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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

#101
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…

OK, agree with the sentiment but: > I'd even rather starve A bit dramatic don't you think? Hyperbole and outrage doesn't usually make for productive conversations.

Fasting as a form of protest is now “hyperbole”, is it?

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

#102

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

>two people being able to afford a 1 bedroom apartment within a 1 hour drive without traffic. My immediate reaction to this statement was.. it's insane? In my opinion it should read 'a single person able to afford a 1 bedroom apartment within an hour of public transport commute.' Otherwise it sounds like you don't think anyone should be able to live anywhere reasonable without roommates?

He didn't say that no one should live reasonable places without roommates. He said that the few percent of people making the lowest wages in the country might have to have roommates.

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

#103
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the economic model they operate within. It’s dangerous to paint systemic issues as bad individual actors because it gives false relief when individuals happen to appear dealt with or reformed but the structural issues and powers remain. See for example the false relief of On the Waterfront’s ending (an incredibly and subversively anti-worker film for this reason)

I mean, yes. But also, these people do have a choice. They could work elsewhere, they could be more ethical. It is more that the system picks and rewards people like this. What is often forgotten are many people who reject positions and situations and systems like this. And work elsewhere, for less money and less power, because they made active choice to not be like this.

Does not sound like a structural solution to me

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

#104
The whole point of minimum wage is to ensure that employer wages to employees to exceed some level of poverty. If there is still flexibility within the wage amount, then the floor needs to be raised higher so the employer can't play within this gray space.

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

#105
post #18

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

>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.

>Slightly smaller yachts for the executives.

Yeah, it will result in lower real income for executives ...along with anyone that make more than 3x the poverty threshold, per CBO's report:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_in_the_United_Sta...

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

#106
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.

This isn't capitalism's fault, it's just human nature. Every economic system will have scumbags who try to exploit other people for personal gain.

And capitalism's main advantage is that tries to account for the scumbag human nature (competition) and attempts to use that to its advantage (creating an economy that strives to be efficient). Other systems pretend like that human nature doesn't even exist, and everything will be fine if we ignore it.

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

#107
post #69

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

> 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. More labor being "outsourced" to cheap counties, for one. Rather than a restaurant making meals on site, they'll do most of the prep work 50 miles away where the CoL (and minimum wage) is cheap and truck it in.

Places like Applebee’s already do this…

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

#109
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I come at this from probably a different perspective. A close family member has been having problems hiring people recently. People want to make a minimum of $15/hr. For some small businesses this is a hard ask. But it's complicated further by the fact that many of the people they have hired have walked out when they got busy. Basically, they want to be paid to sit around and do the minimum amount of work possible. A…

Perhaps start lobbying for affordable housing and labour rights. Right now, the only kind of leverage that workers have is to leave, and they are doing just that.

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

#110

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…

This reeks of motivated reasoning on behalf of the manager, as this analysis makes absolutely no sense.
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