Yes, hourly earning in the US is customarily gross earning (before taxes). The median rule of hourly earnings to yearly earnings is 40 hours/week and 50 weeks/year, which results in every $1/hour == $2000/year in earnings. For $15/hour, that's about $30,000. For a single person in California, without dependents and claiming themselves for one exemption, it would be 4,264.50 (14.22%) in Federal taxes and 579.35 (1.93%…
50 weeks a year? That is only 2 weeks off!
Many people in the US don't even get that. Having two weeks vacation is usually waved in peoples faces as an incentive not to leave after a few years of full time employement.
Who cares? If it benefits more people then what difference does it make as to why it was done?
Because it might not actually benefit more people? The posted article is about warehouse workers losing bonuses and stock, which would negatively affect anyone already over $15/hour (which happens to be quite a few who have multi-year tenures). This change has long-term repercussions in total current and future jobs offered, within Amazon, its competitors, and the wider labor market with govt influence. Is is not wor…
That isn't what I said - I said if it does benefit more people. If it doesn't, then my statement doesn't follow.
People always act like the sky is falling. Minimum wages were higher in terms of actual value many years ago and the world didn't end then and it won't end now.
Why should the union decide who gets raises, rather than the manager whose job it is to monitor and grade the performance of his employees?
If the management gets to decide who gets raises, why wouldn't they give it to themselves. You've never seen companies do layoffs right before the end of the quarter so management can get raises, and then immediately go on a hiring spree when the new quarter starts so they can get the work done again?
I haven't, that sounds like a massive waste of time and energy, so those managers are doing a very bad job if their goal is to get stuff done. Most well functioning companies that I've seen act very much the opposite. I could believe that some companies are crappy enough to do that, though.
Who cares? If it benefits more people then what difference does it make as to why it was done?
Does it really benefit more people though? Walmart and Amazon are prime examples of centralizing forces that slurp up wealth into urban areas and increase wealth inequality. Sure minimum wage goes up, but at the cost of more money leaving circulation in rural economies. It’s a non-trivial topic.
Rural economies are too small to matter, there are more people who stand to benefit in cities and generate more economic prosperity in cities.
Why should I care about a dying small town in the rust belt?
This will help with recruitment, but the sentiment that new workers will essentially get paid the same as older workers is going to immediately be a big sticking point. From watching the Boeing union strikes over many years, I get the sense that once a labor force unionizes they setup their own structure for pay and get that signed off -- where they have seniority and things like that. But it also means the company b…
Part of the problem with unions here is the decades of anti-union lobbying which has resulted in locking in unions in place and restricting how they operate. Many places with a union now you HAVE to join and pay them and that is the end of discussion. And your voice doesn't matter for shit in the union, you are just meant to fall in step with your union leader's commands. And the structure of the unions themselves have come to resemble another profit-seeking business with a bunch of financial and business managers from outside taking over all the top positions, not former workers that rose from the ranks of workers and know the business, and then those outsiders raising management pay for themselves. If unions weren't so restricted, if talking about a new union couldn't get you fired, you could easily replace the old unions by a handful of workers freely starting their own union while opting out of the old shitty one ran by non-union workers. It would ideally light a fire under those entrenched union's positions.
the power of a union is the ability of its workers to withhold labor. this would make unions ineffective and I'm not sure what the upside is other than an aversion to monopolies.
The actual true power of unions is to restrict entry to the trade. A union that is adversarial to employers may achieve some insignificant pay increases. But the only truly successful unions when it comes to improving pay and working conditions have exclusively done so through limiting entry to the profession, think the AMA, ALPA, Bar Associations.
I appreciate that you believe that, but that's simply not based in any historical fact. The height of the AFL, IWW, etc. in terms of power was when their power to strike, especially wildcat strike, was the highest. At that time unions had more twice the membership amongst working people than they do now. Hardly a sign of unions winning because they keep workers out (racism aside).
I’ve always thought the answer to the union “problem” was easy: multiple unions. Mandate that no more than, say, 30% of the workforce may be part of a single union, then let them fight it out. Monopolies suck both when it comes to corporations and the workforce. In my experience corruption sinks in on both sides when people can get away with putting in place policies to protect the status quo. When there are multiple…
"I support unions, but only when a non-plurality of employees can join them and they aren't allowed to work together" is an anti-union position.
Did it occur to you that perhaps I'm not "pro union" but rather "pro (honest) worker rights," and that they're absolutely not one and the same thing?
I guess to me it just seems especially perverse, because the union is supposed to be working in the interest of the worker. The worker even pays the union. Yet sinking the company is not in the interest of the worker. Corporations can sink themselves because they are granted self-determination. That's sort of fundamental, sans bailouts. That said, I would be happy if we could tweak incentives to shift focus away from…
>Yet sinking the company is not in the interest of the worker. It's not necessarily a big deal. The workers can just go and get another job. It's the owners who are really crying. It's not especially perverse for unions to be indifferent to the risk of sinking the company if the people they represent hold no stake in it. Especially since the threats that this will happen from the owners will be overblown.
What world do you live in where losing your job is "not a big deal," and anyone "can just go and get another job?"
If that were true, we wouldn't need unions in the first place.
The actual true power of unions is to restrict entry to the trade. A union that is adversarial to employers may achieve some insignificant pay increases. But the only truly successful unions when it comes to improving pay and working conditions have exclusively done so through limiting entry to the profession, think the AMA, ALPA, Bar Associations.
I appreciate that you believe that, but that's simply not based in any historical fact. The height of the AFL, IWW, etc. in terms of power was when their power to strike, especially wildcat strike, was the highest. At that time unions had more twice the membership amongst working people than they do now. Hardly a sign of unions winning because they keep workers out (racism aside).
You’re confusing a nebulous idea of political influence with real outcomes. Strikes have been used to resolve labor disputes, but if your goal is long term and meanful improvement to working conditions and remuneration, then the only times unions have ever achieved that is by restricting access to the profession. Salaries are determined by market forces, political influence will never be able to exert much pressure on the equilibrium. The only time unions have truly succeeded in this is by limiting labor supply over the long term.
>Yet sinking the company is not in the interest of the worker. It's not necessarily a big deal. The workers can just go and get another job. It's the owners who are really crying. It's not especially perverse for unions to be indifferent to the risk of sinking the company if the people they represent hold no stake in it. Especially since the threats that this will happen from the owners will be overblown.
What world do you live in where losing your job is "not a big deal," and anyone "can just go and get another job?" If that were true, we wouldn't need unions in the first place.
shrug I've done it while on minimum wage. Unions are needed to raise wages, not because it's necessarily hard to move from one low wage job to another. People do it all the time.
The company going out of business is a problem for the employees and is obviously a risk, it's just not a big and existential risk like it is for the owners.