John Deere Strike

[Greenman]

he can be happy that others are working shit jobs. It is the #1 tool in the conservitard toolbox. As long as his shit sandwich is made with premium bread he can point to the wonderbread shit sandwich guy and be happy.

That reads like a poorly written propaganda poster.
Some jobs just aren't pleasant, or don't pay well, that's life. Anyone who doesn't like those jobs can go elsewhere. Menial jobs that require little training and no skills are never going to pay well as long as there are people that will take them. When there are no more applicants the rates will increase.
The people that work for me learn marketable skills and get paid reasonably well for it. They generally hang around for a long time because they like their jobs. The only time that doesn't hold true is with job hoppers, people that are continually shopping for a few more bucks.

 

[skyking]

Do you provide benefits?

 

[MrSquished]

That reads like a poorly written propaganda poster.
Some jobs just aren't pleasant, or don't pay well, that's life. Anyone who doesn't like those jobs can go elsewhere. Menial jobs that require little training and no skills are never going to pay well as long as there are people that will take them. When there are no more applicants the rates will increase.
The people that work for me learn marketable skills and get paid reasonably well for it. They generally hang around for a long time because they like their jobs. The only time that doesn't hold true is with job hoppers, people that are continually shopping for a few more bucks.

Your worldview is extremely over simplified. It's not super simple for people to just leave a job if it sucks pay wise as you imply. Nobody is saying some jobs shouldn't pay less because they are easier to learn to do. A lot of those jobs are still hard work. Not sure why you want to demean honest hard work.

Pay needs to increase in this country, and it has to happen across the board. Not just entry level jobs, but that's a start, and should lead to boosting pay for jobs higher up the ladder. As income inequality starts to be corrected, people can pay the higher prices that more expensive labor will create for products and services they want to purchase.

But you don't seem to have the stomach to get to that much more balanced outcome.

 

[Ajay]

Just a quick tidbit from the Brooking's Institute:

IN RECENT PUBLIC DISCUSSION of labor income in the United States,
considerable concern has been voiced that real wages are not keeping
up with productivity growth (or are declining), that sharply rising fringe
benefit costs are undermining gains in take-home pay, and that workers
in other countries are enjoying better pay increases than U.S. workers.
Two frequently cited measures published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics
(BLS), which are shown in figure 1, highlight some of these concerns.
The first measure-the growth in real hourly compensation in the
nonfarm business sector-has slowed to 0.4 percent a year from 2.4 percent
a year over the 1960-73 period. Meanwhile, hourly output per
worker has grown at 0.9 percent a year-noticeably faster than hourly
compensation, although down considerably from its 1960-73 annual
growth rate of 2.5 percent. In an economy where real wage growth has
paralleled the rise in productivity over the long run, this apparent divergence
implies that the benefits of increased productivity have not been
distributed in the expected way over the past two decades

That's from THIS 1994 report. Outstanding increases in productivity, paltry gains in real wages (corrected for inflation).

This a graph I have, for which I lost the source (image search failed):


So, essentially minimal increases in US wages over a 40 (!!) year period in the US.

I'm sure this is all just fine

Trying to get better data from the BLS, but it's a bit of a maze to me.

 

[kt]

If lots of people are quitting their jobs then they don't need the income or have something else lined up. They must have some form of income or savings, otherwise it's a pretty serious mistake.
I have in the past worked for absolute shit wages. I did it because shit wages were a lot better than no wages. It allowed me to keep my home. Did it suck? You bet. But it didn't suck as much as losing everything and starting over again.

Where I live a single person needs to make at least $30 an hour to survive. That's a cheap apartment and a car that's paid for. It's what I would call a living wage, it's enough and no more. Should Mickey D's be paying that much? How high do their prices have to go so they can afford to double labor costs?
The reality is bottom end jobs pay bottom end money. Running the deep fryer isn't a carrier, it's a short term gig until something better comes along. It's also tough on business. Last Thursday I paid $15 bucks for a sandwich, it was a pretty good sandwich, and it came with a slice of pickle, but I'll never go back to that place again. In my opinion they've priced themselves out of the market.

We can mandate any minimum wage we want, the question is, will consumers pay for those products and services? Will they use them less? Or will they decide that that fellow running the deep fryer needs a nice house and pay $15 for a big mac?

Employers may choose to pay bottom money, but if no one wants the job then what are they going to do?

You know what, it's your rights if you want to work for shitty employers. I guess that goes hand in hand with the conservative mindset. Conservatives will keep voting for the very politicians who will screw them over and then blame the liberals for trying to help them.

 

[ch33zw1z]

Employers may choose to pay bottom money, but if no one wants the job then what are they going to do?

You know what, it's your rights if you want to work for shitty employers. I guess that goes hand in hand with the conservative mindset. Conservatives will keep voting for the very politicians who will screw them over and then blame the liberals for trying to help them.

Employers have gotten away with bottom dollar while employees have few (if any) viable options for roughly the same garbage situation. Corporations get away with this because the government steps in and provides assistance, it's corporate welfare. The government's role is to keep the peace, keep people fed, housed, clothed, etc....

Conservatives praise their corporate overlords while simultaneously damning anyone who has to work for garbage pay at a shit job so that billy bob can yell at them when they put pickles on a burger, or two creams in a coffee. And it goes up the chain from there too, it's not just the "bottom jobs" that get shit on. I sat and listened to an exec for a global corp explain that COLA increases were never going to happen, because COL is declining, and this employer never gave COLA increases anyways. Months later they're asking why nobody wants to do extra anymore.

It seems that the work force is tired of getting shit on and told they're not good enough.

 

[soulcougher73]

Employers have gotten away with bottom dollar while employees have few (if any) viable options for roughly the same garbage situation. Corporations get away with this because the government steps in and provides assistance, it's corporate welfare. The government's role is to keep the peace, keep people fed, housed, clothed, etc....

Conservatives praise their corporate overlords while simultaneously damning anyone who has to work for garbage pay at a shit job so that billy bob can yell at them when they put pickles on a burger, or two creams in a coffee. And it goes up the chain from there too, it's not just the "bottom jobs" that get shit on. I sat and listened to an exec for a global corp explain that COLA increases were never going to happen, because COL is declining, and this employer never gave COLA increases anyways. Months later they're asking why nobody wants to do extra anymore.

It seems that the work force is tired of getting shit on and told they're not good enough.

I think i read, maybe on here one time with a linked article, that minimum wage had it kept pace with inflation since its inception should be in the $24 range. I'm sure that would help a lot of people want to get back to work.

 

[Mai72]

If lots of people are quitting their jobs then they don't need the income or have something else lined up. They must have some form of income or savings, otherwise it's a pretty serious mistake.
I have in the past worked for absolute shit wages. I did it because shit wages were a lot better than no wages. It allowed me to keep my home. Did it suck? You bet. But it didn't suck as much as losing everything and starting over again.

Where I live a single person needs to make at least $30 an hour to survive. That's a cheap apartment and a car that's paid for. It's what I would call a living wage, it's enough and no more. Should Mickey D's be paying that much? How high do their prices have to go so they can afford to double labor costs?
The reality is bottom end jobs pay bottom end money. Running the deep fryer isn't a carrier, it's a short term gig until something better comes along. It's also tough on business. Last Thursday I paid $15 bucks for a sandwich, it was a pretty good sandwich, and it came with a slice of pickle, but I'll never go back to that place again. In my opinion they've priced themselves out of the market.

We can mandate any minimum wage we want, the question is, will consumers pay for those products and services? Will they use them less? Or will they decide that that fellow running the deep fryer needs a nice house and pay $15 for a big mac?

Where do you live that you need to make $30 an hour to survive? When I worked I security (while attending college) I made $13 an hour, and I still had an apartment and car.

 

[Mai72]

What no one is talking about is fisuciary duty, and its why so few people do well financially. Most people lack financial intelligence. This si just true, and why so many people have crippling debt, etc.

Ok, The companies (Walmart, John Deere, Apple, Amazon, etc) main job is to make the shareholders happy, first. This is just a fact. You can hate the system all you want. The thing is you want to be a shareholder. You want to also own stocks so YOU can benefit from the money being generated as well. I was taught by my uncle many years ago to purchase shares of the company that you are purchasing from. Most of us are consumers, and not owners, or producers. If you enjoy shopping at Walmart, start purchasing Walmart stock.

As for the strikes, it needs to be done. You have to wonder how much will actually change? I don't think much will change at all. Its why the middle class is slowly disappearing.

 

[dank69]

If lots of people are quitting their jobs then they don't need the income or have something else lined up. They must have some form of income or savings, otherwise it's a pretty serious mistake.
I have in the past worked for absolute shit wages. I did it because shit wages were a lot better than no wages. It allowed me to keep my home. Did it suck? You bet. But it didn't suck as much as losing everything and starting over again.

Where I live a single person needs to make at least $30 an hour to survive. That's a cheap apartment and a car that's paid for. It's what I would call a living wage, it's enough and no more. Should Mickey D's be paying that much? How high do their prices have to go so they can afford to double labor costs?
The reality is bottom end jobs pay bottom end money. Running the deep fryer isn't a carrier, it's a short term gig until something better comes along. It's also tough on business. Last Thursday I paid $15 bucks for a sandwich, it was a pretty good sandwich, and it came with a slice of pickle, but I'll never go back to that place again. In my opinion they've priced themselves out of the market.

We can mandate any minimum wage we want, the question is, will consumers pay for those products and services? Will they use them less? Or will they decide that that fellow running the deep fryer needs a nice house and pay $15 for a big mac?

Who says running the deep fryer isn't a career? If it can't be automated it deserves a living wage. If the business can't afford to pay a living wage it isn't a successful business model anymore.

 

[IronWing]

Ok, The companies (Walmart, John Deere, Apple, Amazon, etc) main job is to makew the shareholders happy, first. This is just a fact. You can hate the system all you want.

Or you can get off your ass and vote to change this evil system.

 

[ch33zw1z]

What no one is talking about is fisuciary duty, and its why so few people do well financially. Most people lack financial intelligence. This si just true, and why so many people have crippling debt, etc.

Ok, The companies (Walmart, John Deere, Apple, Amazon, etc) main job is to makew the shareholders happy, first. This is just a fact. You can hate the system all you want. The thing is you want to be a shareholder. You want to also own stocks so YOU can benefit from the money being generated as well. I was taught by my uncle many years ago to but shares of the company that you are purchasing from. Most of us are consumers, and not owners, or producers. If you enjoy shopping at Walmart, start purchasing Walmart stock.

As for the strikes, it needs to be done. You have to wonder how much will actually change? I don't think much will change at all. Its why the middle class is slowly disappearing.

A fact that changed about 50 years ago, and the effects on the american workforce can be seen in all facets of our social interactions. Not only was this change very lucrative for shareholders, but they also waged a social class war from the top down simultaneously. So while we squabble over scraps, they point the blame down the pile and let us duke it out, laffing all the way to their offshore bank.

Here's a nice gif that sums it up.

 

[Mai72]

A fact that changed about 50 years ago, and the effects on the american workforce can be seen in all facets of our social interactions. Not only was this change very lucrative for shareholders, but they also waged a social class war from the top down simultaneously. So while we squabble over scraps, they point the blame down the pile and let us duke it out, laffing all the way to their offshore bank.

Here's a nice gif that sums it up.

Haha, awesome gif. I agree with everything you said btw.

 

[ch33zw1z]

Haha, awesome gif. I agree with everything you said btw.

I also agree with your premise that financial education is lacking. I mean real financial education. Not just balancing your checkbook, but how interest works, compound interested, credit card terms of service, etc...we throw people to the wolves once they hit 18 and just bury them in debt.

 

[Homerboy]

I work for Magellan and we striked for 2 months this year for a 1.5% raise, at least 2.5% below inflation.

More like 3.5% below REPORTED inflation. True inflation is estimated to be at 10%+ depending on services/location

 

[Ajay]

It seems that the work force is tired of getting shit on and told they're not good enough.

I hope so. The hypermanic focus on 'shareholder value' above all else is, IMO, immoral. Of course shareholders deserve their due, this is the way our system of capitalism works. But companies used to make considerable efforts to reward all 'stakeholders' - their workers, their communities, etc. Somehow, in the '80s, this all got pushed aside. C-suite executive pay was heavily tilted to stock and stock options, effectively making them shareholders*. Worse, as time goes forward more and more pay is in the 'options' category. The only way for them to make more of money, is to keep that stock rising. An important variable in this equation is having the lowest total payroll that will still sustain business needs (the now popular 'right sizing').

The video linked doesn't provide a solution that scales out to the large number of people in the middle class. He's really just talking about investing - he's framing it differently, but it's the same thing. One system along this line is when companies offer discounted corporate stock purchases withdrawn directly every pay period. Still - an employee must, effectively, invest their own money into their own company. It isn't a truly scalable system, the lower your wages at said company, the less you can invest (if you can invest at all). Even stock options, which aren't terrible, are typically only offered to salaried employees, the typical white collar professionals. That doesn't help everyone. One is also subject to shocks to one's company stock that often have nothing to do with that employees work output. Bad management, loss of a major customer to a competitor, etc.

Pay increases, direct revenue share and other remuneration given at zero risk with no buy in other than one's own hard work is the only moral means to address the disparity between corporate success and worker salaries. Wealthy shareholders and Corporate executives have no incentive to do this on their own. Without unions, this is almost impossible. Without appropriate government regulation this is almost impossible. It wouldn't be communism, or socialism. I would be a fair and equitable capitalistic system.

 

[mect]

It's a nice little theory, but my hunch is enhanced unemployment is the driving force behind so many people not going back to work. Pay people to not work and that's exactly what they'll do.

Basically every UBI study has concluded this isn't true. In general, people want to work. They just want to be treated with dignity as well.

 

[mect]

Unions have the most support they've seen since 1965.

Approval of Labor Unions at Highest Point Since 1965

Two-thirds of Americans approve of labor unions, marking the highest reading since 1965. Union membership among U.S. adults is steady, at 9%.

news.gallup.com

 

[nakedfrog]

If lots of people are quitting their jobs then they don't need the income or have something else lined up. They must have some form of income or savings, otherwise it's a pretty serious mistake.
I have in the past worked for absolute shit wages. I did it because shit wages were a lot better than no wages. It allowed me to keep my home. Did it suck? You bet. But it didn't suck as much as losing everything and starting over again.

Where I live a single person needs to make at least $30 an hour to survive. That's a cheap apartment and a car that's paid for. It's what I would call a living wage, it's enough and no more. Should Mickey D's be paying that much? How high do their prices have to go so they can afford to double labor costs?
The reality is bottom end jobs pay bottom end money. Running the deep fryer isn't a carrier, it's a short term gig until something better comes along. It's also tough on business. Last Thursday I paid $15 bucks for a sandwich, it was a pretty good sandwich, and it came with a slice of pickle, but I'll never go back to that place again. In my opinion they've priced themselves out of the market.

We can mandate any minimum wage we want, the question is, will consumers pay for those products and services? Will they use them less? Or will they decide that that fellow running the deep fryer needs a nice house and pay $15 for a big mac?

I've said this before, Dick's Drive In pays $19/hr, pays medical and child care, and cheeseburgers are $2.25-$2.40 (depends on location).
But yeah, "enjoy your $15 Big Mac"

 

[DaaQ]

If lots of people are quitting their jobs then they don't need the income or have something else lined up. They must have some form of income or savings, otherwise it's a pretty serious mistake.
I have in the past worked for absolute shit wages. I did it because shit wages were a lot better than no wages. It allowed me to keep my home. Did it suck? You bet. But it didn't suck as much as losing everything and starting over again.

Where I live a single person needs to make at least $30 an hour to survive. That's a cheap apartment and a car that's paid for. It's what I would call a living wage, it's enough and no more. Should Mickey D's be paying that much? How high do their prices have to go so they can afford to double labor costs?
The reality is bottom end jobs pay bottom end money. Running the deep fryer isn't a carrier, it's a short term gig until something better comes along. It's also tough on business. Last Thursday I paid $15 bucks for a sandwich, it was a pretty good sandwich, and it came with a slice of pickle, but I'll never go back to that place again. In my opinion they've priced themselves out of the market.

We can mandate any minimum wage we want, the question is, will consumers pay for those products and services? Will they use them less? Or will they decide that that fellow running the deep fryer needs a nice house and pay $15 for a big mac?

How many big macs can that person make in an hour? Or are you saying they will only make one big mac per hour if they make 15 dollars per hour? Some common sense please.

I suspect you don't know how high their prices have to go to support 15 dollars an hour.

Anecdotal: Used to be able to get TWO mexican pizza combo meals for 7 dollars in 1992ish, can't even get 1 at or under that now. What changed?

Also to your extended unemployment benefits causing people not to return to work. Sorry bud but the extended benefits ran dry on December 27th when Trump failed to sign Bill into Law in time.

 

[woolfe9998]

Imagine needing an union and a strike to get 3% annual raises at the same time the company and shareholders are seeing massive profits.. wtf.

Yes, and also in a period of high inflation.

 

[woolfe9998]

Your worldview is extremely over simplified. It's not super simple for people to just leave a job if it sucks pay wise as you imply. Nobody is saying some jobs shouldn't pay less because they are easier to learn to do. A lot of those jobs are still hard work. Not sure why you want to demean honest hard work.

Pay needs to increase in this country, and it has to happen across the board. Not just entry level jobs, but that's a start, and should lead to boosting pay for jobs higher up the ladder. As income inequality starts to be corrected, people can pay the higher prices that more expensive labor will create for products and services they want to purchase.

But you don't seem to have the stomach to get to that much more balanced outcome.

It's also worth mentioning that it's over-simplified to just add the labor cost to the cost of goods sold. If a business faces higher labor costs, and it translates 100% of that into price increases, it may lose market share due to competition. So some of it may come off of corporate profits instead, simply because corporate profits may be even lower if they translate it all into higher prices. Greenman demonstrated it himself in the example he gave of not wanting to pay $15 for a sandwich.

 

[Ajay]

Unions have the most support they've seen since 1965.

Approval of Labor Unions at Highest Point Since 1965

Two-thirds of Americans approve of labor unions, marking the highest reading since 1965. Union membership among U.S. adults is steady, at 9%.

news.gallup.com

And 27 states with 'Right to Work' laws. Popular support doesn't seem to matter too much.

 

[woolfe9998]

I support unions in general, insofar as bargaining for higher wages, better benefits, and safer working conditions. My one big caveat with unions is the excessive job security. Not just for the police unions. Obviously it is important there, when it's hard to fire police for misconduct. Also applies to teachers. Should be somewhat easier to fire bad teachers. And of course any sort of union for public employees, where tax payers shouldn't have to pay the salary of a sub-standard worker.

It's somewhat less of a concern in the private sector. But even there it can be. I once had a litigation involving a UPS driver who had three accidents on the job which were his fault. UPS tried to fire him after the second accident, but got so bogged down in all the appeals that they gave up after a year of trying. Then he got into the third where someone was hurt.

 

[Zorba]

Unions have the most support they've seen since 1965.

Approval of Labor Unions at Highest Point Since 1965

Two-thirds of Americans approve of labor unions, marking the highest reading since 1965. Union membership among U.S. adults is steady, at 9%.

news.gallup.com

I wonder if Trump's bullshit populism has helped rewaken the labor movement among poor conservatives.