Cafeteria workers at Facebook struggle to make ends meet • Hacker News Board

Re: Cafeteria workers at Facebook struggle to make ends meet

#471

Post by tmh79 » Mon, Jul 24, 2017, 10:39 PM UTC

sologoub wrote: post #177

tmh79 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rents are rising at 5-10% a year in the south bay, and if you don't live in mountain view you don't have renters protections. There is no end in sight for cost of living stabilization for the bottom end of the market without large supply growth and/or rent control policies being enacted. Facebook could solve the problem this year by issuing a broad based 10% raise for all of their contract workers, but they would nee…

You can also invest in improving public transit and shoring up what you already have - for example, BART and systems like it could be used to link areas more effectively/reliably. In talking with some friends in the Bay Area, all feel that East Bay is just too risky with problems BART has been facing in reliability, but all love the less congested feel of say Moraga or Walnut Creek. The article focuses on the fact th…

denser housing and better transit go hand in hand. Its hard to have a good mass transit system when everyone lives on their own 1/3 acre plot of land in a single family home.

Re: Cafeteria workers at Facebook struggle to make ends meet

#472

Post by tyingq » Mon, Jul 24, 2017, 10:41 PM UTC

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #459

tyingq wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No I'm not missing this point I just don't agree with it. Companies contract with other companies for all kinds of services. When I call someone to fix my air conditioner I'm not suddenly responsible for the person fixing the air conditioners wages or social status or class. If Food Service workers are underpaid that's a fair point but it's not something for Facebook to fix. If the idea is just that Facebook employee…

Both the contractor and Facebook share blame, there's plenty to go around. The contractor obviously doesn't pay their workers enough for the area. Facebook is also the one hiring contracted labor to work in the same building as their employees without all sorts of benefits. AKA Facebook is the one who brought that class divide that already exists into their space so that's obviously on them. Facebook has plenty of po…

I would say your edit is unfair in how you're portraying me. I didn't say "It's not that bad". I noted I had been there. As in, I was there, felt it, but had a very different idea of what entities should fix it.

You're putting words in my mouth I never said. In quotes even. I feel like some kind of stand in Boogeyman for someone else that you are mad at.

I'm not arguing whether it is a problem. I'm arguing that FB isn't the right place to solve it.

Re: Cafeteria workers at Facebook struggle to make ends meet

#473

Post by Melchizedek » Mon, Jul 24, 2017, 10:41 PM UTC

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #132

qudat wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Student loans?

Re: Cafeteria workers at Facebook struggle to make ends meet

#474

Post by turc1656 » Mon, Jul 24, 2017, 10:42 PM UTC

Aloha wrote: post #438

turc1656 wrote: post #212

I'm going to come right out and say it and fully expect to be downvoted to death - these people are the problem. Not Facebook (who they don't actually work for) and not their actual employer. They make a combined 75-80k a year. The median household income in CA is 61k. The median for the Silicon Valley area is 94k. They need to get up and move to give their children and themselves a better lifestyle. They have the me…

Exactly who then is supposed to do the service industry work for the bay area? Two hours from Palo Alto gets you nowhere - because its not any more affordable two hours away by car - there two hours on public transit wouldn't even get you out of the Bay Area proper. 50 years ago, it was common that the employees in the cafeteria (janitors too) were actually employees of the company who's building they worked for - wh…

While I'm not familiar with the area, a very quick search produced a rental available across the water in Fremont, apparently only ~30 minutes by car. The rental is $2,319 a month and has 3 beds and 2 baths and a total of 1,100 sqft of living space.

Sounds extremely reasonable, all things considered.

Re: Cafeteria workers at Facebook struggle to make ends meet

#475

Post by perfectstorm » Mon, Jul 24, 2017, 10:47 PM UTC

I grew up in India and both my parents worked for a Central government company. Their company has quarters (apartment complexes) which were heavily subsidized. The employee could own one individual apartment or pay subsidized monthly rent. The company (central govt. in this case) offer loans for their employees at a lower than market rate to own this apartment.

I like that approach. Since both my parents were working they were able to afford a house outside of the area but a lot of their coworkers owned an apartment.

Those apartment complexes were categorized differently for different income people. So a lower income worker is not forced to live on an apartment that they can't afford.

I wonder why Facebook or Google can't take a similar approach. I understand that in this particular case, the employee is a contractor who happens to work at Facebook. Heck, if I happened to work for such a company I know I would live there.

Re: Cafeteria workers at Facebook struggle to make ends meet

#476

Post by imlina » Mon, Jul 24, 2017, 11:02 PM UTC

no_one_ever wrote: post #393

imlina wrote: post #377

They own a dyson fan and a projector in the picture, and possibly more expensive gadgets off-screen. It's just sad that when people are not willing to work hard enough through school and end up in shitty jobs that pay less -- then complaining about the undesirable outcome. Suck it up and take an online coding class or something. Time to build some cafeteria robots so they will at least complain on someone else's turf…

School is an expensive endeavor, you'd have to shell out thousands of dollars or go into debt for years just to get a respectable degree. Without the degree, most employers wouldn't give these people the time of the day.

zuckerberg never got (finished) his harvard degree. Plenty of success people never went to college, richard branson, henry ford, rockefeller, murdoch, etc.

Re: Cafeteria workers at Facebook struggle to make ends meet

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Post by Shivetya » Mon, Jul 24, 2017, 11:03 PM UTC

koolba wrote: post #174

> They earn too much to qualify for state healthcare, but not enough to afford the health insurance offered by their employer. They frequently struggle to find enough money for basics like food and clothes for their children. Victor recently borrowed money from his mother to hold a birthday party for one of his daughters, and from a friend to pay for a dentist appointment. They might want to look into not being marri…

It is pretty sad that government in effect requires the dissolution of what many consider the family unit in order to receive benefits. If anything government should reward more to those who maintain an active family unit.

However this has been known for decades and combined with imprisonment is reason behind the lack of two parent families among some groups, mostly minority. how did we ever arrive at a solution that values on parent more than another?

Re: Cafeteria workers at Facebook struggle to make ends meet

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Post by hkmurakami » Mon, Jul 24, 2017, 11:04 PM UTC

rlanday wrote: post #390

hkmurakami wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect this is actually East Menlo Park, since the homeowners in Menlo Park proper are very unlikely to rent out a garage like this. East Menlo Park is substantially more affordable than Menlo Park, though at this point more costly than many East Bay areas. Living in Hayward for example would make housing more affordable, but as you allude to, commute times would likely 4-5x (because bridges) and their kids' educa…

What is East Menlo Park? Do you mean East Palo Alto?

No, East Menlo park is north of East Palo alto. It's adjacent to FB HQ and has separate services from MP.

Re: Cafeteria workers at Facebook struggle to make ends meet

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Post by celim307 » Mon, Jul 24, 2017, 11:08 PM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #71

celim307 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I can in good conscience believe he shouldn't have to borrow money simply to see a dentist.

I'm not clamoring to say they deserve a nice car or go to Disney world, but surely you can agree that every citizen in this country deserves a basic right to basic health care and education, and the means to achieve them?

Re: Cafeteria workers at Facebook struggle to make ends meet

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Post by tptacek » Mon, Jul 24, 2017, 11:10 PM UTC

jimmywanger wrote: post #415

tptacek wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been a full-time consultant/contractor since 2005 and felt like I was pretty familiar with the IRS classification rules, and this is new to me. Can you cite where you read this?

Sure. If you take a look at https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-utl/x-26-07.pdf , points 6, 13 and 14 are the most important. If you give too many benefits to contractors, they could make a plausible case that they're full time employees and will be able to sue for back pay, benefits, and punitive damages. For instance, for point 13, you could argue that a free shuttle would be paying for your travel expenses. It's definitel…

I'm familiar with this list but unfamiliar with the mapping you're making to contractors getting access to facilities and amenities. The specific items you're pointing out apply far more to the normal course of the work contractors do than they do to cafeteria access.

I'm going to push a little further back on this point, because the contractors we're talking about don't work for Facebook. They work for body shop firms, at arms length remove from Facebook.

Another problem I'm having with this logic is that I've done long-term staff aug gigs for companies, direct 1099, and been given access to facilities and amenities.