just a thought II wrote:
Thats compassionate for you to THINK that. But do your actions reflect your words? In other words, do you tip the worker the difference between what the worker makes and what you think the worker should make? Otherwise, you are making a moral claim and paying for it with other people's money.
I'm obsessed with tipping. It drives my mom nuts as I'm always wondering should I give the bellman $10 or $5.
Great post below on Unions.
TKTKTK wrote:
Your reasoning is exactly why unions were founded and remain so essential (despite successful right-wing efforts to discredit them). Yes, in a 1-to-1 comparison, you bring more value to the company than one guy working the gas pump in Poughkeepsie; he presumably could be replaced much more easily than you. But his position is absolutely necessary (for now) to the proper functioning of your company. The position, not the person, is worth lots more than those holding the position are being compensated. But because working folks are fighting for scraps, someone will eventually take the job for whatever chickenfeed is being paid to do it. The job is essential; the worker is not. We have mistaken the disposability of individual workers for the insignificance of their jobs.
What unions do is to help eliminate that distinction. We are the job, they say; you want this job at your company, you get one of us. It sounds like bullying only if you're precious about your own unique skill set and the value you ascribe to it. What unions are saying is, don't pay us what each individual is "worth"; because we know that there are many with our skill-set (which drives down the value of any one individual with those skills), we are compelling you to pay us based on the value of the job to the company. Who gets to determine value to a company? Well, that's determined through bargaining and striking. These are market corrections in action.
In short, your attitude totally validates the entire unionizing project. And I wonder if a minimum wage creates a sort of very loose union: not a trade union, per se, but a union of people who believe that work--of even the most menial sort--has a value of $x/hour.
The problem with low wage jobs is when you apply for a job at UPS there are 1,000 other people applying for it so you don't have a lot of bargaining power. THat doesn't mean the job isn't important.
Anyway, companies play hard ball all the time. If delivery guys refused to delivery starting now, amazon would be in big trouble. Now amazon would likely win out as they'd find strike breakers most likely. So basically workers would run out of cash before amazon.
When a rich guy is bidding to buy an NFL team, he's only competing with a few other people for that asset.
