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

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

#51
post #2

> Wayne Pankratz, executive director of operations for Applebee’s franchisee Apple Central LLC. > “The advantage this has for us is that it will increase application flow and has the potential to lower our average wage. How you ask? > “Most of our employee base and potential employee base live paycheck to paycheck. Any increase in gas price cuts into their disposable income. As inflation continues to climb and gas pr…

I think one of the overlooked pieces of the email is on the second page. I read it yesterday so my memory isn't super fresh. But he essentially says that: * they've been hiring people at $18-20/hr * the government pandemic aid/unemployment is dropping off and therefore they are no longer "competing with the government" I think a lot of the "progress" with increasing wages was artificially inflated by government overs…

I think thinking through the economics of the situation is one thing, but voicing it to the people you employ is a bit different.

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

#54
What an odd letter.

> Besides hiring employees in at a lower wage to decrease our labor ( when able ) make sure you have a pulse on the morale of your employees...Do things to make sure you are the employer of choice. Most importantly, have the culture and environment that will attract people.

This is kind of amazing. Surely they know that the culture and environment that will attract people will be the one that pays better, right? The only thing more amazing is that some brown-nosing sycophant managed to call it "words of wisdom" without vomitting.

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

#55

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. The static (both in the nominal and inflation adjusted sense) for minimum wage doesn't make sense imo. Minimum wage should be tied to some level of living (not necessarily a great living, but something ) This guy smh

There'll be a bunch of cheap singular apartments spread all over the US - let's for convenience's sake assume they're about a one hour drive apart from each other but that's a totally random number of course.

You can rent them for very cheap but just as you're about to move in they suddenly become unavailable for whatever reason? Probably the owner lost their keys or something and then lawyers can argue for years if the owner is actually required to hand over the keys. Or maybe the apartment has no way to enter and lawyers can now argue for years if an apartment needs to have a door?

At least that's what I can imagine would happen.

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

#56
post #11

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. The static (both in the nominal and inflation adjusted sense) for minimum wage doesn't make sense imo. Minimum wage should be tied to some level of living (not necessarily a great living, but something ) This guy smh

God a one hour drive without traffic is like a inhumanely long commute Interesting thought though

Apparently, a little under 1 in 10 US workers have a 1-hr-plus commute time (https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publicatio...).

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

#57

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.

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

If I'm reading his point correctly ... He's saying there _was_ an employment crunch, and companies were competing with each other for employees by raising wages. He supposes that an increase in gas prices means that people need more money, so there are more employee hours "to go around". Therefore, companies don't need to compete as much with each other to attract employees, so they can go back to not paying as much.

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

#58
post #5

Hopefully this is the moment we realize that capitalism is really not serving us in any meaningful way. As long as we have enough people brave enough to quit and take to the streets the working class might have a fighting chance at ending their exploitation.

Capitalism punishes this behavior, as it did here. The market worked as we would expect and hope.

No it doesn't. Your example only works because information gets leaked. And market can only absorb that much information, unless you put special regulatory bodies. And "punish" is still to be seen here.

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

#59
post #2

> Wayne Pankratz, executive director of operations for Applebee’s franchisee Apple Central LLC. > “The advantage this has for us is that it will increase application flow and has the potential to lower our average wage. How you ask? > “Most of our employee base and potential employee base live paycheck to paycheck. Any increase in gas price cuts into their disposable income. As inflation continues to climb and gas pr…

It seems you're mixing up Applebee's and the franchisee that he works for—Applebee's never promoted him.
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