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Cafeteria workers at Facebook struggle to make ends meet

theguardian.com

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Re: Cafeteria workers at Facebook struggle to make ends meet

#71

Post by mc32 »

celim307 wrote: post #38
mc32 wrote: post #25

MacDonald's is also a multibillion dollar corp., nobody in their right mind thinks they can raise a family working at MacD's without additional income or subsidy. It's a job for teenagers to get experience and for blue collar retirees to make some money to and to their SS checks. People should stop thinking teenager jobs sustain families. It doesn't have the value add. If you want to make a living open up a stand and…

I don't understand, what point are you making? Your solution is pull yourself up by your bootstraps?

No, but you cannot in good conscience believe that you can raise a middle class family if that's your one skill.

We also have people complaining about vanishing steel jobs, listen, they're not coming back and you are going to have to adjust.

Re: Cafeteria workers at Facebook struggle to make ends meet

#72

Post by accountyaccount »

jmcdiesel wrote: post #29

Facebook didn't make the area expensive. No tech company did. Those local businesses, and the chains alike, have made it expensive. So much blame gets put on the tech companies, but the tech companies aren't raising the prices, they are just paying people better, and the local businesses abuse that to the fullest extent. There is no NEED to charge $6 for a gallon of milk, when milk from those same cows is sold for $2…

That's very very backwards. Local business are charging $6 for milk because they have to make enough profit to pay rent. The soaring rent is absolutely due to high-salary tech work; the bay area existed for decades without these significant rent issues.

Re: Cafeteria workers at Facebook struggle to make ends meet

#73

Post by monocasa »

mc32 wrote: post #25

MacDonald's is also a multibillion dollar corp., nobody in their right mind thinks they can raise a family working at MacD's without additional income or subsidy. It's a job for teenagers to get experience and for blue collar retirees to make some money to and to their SS checks. People should stop thinking teenager jobs sustain families. It doesn't have the value add. If you want to make a living open up a stand and…

The minimum wage was always supposed to be a living wage, not a pittance for teens and retirees. To quote FDR's statement when signing the law which instituted the first federal minimum wage.

> In my Inaugural I laid down the simple proposition that nobody is going to starve in this country. It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By "business" I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living.

http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/odnirast.html

Re: Cafeteria workers at Facebook struggle to make ends meet

#74

Post by bluedino »

A few things. They aren't Facebook employees, as some people might infer when reading the headline. They're working for the cafeteria contractor - Flagship Facility Services.

They are making $2 and $4/hour more than the $15/hour minimum wage people are fighting for. Obviously $15 isn't enough and neither is more than $15.

>> Earlier in their relationship, the couple both earned about $12 per hour as managers at Chipotle and were able to afford their own apartment.

What changed? Having the 3 kids? Did they move to a different area? $12/hr isn't going to get you an apartment in most of CA.

Re: Cafeteria workers at Facebook struggle to make ends meet

#75

Post by thrownblown »

tyingq wrote: post #63
frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is the real estate market "the real story"? Seems like the real story is that facebook ought to pay its cafeteria workers more.

The workers are employed by Flagship Facility Services. I assume it's fairly common to contract out the operation of your cafeteria, versus managing that in-house. Their wages are mentioned in the article...$19.85/hr and $17.85/hr. It that unusually low for someone working at, say, a table-service chain restaurant in the same area? Edit: Comparison to tipped workers seems apples/oranges. More curious if ~$18/hr is un…

Actually, yes. California doesn't allow tipped restaurant servers to be paid less than minimum wage like many other states. PA minimum wage is $15(10-12 take home), and you can expect another $15-30/hr cash.

So yes, that's not that much. Not a living wage.

Re: Cafeteria workers at Facebook struggle to make ends meet

#76

Post by [deleted] »

tyingq wrote: post #63
frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is the real estate market "the real story"? Seems like the real story is that facebook ought to pay its cafeteria workers more.

The workers are employed by Flagship Facility Services. I assume it's fairly common to contract out the operation of your cafeteria, versus managing that in-house. Their wages are mentioned in the article...$19.85/hr and $17.85/hr. It that unusually low for someone working at, say, a table-service chain restaurant in the same area? Edit: Comparison to tipped workers seems apples/oranges. More curious if ~$18/hr is un…

[deleted]

Re: Cafeteria workers at Facebook struggle to make ends meet

#77

Post by ocschwar »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #60
tmh79 wrote: post #46

The real story here is how the political conditions of the SFBA have prevented growth of the housing supply. The sad reality is that housing here is now a zero sum game, and any broad based increase in wages would pretty quickly be captured by landlords. The real solution to this issue is not higher wages, but targeted efforts to decrease the cost of living through building a ton of of "missing middle" housing like 4…

Why is the real estate market "the real story"? Seems like the real story is that facebook ought to pay its cafeteria workers more.

Re-read the comment.

There's a lot of truth to it: raise their wages, and in a heartbeat, those workers will see their rents rise.

Re: Cafeteria workers at Facebook struggle to make ends meet

#78

Post by euyyn »

jmcdiesel wrote: post #29

Facebook didn't make the area expensive. No tech company did. Those local businesses, and the chains alike, have made it expensive. So much blame gets put on the tech companies, but the tech companies aren't raising the prices, they are just paying people better, and the local businesses abuse that to the fullest extent. There is no NEED to charge $6 for a gallon of milk, when milk from those same cows is sold for $2…

If those retailers could do market segmentation, to sell the milk for $6 to software engineers and for $2 to cafeteria workers, they'd do it.

Re: Cafeteria workers at Facebook struggle to make ends meet

#79

Post by RHSeeger »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #64
henraldp wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't be so susceptible. The literal story is about food workers who can't afford to raise a family in Palo Alto. The intended message seems to be that Facebook should pay food workers more than $20/hr. I think it's acceptable for people to ponder outside of that claim.

I think people are pondering outside of that claim because young programmers in Palo Alto also want cheap real estate so there's a shared interest. But things this article brings up that are more uncomfortable for the members of this board to think about like paying service workers more or pondering this: “They look at us like we’re lower, like we don’t matter,” said Nicole of the Facebook employees. “We don’t live t…

The fact that its not enough to live on combines two things, to varying amounts

- The prices of their needs are high enough that they can't afford them (given the amount they make)

- The amount they make is low enough that they can't afford their needs

Its reasonable to attack both issues, not just the one.

Re: Cafeteria workers at Facebook struggle to make ends meet

#80

Post by bantunes »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #53

Everybody here is focusing on real estate. (because young wealthy programmers and older poorer workers have a shared interest in cheap real estate) But I'm really interested in how HN feels about this section: “I felt more secure at my other job. You didn’t have people looking down at you,” Nicole said. Now she works at cafeterias with names like “Epic” and “Living the Dream”, and the distance between the two classes…

You must be new here. You'll get 20 comments on how government and real estate and the market not being free enough are the problem before someone goes into this aspect of the article.
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