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Former Labor Secretary Found What Work Is Like Now

jasonstanford.substack.com

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Re: Former Labor Secretary Found What Work Is Like Now

#291

Post by vorpalhex »

mschuster91 wrote: post #244
vorpalhex wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anything close to real work should pay real wages because otherwise you’re screwing the most desperate at the expense of the more affluent kids who can afford to walk away. That isn't how wages work. If someone can do the same job for less, they will and you will not get paid. You can raise the minimum but then you make everything more expensive (the people who build the tractors get more, the guy driving the tract…

> You can raise the minimum but then you make everything more expensive Alternatively, the owner capitalist class could - gasp - take a cut in their already excessive profits . Shareholder, CEO, director and other executive pay has ballooned over the last decades, whereas worker wages (the ones that actually create the wealth with their labor) have at best stagnated.

Those ballooning wages are securities, not liquidity.

You can't pay rent or buy food with options. Securities are speculative, no minimum wage worker wants a gamble on if they get paid 5 years in the future.

Please keep the theatrics to a minimum. The goal is to have meaningful discussion, not attack your peers.

Re: Former Labor Secretary Found What Work Is Like Now

#292

Post by spaetzleesser »

MattGaiser wrote: post #228
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it the only aspect of the article that most on this site can relate with? I take it most have not worked service industry or it was a very long time ago. I'm interested in what seems to be the growing incivility toward other people. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/14/us/apt-cape-cod-restauran... > The verbal abuse from rude customers got so bad, the owners of one farm-to-table restaurant on Cape Cod said, that som…

> I'm interested in what seems to be the growing incivility toward other people. Is it growing, or is it just unpleasant/impolite to state that a large segment of the population consists of jerks so we keep forgetting?

“large segment of the population consists of jerks “

I think it starts at the top. People are realizing that companies are run for the benefit of a few and these few also have an outsized influence on politics. It’s not surprising that people are feeling disenfranchised and mainly out for themselves.

For me the 2008 bailouts were the turning point. A lot of the Wall Street people who had preached “creative destruction” for a long time suddenly demanded government bailouts when the destruction reached them. And unfortunately they were given bailouts. And they were given the bailouts in a way that mainly benefitted the wealthy while homeowners still lost their homes. Same happened with Covid: the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. No wonder a lot do people don’t feel at home in this society anymore.

Re: Former Labor Secretary Found What Work Is Like Now

#293

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

StewardMcOy wrote: post #270
l8rpeace wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too true! Yes he's now in the workforce, and it's such a shame that he NOW sees how the system works AFTER dictating/enforcing policy about it for an entire state. And there's an implication at the end of the article: tip more, customers. Policy is fine, it didn't cause this problem, customer behavior did. Perhaps he needs more confirmation through that experience.

I can definitely see why what would be your interpretation of the end of the article, but I don't think that's what the author was trying to convey. Earlier on, under the "The first and biggest is wages" header, the author implies that the policies around tipping are a big part of the problem. But the reality is that there have long been efforts to end the practice of tipping in the US, and they have all failed. Even…

Tipped workers must be paid at least the untipped minimum wage. If the tips plus the base pay don’t add up to the untipped minimum wage, the employer has to make that up. I know some employers steal wages and don’t do that, but that’s a separate issue too. I’m assuming it’s not a factor here, or else it would be bizarre for him to leave out wage theft.

Re: Former Labor Secretary Found What Work Is Like Now

#294

Post by spaetzleesser »

fallingfrog wrote: post #215
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it the only aspect of the article that most on this site can relate with? I take it most have not worked service industry or it was a very long time ago. I'm interested in what seems to be the growing incivility toward other people. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/14/us/apt-cape-cod-restauran... > The verbal abuse from rude customers got so bad, the owners of one farm-to-table restaurant on Cape Cod said, that som…

Yeah, I once got screamed at by a red-faced old man driving a mercedes because he had to wait 4 and a half minutes for a McChicken sandwich. Old rich people are just the most sociopathic people.

Unfortunately current society rewards sociopathic behavior and selects them for leadership positions.

Re: Former Labor Secretary Found What Work Is Like Now

#296

Post by notreallyserio »

1121redblackgo wrote: post #63

I wonder why all the comments from this thread exclusively about tips when the article covered much much more than that. Interesting.

Talking about tipping is easy. Literally every argument for and against has been made, repeatedly, in this very forum, so you don't have to think before replying. Your knee jerks and paragraphs come out and you score internet points.

Re: Former Labor Secretary Found What Work Is Like Now

#297

Post by wayoutthere »

nradov wrote: post #199
wayoutthere wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good! High school kids shouldn’t need jobs. Encouraging that just ensures we have a child labor workforce that we can underpay, driving down wages for adults who need that money to survive. Child labor laws are a thing for a reason. If there’s not a lot of value in a job, it shouldn’t be a job. Yes, this will mean a degradation in service level across service jobs. Yes, that’s okay. Customers need to adapt to a world…

High school kids shouldn't need jobs, but they can all benefit from working part time jobs. Having a job teaches them how the real world operates and exposes them to diverse people outside their social bubble. In retrospect the jobs I had as a high school kid were tremendously valuable in ways that went beyond the tiny wages that I earned.

Until we can demonstrate that we have strong enough labor protections that employers don’t prey on these kids (and they absolutely do already because the kids don’t know any better), I’m in favor of banning anyone under 18. Part of it is the indoctrination — service jobs like that are often dehumanizing, and making kids do that work just teaches them to accept that kind of treatment. There is about to be a fundamental reckoning over the structure of our society and how we learn to function with less service sector labor overall while serving an aging population that requires more services. It’s going to be a labor-driven job market for quite a while, and employing kids is just a tactic to take advantage of their naïveté.

Re: Former Labor Secretary Found What Work Is Like Now

#298

Post by JKCalhoun »

SuoDuanDao wrote: post #218
glup wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Besides the author’s v points about the poor working conditions, I was struck by the points about transit costs. I am curious how much of the current labor situation in the US can be explained by the combination of 1) geographic wealth segregation —- richer consumers clustering together while generally poorer service workers have to live far away —- and 2) high gas prices / underdeveloped public transit. At some poin…

There's a saying I like, "A rich country isn't one where the poor can afford cars. It's one where the rich take public transportation"

So, Tokyo.

Re: Former Labor Secretary Found What Work Is Like Now

#299

Post by williamdclt »

bluGill wrote: post #178
cardosof wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree and in that regard I've always found EU countries much more humane, in the sense they don't have to take shit from a bad customer and smile because of the weight of the tip in their salary.

Yeah, instead the customer has to take it from bad servers with nothing they can do about it.

You can:

- Talk back to the server (hopefully to de-escalate rather than escalate) - Ask to talk to their manager - Not come back - Leave a review

That's hardly "nothing"

Re: Former Labor Secretary Found What Work Is Like Now

#300

Post by lazide »

thatfrenchguy wrote: post #257
ajmurmann wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this Reddit comment from a use called TheMagecite on parenting during the pandemic might get to some of it: "No. So lets take my example I have two children one has autism. What my son desperately needs is social interaction, how do you teach social interaction well without peers? He can't see other children and right now he has such limited exposure to other children he is about to start school and it is a n…

This is where the overprotective nature of American parenting comes to bite you: your kid will be fine playing with other kids outside, why not… do it?

Because you’ll be constantly worried about getting Child Protective Services called on you if anything goes wrong or some random neighbor decides stranger danger is real.
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