It's not a labor shortage – it's a wage and workers rights shortage • Hacker News Board

Re: It's not a labor shortage – it's a wage and workers rights shortage

#131

Post by jzb » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 6:34 PM UTC

dudul wrote: post #94

tayo42 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The United States really needs to kill tipping culture off

Why? What would be different for the customer? The tip would just be rolled into the price of the service to amount to the same number, and quality of service would probably go down. Employees would also be taxed on the "tip" (which would now be included in their base salary). So what would really be the benefit? And I'm not trying to be dismissive at all. Coming from Europe I also thought initially that tipping was…

Have you ever worked a job that depends on tips? Try serving a table of 20 and working your butt off and then getting no tip from the table because they "don't believe in tipping."

The correlation between "great service" and getting a good tip is nowhere near a 1:1. It sucks to go to work and not know whether you're going to come home with enough money to pay your bills this week, because you might get lucky or you might get a stream of tightwads.

I'd be OK with tipping if people made a baseline living wage and the tips were for service above and beyond the usual. I'm not OK with the current standard.

If you can't be persuaded that it's unfair to the workers, realize it's also unfair to you as a customer. Because people can't be reliably counted upon to tip their fair share, you need to over-tip if you care about people making a fair wage.

And the perception of a "fair" tip has gone up noticeably in my lifetime -- 10-15% used to be a reasonable tip when I was in my teens and early 20s. Now it's crept up to 15-20% and spread to a lot of jobs that you didn't think of for tips (e.g., somebody handing you a coffee) because wages suck.

Re: It's not a labor shortage – it's a wage and workers rights shortage

#132

Post by zthrowaway » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 6:34 PM UTC

delusional wrote: post #119

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing about being a business owner, is that you are the last one on the payroll (if you are a good owner). All the bills get paid (including wages), then you get what's left over. If you had a good week, then you get a nice stack of Benjamins. If you had a bad week; maybe not so much. In fact, you may even need to chip in, to keep the lights on. I have seen, many, many SMB owners start living "high on the hog," a…

You might say the business owners feel entitled to live off other peoples work.

Nice framing.

Or it’s to get paid for bearing all of the risk of starting and running the business, and being financially on the hook for when it fails and gets to deal with years of being sued.

Re: It's not a labor shortage – it's a wage and workers rights shortage

#133

Post by 14 » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 6:35 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #47

atrus wrote: post #12

Painfully obvious too. My little local Mexcian place will be closing down because of a lack of cooks. Talking to the owner, he was complaining about government benefits, and how they all want $20 an hour. I don't understand it, that you'd either a) be willing to drive your business into the ground serving a limited menu because you won't hire a couple cooks at $20 an hour, or b) have a business so close to the brink…

> b) have a business so close to the brink of shutting down that an additional $20-50 an hour will shutter you. This is the default state of businesses in competitive markets. If you could do with less then you could charge less, and one of your competitors will start doing that to take your customers, so you have to do the same. Of course, the alternative is to pay more and then raise prices. Which you might not be…

I have always hated the idea of UBI in any for it has been presented so far. Money means nothing if the price of everything shoots through the roof. Just yesterday I paid $9.50 for bacon where a year ago it was closer to $5. Let’s not even get started on shrinkflation of items. Back to my point though we don’t need a ubi but a right to food shelter and water. Anyone who has been poor knows something will eat up this check and you will be no better then before. It may not happen right away but there are too many predators looking for your money. I don’t know how you could give everyone the right to food, shelter and water but that is what we need.

Re: It's not a labor shortage – it's a wage and workers rights shortage

#134

Post by tsian2 » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 6:35 PM UTC

holler wrote: post #98

ljm wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that case you'd be justified in not paying the tip, surely? The effective price beforehand was $45, since you weren't really tippin, just subsidising the employer. They just bumped the price by 5 bucks and dispensed with the pricing trickery by paying proper wages.

That may be true, but $45 already felt like the upper limit so even a $5 increment feels like too much (my hair is short afterall!)

Wouldn't $50 now be worth less than the original $45 "years ago", considering inflation?

Re: It's not a labor shortage – it's a wage and workers rights shortage

#135

Post by luckylion » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 6:36 PM UTC

Ericson2314 wrote: post #85

maxlybbert wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't understand it, that you'd either > > a) be willing to drive your business into the ground serving a limited menu because you won't hire a couple cooks at $20 an hour, or > > b) have a business so close to the brink of shutting down that an additional $20-50 an hour will shutter you. Restaurants run on notoriously thin margins ( https://upserve.com/restaurant-insider/profit-margins/ ). There's a reason resta…

Maybe we need buffet-style restaurants that serve nutritious perishable food without all the extra plating, waters, and other frivolities so people can bask in being served and pretend they are aristocracy. Everyone cooking is a massive inefficiency, and yet paying for conventional restaurants is also uneconomical. Eating shelf-stable food is cheaper than cooking for most people, but only until the bad health effects…

Those aren't the only options. You can have small street-food vendors. The costs are much lower because there's no waiter etc. But it's more of a functional thing ("get food, go home fed"), not a pleasure thing where you sit around with friends or your partner and talk while someone serves you food.

Re: It's not a labor shortage – it's a wage and workers rights shortage

#136

Post by Ericson2314 » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 6:36 PM UTC

pooper wrote: post #116

Ericson2314 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we need buffet-style restaurants that serve nutritious perishable food without all the extra plating, waters, and other frivolities so people can bask in being served and pretend they are aristocracy. Everyone cooking is a massive inefficiency, and yet paying for conventional restaurants is also uneconomical. Eating shelf-stable food is cheaper than cooking for most people, but only until the bad health effects…

I tried to look into that. I think problem is two fold: 1. options 2. audience 1. options: I need to be able to serve two or three meal options tops depending on what is available / inexpensive. People really like having options but that drives costs up which will drive me up a wall. 2. audience: I need a captive audience such as prisoners in a prison or resident college students who pay for the whole semester at a c…

Well,

1) I personally hate choosing things from menus as as I truly like all the food "that isn't bad" (for all dishes there exists a pareto equal or better dish which I like. Something like that?) That fact that a single dish du jour can get more attention an planning re seasonal ingredients and other inputs due diligence is a huge plus too.

2) I am also fine committing to eating at the same restaurant once, twice, maybe even 3 times a week, and do that anyways.

Count me in!

Re: It's not a labor shortage – it's a wage and workers rights shortage

#137

Post by listless » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 6:36 PM UTC

delusional wrote: post #115

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> b) have a business so close to the brink of shutting down that an additional $20-50 an hour will shutter you. This is the default state of businesses in competitive markets. If you could do with less then you could charge less, and one of your competitors will start doing that to take your customers, so you have to do the same. Of course, the alternative is to pay more and then raise prices. Which you might not be…

This is a purely economic argument which if fine, but misses the vital non-economic side-effects. More money could lower the stress of the employees (given they now no longer have to worry about paying their bills) which may lead to higher quality products. Increased wages may attracts better talent or more exploitation conscious consumers. Hell, it may even more the owner more likely to listen to his staff, given th…

The problem is that it IS a purely economic problem. It's just math - supply, demand and competition. Small business in particular is captured by these forces. It cannot increase prices because people will go to the competition. And it has no margin to absorb people's desire to earn enough to live a middle-class life doing a job that you can hire anyone to do.

All of that said, what you could reasonably hope would happen is that all businesses raise their prices because of the labor shortage (already happening around me), but then you have another problem which is that the increased wages are offset by the increased prices.

At the current click, all that's going to be left are the corporations with enough wiggle room to absorb the increase, but they will also pass on prices. I would just prefer not to live in that world. I think corporations increase inequity (Walmart could pay a living wage and full health care, but doesn't) and small business puts the power back with the individual.

Re: It's not a labor shortage – it's a wage and workers rights shortage

#138

Post by ThrowawayR2 » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 6:36 PM UTC

delusional wrote: post #115

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> b) have a business so close to the brink of shutting down that an additional $20-50 an hour will shutter you. This is the default state of businesses in competitive markets. If you could do with less then you could charge less, and one of your competitors will start doing that to take your customers, so you have to do the same. Of course, the alternative is to pay more and then raise prices. Which you might not be…

This is a purely economic argument which if fine, but misses the vital non-economic side-effects. More money could lower the stress of the employees (given they now no longer have to worry about paying their bills) which may lead to higher quality products. Increased wages may attracts better talent or more exploitation conscious consumers. Hell, it may even more the owner more likely to listen to his staff, given th…

> "More money could lower the stress of the employees (given they now no longer have to worry about paying their bills) which may lead to higher quality products."

Except businesses then raise their prices to cover the increased wages so the "more money" is almost instantly eaten away by having to pay those increased prices. You can't get something for nothing.

Re: It's not a labor shortage – it's a wage and workers rights shortage

#139

Post by root_axis » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 6:37 PM UTC

n8cpdx wrote: post #4

It's surprising businesses haven't turned to automation. At the very least, most of a restaurant's and a coffee shop's labor can be replaced with automated ordering, having the customer collect food themselves when it's ready, and using robots to prepare more of the food. they can do lattes with art all by themselves now. A lot of these businesses just can't survive if they meet the wage demands of people who have be…

You're greatly overestimating the reliability of such technology and greatly underestimating the costs of it. There's a reason automation has not replaced these roles, it's simply not (yet) capable or cost effective. Source: I worked for a startup that built restaurant automation solutions and witnessed first-hand how difficult this is. It'll get there some day, but we're a long ways off.

Re: It's not a labor shortage – it's a wage and workers rights shortage

#140

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 6:37 PM UTC

delusional wrote: post #115

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> b) have a business so close to the brink of shutting down that an additional $20-50 an hour will shutter you. This is the default state of businesses in competitive markets. If you could do with less then you could charge less, and one of your competitors will start doing that to take your customers, so you have to do the same. Of course, the alternative is to pay more and then raise prices. Which you might not be…

This is a purely economic argument which if fine, but misses the vital non-economic side-effects. More money could lower the stress of the employees (given they now no longer have to worry about paying their bills) which may lead to higher quality products. Increased wages may attracts better talent or more exploitation conscious consumers. Hell, it may even more the owner more likely to listen to his staff, given th…

[deleted]