If your biz model is based on paying slave wages - your business deserves to fail

[TomDaisy]

this is what I say to people who shriek about having to pay $15 an hour

Employers have gotten so very used paying slave wages -- they pretty much feel Entitled to virtually free labor at this point.

Well that's not my fault. It was not right before and it is not right now.

This is America, not China, and in America we need to pay actual wages to our workers.

[Walleye]

1. I hate tightwads and cheapskates. Spread the joy God dammit

[dchill]

2. You're right. But it won't.

[Blue Owl]

3. Lookin' at you MyPillow guy

[BComplex]

4. That should be the new meme all over social media...because the conservatives

Last edited Mon Jan 25, 2021, 10:43 AM - Edit history (1)

who not only want slave wages....THEY WANT REAL SLAVES....are going to be weeping and wailing and gnashing their teeth.

[LuvNewcastle]

7. And while they're on that Nantucket sleigh ride,

they might be wailing, too.

[BComplex]

17. LOL!

Ooops! Yeah, that, too.

Fixed it. Thanks!!

[LuvNewcastle]

20. Thanks for the chuckle. I needed that.

[DanieRains]

5. Sorry I Have To Disagree As A Business Owner

I hate to say it but some employees get very little done for many different reasons. If you have to pay them / all employees $15 an hour or more, you would have to lay off the unproductive ones, and replace them with someone far more capable or go out of business.

I don't want to make waves, or act like a jerk, but employers with big hearts sometimes employ the unemployable. Literally. I have had employees that would have a hard time working anywhere else. People I really liked, but had "problems" and if I got rid of them I knew they probably wouldn't be able to work any more.

Not all employers are green with greed, but when your bottom line is what buys your food, watching an employee spend more than half their time literally doing nothing productive doesn't feel right. I am for the $15 minimum wage by the way, but it is complicated.

Not every business owner is manager of the year also, and dealing with alcoholics, drug addicts, and people who simply can't get out of bed isn't the greatest thing to do, all for the glory of "owning a business".

Before you rage at me, a few years back I worked 60 to 70 hours a week, and lost $20k for a whole years work, and my payroll was $240K. How many of you would work for minus $600 a day? Thought so.

Ya gotta keep tryin' sometimes.

Danie~

[TomDaisy]

10. maybe if you paid them more they would be better workers

[blueinredohio]

14. IMO, not only be better workers they would be more loyal

and you wouldn't always have a big turnover of employees.

[TomDaisy]

11. if someone's paying me dirt, why would I bust my ass for them????

[moonscape]

12. If someone isn't productive enough then yes, let them go

and hire someone who is. The person will then decide to be more productive in their next job, or if they have an alcohol or drug problem as you mentioned, that needs to be addressed separately. Holding down the wages of others to cover for them doesn’t seem fair.

If a business can’t sustain itself paying a living wage, then maybe the business needs to be assessed for viability or creative solutions.

It is wrong for some to have to work 2 full-time jobs to put a roof over their head, but that’s the situation too many are in.

I was a small-business owner so it’s not that I’m not sympathetic or think you’re a monster, but we have a destructive economic divide in this country and those at the very bottom of the food chain are bearing the brunt and this does need to change.

[obamanut2012]

13. What a... unique argument for not paying your workers a living wage

[Turin_C3PO]

21. Just a bunch of excuses not to pay your employees a decent wage.

Do better, please, especially if you consider yourself progressive.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

6. Exactly. That old brag line about them being "job creators" is so

annoying and falls flat as a thin pancake when we look at the kind of jobs most of the self-aggrandizing villains offered: shitty, low-paying ones of which you needed at least two to get by.

[SunSeeker]

8. K & R

[progree]

9. The problem is they are competing with others in the same industry paying slave wages

so they aren't necessarily stupid incompetents or jerks if they have to pay low wages in order to stay in business.

Minimum wage needs to be raised on as large a geographic area as possible, e.g. if Minneapolis raises minimum wage, many people will just go to the nearest suburb to shop, dine, etc. Best of course is nationwide, with some differences depending on cost of living.

As for jobs that just go overseas if wages are too high in the U.S. or locally ...

[Wounded Bear]

18. That's why there is a minimum wage...as you say...nt

[Bernardo de La Paz]

15. All this crap about bizzes failing due to wage - other business will grow! They'll take up the slack

[BlueTsunami2018]

16. That's a bit harsh.

Rural area businesses could be destroyed by it. $15 is definitely different in places that have a million people to draw business from versus places that have a thousand. The dollar has different value from location to location as well. Six hundred bucks a week before taxes is nothing in New York or San Francisco but in Bumblefuck, Mississippi it’s a whole different thing. Saying that people deserve to have their businesses fail because they couldn’t make it paying people more than they can afford to based on income is pretty hard hearted. Mom and pop stores in small towns would disappear even faster than they are already. And the Walmarts and Costcos of the world aren’t going to move in to fill the void because the customer base isn’t there to justify their stores.

We should have been gradually moving toward this over the years so it wouldn’t be the system shock that doubling it overnight will be for a lot of businesses.

I’m not sure what the fair way to do this would be.

[hunter]

19. Small town white rural U.S.A. is generally rotten.

The bright kids leave, the creative kids leave, the LBGTQ kids leave... or else they destroy themselves by drugs, alcohol, reckless driving, suicide, etc...

And then rural people, instead of trying to figure out what the hell is wrong with their communities, blame anyone but their own fucked up religions and ideologies. And their corrupt and power hungry politicians and preachers only fan those flames of ignorance and self-victimization..

The only reason we have to pay attention to rural populations is their disproportionate political representation.

Personally, if I was God Emperor of the U.S.A. I'd get rid of the Electoral College and the Senate and make sure that anyone who wants to flee wretched rural lifestyles could get on a bus to a good job with comfortable housing in the city. I'd buy out the farms that supply factory farm meat or ridiculous fuel ethanol and restore these lands to forest and prairie. I'd pay people to experiment with lifestyles having very small environmental footprints.

A lot of white suburbs suffer similar problems to rural communities. They are soulless empty places and the people are preyed upon by grifters selling various forms of spiritual snake oil, from prosperity gospel Christianity to Scientology.

There is no way in hell I'd ever return to the affluent 99% white city I grew up in. One of the best decisions I've ever made was to quit high school for college and leave that white twisted utopia behind.

Someone is bound to try to smear all Democrats with my radical environmentalism and social views, but I mock them.
In the "real world" I'm not God Emperor of the U.S.A. and I don't have such super-powers.

My politics tend to be entirely practical. I voted for Kamala and Joe.

[Turin_C3PO]

22. Even in Missisippi

15$/hr isn’t a lot of money. Workers everywhere deserve at least that amount.