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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

#131

Post by spike021 »

misingnoglic wrote: post #15

The big problem seems to be the lack of affordable housing in the area - when I was looking for 1br apartments, none of them were under $2700 a month (plus 300+ for car parking), and they were all brand new luxury rooms.

I've been looking to move from San Jose further up the peninsula.

There are apartments under $2700. Even under $2000. However, there are differences of quality. A unit around $2000 won't have in-unit laundry, a dishwasher, a/c, a pool, etc. A place about $2700 likely will have those things, new appliances in the kitchen (oops, forgot "newly renovated"), etc.

It's definitely tough to find a good, decent quality place.

Re: Cafeteria workers at Facebook struggle to make ends meet

#132

Post by Broken_Hippo »

qudat wrote: post #110
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.

Why should they be paid more? If someone is willing to work for that wage then that is what the wage will be set at.

"willing to work"

This pretends there is actual choice for most folks, when the truth is most folks are just choosing between jobs that pay around the same. The alternative is to not have food, shelter, and such things. That is hardly a choice - of course folks will be willing to work for that amount.

Theoretically one can go to college or work their way up, but all those take time. College takes money. I don't know where one is supposed to get that without taking such jobs in the meantime, nor how one is supposed to afford it if they can't afford basic things. Promotion? good luck.

Re: Cafeteria workers at Facebook struggle to make ends meet

#133

Post by moogleii »

henraldp wrote: post #61
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.

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.

At the very least, I'm a little surprised Facebook isn't offering more subsidized healthcare.

Re: Cafeteria workers at Facebook struggle to make ends meet

#134

Post by purple-again »

pcnonpc wrote: post #111
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…

When tech companies pay out billions and billions more per year in salary which end up in rent or mortgage, we should question why they don't decide to move partly or expand largely elsewhere and save those billions. They must know that a lot of talents will follow them to whichever city that has reasonable living conditions. My suspicion is that the system serves as a golden handcuff. The elite tech workers feel lik…

Why is the USA the center of the developed world from post WW2 until whatever future point that it transitions to China?

Why is New York where all of the large financial players are?

Why was Rome so much more magnificent then the corners of the empire?

Why does your group of friends all meet at te same bar to watch the game on Sunday?

Why does the top streamer for a game on twitch have 10-20 times the viewer of the rest of the streamers for that game?

There is no conspiracy at work. Just a large disparate group of humans engaging in human nature when faced with the same core set of principles.

Re: Cafeteria workers at Facebook struggle to make ends meet

#135

Post by pxeboot »

akgerber wrote: post #101
eropple wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe to not effectively destroy cities and communities with CoL traps? Y'know. Basic "we are members of a society and should be working to make it better" stuff. (Shocking, I know, but there have been eras where even Big Businessmans thought about this.)

The 'cost of living trap' is due far more to a growing amount of wages (good!) chasing after an essentially-capped housing supply near those jobs. When well-paying manufacturing jobs boomed in Detroit during the 1910s auto boom, its population doubled in a decade, and increased by 50% in the following decade— but its housing stock grew to match! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit#Demographics On the other hand, th…

Aren't the high wages already a response to the high cost of living? If cheaper housing was available, what would stop wages from (slowly) going down?

Re: Cafeteria workers at Facebook struggle to make ends meet

#136

Post by danesparza »

Dude2018 wrote: post #94
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…

That's how capitalism and meritocracy work unfortunately.

Nope.

There are many forms of capitalism...

Humanistic capitalism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanistic_capitalism

Anarcho-capitalism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism

Democratic capitalism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_capitalism

Eco-capitalism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eco-capitalism

Inclusive capitalism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inclusive_capitalism

Neo-capitalism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Capitalism

...just to name a few.

Re: Cafeteria workers at Facebook struggle to make ends meet

#137

Post by humanrebar »

monocasa wrote: post #73
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…

> The minimum wage was always supposed to be a living wage

Well, that and a way to keep dangerous newcomers and minorities from driving down wages.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davis%E2%80%93Bacon_Act_of_193...

"The Coolie cannot outdo the American, but he can underlive him." - E.A. Ross

Re: Cafeteria workers at Facebook struggle to make ends meet

#138

Post by Consultant32452 »

cabaalis wrote: post #4

Serious question, politics aside. How many jobs have been prior filled by teenagers or recent college graduates, that are no longer being filled by those groups for whatever reason? Is every single type of profession required to support a family of 4? Edit: 5, per the photo on the article

>Is every single type of profession required to support a family of 4?

Certainly not. And anyone who says it should is being disingenuous unless they also support rabidly protectionist trade policy like not purchasing virtually anything from China or Mexico. What they really mean is that they don't like seeing poor people close to them.

Re: Cafeteria workers at Facebook struggle to make ends meet

#139

Post by brianwawok »

thrownblown wrote: post #75
tyingq wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So THIS is why California has so many" no waiter, order at window and take food back to table" restaurants. I knew there has to be a reason but couldn't figure it out...

Which I guess means this policy is very polar. The waiters that still have a job make more money. The ones that got replaced by a to go window have nothing.

Re: Cafeteria workers at Facebook struggle to make ends meet

#140

Post by sokoloff »

manigandham wrote: post #113
FussyZeus wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point we have to recognize that service workers must be paid a living wage, or be automated. We cannot, morally or economically, have an entire class of worker that we utterly depend on that lives permanently below the poverty line and we just step on them because "they didn't work hard in school" or whichever narrative you prefer to go with for why people who don't have a degree do work that is essential to…

> or be automated That's an extreme opposite from living wage.

If that solution ends up being cheaper, it's likely to be the solution that gets implemented.

(That might be OK, provided the now displaced workers choose to move someplace with a lower cost of living where they are able to make ends meet being paid an amount commensurate with the value they create.)

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