Applebee’s exec urges using high gas prices to push lower wages, sparks walkout

> Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

The title should be "An email urging lower wages for new employees due to higher gas prices sparks walkout at Lawrence Applebee’s", per HN guidelines.

The user-created title is also incorrect, because it was not an Applebee's exec, it was the director of operations for a company that franchises Applebees who wrote the email.

I also find it interesting that the author of the email doesn't even get a smidgen of credit for his parting paragraph:

> "Your employees that live check to check are impacted more than the people reading this email. Be conscious of that. Many will need to work more hours or get a second job. Do things to make sure you are the employer of choice. Get schedules completed early so they can plan their other jobs around yours. Most importantly, have the culture and environment that will attract people"

I don't think the author is a bad person. He was just caught treating a certain business expense like one treats other business expenses, except in this case it is the wages of the employees and so looks wrong. Many people are of the mind that businesses aren't charities, have no need to pay their employees anything more than the employees accept, and through free association, if you accept an offer, that means you agree with the terms of the offer.

In my mind: If you don't like the wages Applebees will pay, then don't accept a position at Applebees. Maybe there are huge structural problems with society forcing your hand, or maybe you're just a skill-less deadbeat, or maybe Applebees is shooting itself in the foot by not offering high enough wages, but regardless, that is not Applebee's responsibility to pay you more than what they view your labor as worth.

Fair enough. I do already know that rule, honestly, I'm a long-time user and I've seen others fall into the trap of that thinking many times. It just happened to occur to me with this thread.

>I wonder what the USA would look like if minimum wage was defined as; two people being able to afford a 1 bedroom apartment within a 1 hour drive without traffic.

Slightly smaller yachts for the executives.

Rising gas prices mean we can lower wages to keep employees?

Outside of the moral implication, this doesn't even logically make sense.

People are already facing higher costs, if you pay them lower, they will not work for you, because you know, commuting to work at your place will eat into the budget.