried about what we're doing in Seattle? You bet I am. No other large city has committed to this kind of minimum wage increase. Restaurants are concerned about already thin profits in the industry and wage imbalance between front of house and back of house; small manufacturers are worried they'll be even less competitive with manufacturers in other parts of the country and world; and nonprofit human service agencies don't know whether funders will step up to cover increased staff costs.

    In truth, it would be preferable to see minimum wage increases happening at the state or national level as a more equitable way to raise the wages of working people and help businesses thrive on a level playing field. However, gridlock at those levels pushes the fight into cities all over the country.

    As promised, here's the method to the madness: The $15 per hour figure is a bit art and a bit science, but it's close to what experts say it costs in our area for a full-time worker to meet basic needs (housing, food, utilities, transportation, etc.).

    At Washington state's current minimum wage of $9.32 per hour, the highest state wage in the country, a worker still takes home far less than needed to make rent and pay the bills.

    A higher minimum wage means more stable individuals, families, neighborhoods and towns. A higher minimum wage means being able to buy your child a pair of shoes. A higher minimum wage means more consumer spending and, I hope, a little more consumer saving. And, no, minimum wage earners aren't going to suddenly become complacent and sit for years in minimum wage jobs. Minimum wage workers have dreams of advancement and accomplishment just like anyone else.

    A higher minimum wage might mean presenting a truer cost to consumers. If you think it's odd that a burger, fries and a shake can cost just $4, that's because that price is subsidized in part by the low wages paid to the people who cook, serve, and clean up after your meal.

    Seattle -- already in a state with the nation's highest minimum wage -- was recently announced as one of America's fastest growing cities. If a high wage is a "job killer" as some critics say, the experience of cities that have raised wages undermines this too-convenient excuse for inaction.

    I love my city because of our neighborhoods alive with locally owned shops and restaurants. My city is thriving because of our music and theater scene. My city is productive because of jobs generated by Amazon, Starbucks, the Gates Foundation and the University of Washington. (Puget Sound and Mount Rainier don't hurt either.)

    We need the plan we've adopted for getting to $15 per hour to work so that we pass a great Seattle on to the next generation, a Seattle that struggles just a little less to make ends meet.

    Here in the upper left corner of the country, we are taking bold steps to save the dream of an American middle class. We may be just one city, but we are providing a pathway for action in the national conversation to reduce income inequality.

    http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/03/opinion/clark-seattle-wage/index.html
  20. Jefferey Walker

    Jefferey Walker Fresh Meat

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    Nobody has never been a guarantee of monetary success. The only thing that we are guaranteed is the pursuit of happiness. It is the political establishment that thirsts for increased power that has created and perpetuated the myth that we are some how guaranteed success of any type.
  21. Shirogayne

    Shirogayne Gay™ Formerly Important

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    All very true, but it doesn't mean we should let the working class starve to death or, even worse for many, suck up taxpayers' bucks for welfare that pays as much or more than minimum wage.

    I'm skeptical, but in the end results are results and I hope to be proven wrong.
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  22. The Exception

    The Exception The One Who Will Be Administrator Super Moderator

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    And yet I'd accept higher prices for staffed registers. Take the dumbest teenager you can find, and they're still better than the most intelligent self-checkout systems.
  23. Ancalagon

    Ancalagon Scalawag Administrator Formerly Important

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    Not if you're brighter than the dumbest teenager you can find. :diacanu:
  24. T.R

    T.R Don't Care

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    Hopefully this works but in the end it's just a temporary band aid. The real problem is inflation and the weakening of the U.S dollar. Until that is fixed we will continue to revisit this issue every 5-10 years.
  25. The Exception

    The Exception The One Who Will Be Administrator Super Moderator

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    No, the real problem is two fold.

    1. Capital is gaining an ever increasing share of income respective to labor.
    2. Jobs can be replaced with automation much easier than people can be retrained. This has a downward effect on wages.

    If inflation was the primary issue then wages should grow with inflation.
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  26. garamet

    garamet "The whole world is watching."

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    Another problem is that the five day/eight hour a day work week has been etched in stone for over a century, and job training only occurs as a stop-gap after an industry leaves town or a job category disappears.

    What's needed is a change in mindset. Someone should figure out what skills will be needed over the next 10, 25, 50 years and train people for them instead of churning out a one-size-fits-all education. And with automation eliminating so much of the rote in even skilled jobs, is it really necessary for everyone to clock in for eight hours a day, five days a week?
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  27. Diacanu

    Diacanu Comicmike. Writer

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    That's why drugs and prostitution need to be legalized.
    Soon, it'll be the only work that's left.
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  28. Captain X

    Captain X Responsible cookie control

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    I think it's time to find a good automation company. :D
  29. Order2Chaos

    Order2Chaos Ultimate... Immortal Administrator

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    So there are UX issues with certain existing self-checkout systems. Big deal. That'll be fixed in the next revision. Meanwhile, I've met some teenagers working in fast food places who couldn't figure out how to give change for a $20 on a $19.75 total.
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  30. Steal Your Face

    Steal Your Face Anti-Federalist

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    No, the real problem is government thinking it should intervene in the economy. Every time it tries to "fix" the problem, it ends up making things worse. Let the market work itself out and jobs will return, even low skilled jobs.
    You mean like common core?
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