Call him Eduardo. A legal immigrant from Mexico in his early twenties, Eduardo lives in a basement bungalow apartment in a modest blue-collar suburb of Chicago. He works full time in one big, city-center hotel as a houseman, supporting the women who clean the rooms, and part-time in another as a banquet waiter. He doesn’t want his real name used,… return to article
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Reader Comments (16)Page 1 of 1 pagesI am sympathetic to the cause.
That said, i doubt that workers like maids are ever going to make a living wage. They simply are not that valuable. They have minimal skills. $12/hour seems more than fair to me.
We gave unskilled auto workers ridiculously large salaries and handsome benefits, due to their unionization. They make far more than can be justified. GM may go bankrupt as a consequence.
If you kill the golden goose, you get no gold. Workers in these fields need to make sure their demands are reasonable. . .
(Now if there were only some way to stop the massive giveaways to CEOs, all would be fine.)
Posted by wolf on Apr 19, 2006 at 11:49 AM GM is going bankrupt for more reasons than it’s worker compensation package - Ford has a similar problem, but already they’ve slowed their downward spiral by tightening up their overall operations, and not just slashing employee pay. The real problem has been that for years GM has been trying to sucker people into a 3-year buying cycle, while asian automotive companies build cars that last a great deal longer if properly cared for. With rising interest rates and growing loan terms, people are buying more long-term now, and GM’s sales are floundering, while Toyota, Nissan, and Honda are doing just fine. Toyota, in fact, is enjoying record-setting sales.
Hell, I used to sell Chevrolets, I know how desperate they are to keep up with foreign automotives.
$12/hour is the post-union average, so of course it’s more reasonable. According to the article, “the average hotel housekeeper in the United States makes $7.85 an hour,” which is abysmally low. Often, the heads of these companies make in a year what an entire housekeeping staff will make in their collected lifetimes, so why not look at CEO compensation packages as the first to be cut if a reasonable pay-raise is such a burden?
Consider COSTCO, whos CEO has declined a raise in pay and his yearly bonuses for several years, insisting instead that the money be used to better employee pay and benefits. As a result, it’s common to find people in their late teens or early twenties making $12-15 an hour as COSTCO employees. They also have minimal skills, work half as hard as your run-of-the-mill housekeeper, and despite their pay rates their company is more than fiscally healthy.
Posted by Harrower on Apr 20, 2006 at 5:59 AM UNITE/HERE is a vital part of the labor movement. They deserve our suport.
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Apr 20, 2006 at 11:55 AM Why should someone with “more skill” get paid more? Does that extra knowledge somehow make a person more valuable? I say we pay everyone the same and let people work where they want to. Obviously though, we can’t do that, then there would be no way to convince people that the they should spend half their lives doing something they don’t want to do. How many useless and harmful industries would dry up and disappear if people didn’t have to work there in order for their children to eat? It’s called wage-slavery, and it’s the “freedom” we live under. Hasta la victoria siempre!
Posted by Phaedrus on Apr 20, 2006 at 8:49 PM Even better, lets eliminate money altogether. We could all just get along and share. From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. (Also see Imagine, by Lennon.)
Next maybe we could learn to levitate and communicate via telepathy. . .
Time for me to return back to the real world.
Posted by wolf on Apr 21, 2006 at 9:07 AM The point is not paying unskilled workers the same as ‘skilled’ workers.
The point is paying hard-working people enough to survive, and provide for their families. A 40-hour workweek at $15 an hour is just over $31,000 a year, which is entry-level pay for most ‘skilled’ jobs, and what an unskilled worker should be able to make after having a few years of experience in their jobs.
No one is advocating the dismantling of capitalism, the abolishment of currency, or any of the foolish exaggerations that always seem to spring out of these sorts of debates. They are making the perfectly reasonable demand for a fair, livable wage.
Posted by Harrower on Apr 23, 2006 at 10:59 AM “The point is paying hard-working people enough to survive, and provide for their families.”
But salaries are not set by the cost of living. They are set (in some vague way, at least) by both the productivity of the worker and that availability of similar workers.
Imagine you have two workers. One is a single mom who supports her 3 kids and perhaps an elderly parent. The other is a student. Both work at the same job (maybe as a maid, or fast food worker. or some such). Should we pay them what they need to survive, even if that means they get vastly different wages for the same work?
(Note that Phaedrus was making the “foolish exaggerations” you refer to above.)
Posted by wolf on Apr 24, 2006 at 9:14 AM Noted. :)
“Imagine you have two workers. One is a single mom who supports her 3 kids and perhaps an elderly parent...”
A single mother in that sort of position would (hopefully) qualify for federal assistance - either to ease financial strain or to aid in continuing education and job training that could allow her to find a more gainful trade - which would ease some of the responsibility of the employer. At the very least, a single mother in such a position should be able to quickly advance through the lower ranks of a fast food restaurant into a salaried management position, where they should be making over the “Family of Four” poverty line. Working full time in an industry largely comprised of part time teenagers should make some difference. Should, should, should. The way it should be, but it often isn’t.
Corporate profits are up, our economy isn’t suffering from our country’s massive debts (yet,) executive pay is skyrocketing… so why are the people who do the real work being told they have to strain to make ends meet?
Case in point: The CFO of the company I work for now recently presented the company’s financial figures to the shareholders, who unanimously agreed that the company needed to cut costs due to the financial strain of a recent acquisition, and suspended pay raises for salaried employees.
However, this makes one wonder why the also voted (in the same meeting) to increase the compensation packages for the top exectives, buy a third private jet, and award the CEO a year-end bonus in excess of two million dollars.
Can you really look at the single mother from your example, struggling to make ends meet, and at the CEO of whatever company she might work for, who makes more in a year than she’ll accumulate over her entire, miserable life, and tell me something isn’t wrong with the way our system is set up?
Capitalism may have a lot of potential, but the American incarnation needs a serious overhaul to increase social, economic, and environmental responsibilities, and to halt the one-way upward migration of wealth.
Posted by Harrower on Apr 24, 2006 at 10:29 AM Harrower - i agree that executive compensation (stealing?) is way out of hand. Many executives are given huge salaries and bonuses, even when their companies are not performing well. This is an affront to the stockholders, who should sue the board of directors for malfeasance (but they won’t, because of cronyism and the buddy system). This is a serious problem and should be addressed.
This does not seem likely to fix the problem at the other end of the spectrum. Poorly educated folk with little or no marketable skills will still be paid under a living wage in most places. They simply do not produce enough to justify a “living wage”. We seem to agree about what they should do (job training, continued education), but it is clear that some people - good people - just are not that bright or motivated. They will continue to suffer, but i do not fault capitalism for their woes (they would probablyl have suffered under almost any system devised).
A more progressive tax system would be a good start. But we have been heading in the opposite direction of that for years now (really, do we need people to be able to pass hundreds of millions of dollars to their children - like Paris Hilton - tax free?!?).
Posted by wolf on Apr 24, 2006 at 11:26 AM Wolf,
The cost of living certainly figures in to the setting of salaries since the level of pay needs to be sufficient to attract and retain workers. You also mentioned productivity levels. In the economy generally, labor productivity has outstripped wage levels. In fact, most economists of all stripes have conceded that there is now a new disconnect between labor productivity and wage levels in favor of capital. This has been true for about five years beginning with the late 2001 jobless recovery. The return on labor investment is at an historic high! The living wage movement is on the march! Various states have already realized that the five dollar minimum wage, which hasn’t risen in ten years, is a poverty level wage and woefully inadequate. Wages are a cost of doing business like all else and must be reasonably met or else! This is the only expense that capital has of late been able to externalize on society (eg Walmart). This is wrong! Enough is enough!
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Apr 24, 2006 at 8:05 PM cabdriverinchicago - here’s an easy idea. Tie the minimum wage to either the cost of living index or congressional pay increases. Put it on autopilot. Why has no one seriously championed this, presumably in the Dem party? Seems like a no-brainer to me. . .
BTW, do you have any references for your assertion: “The return on labor investment is at an historic high!”. If so, i would like a reference.
Off subject. The real problem with the western - particularity US - economies is avarice. Not of the rich, but of the middle class. Two and three cars are needed for each household. Everyone needs cable tv, cell phones, ipods, x-boxes, etc etc ETC! No one bothers to meet their neighbours, since they have “home entertainment” systems. It is not the rich who have enslaved us, it is us. The solution is easy and obvious - live beneath your means! Save money. Take a nature hike instead of buying something. Spend time with your family - it is free. Break yourself from the yoke of the material cycle! (This will fall of the same deaf ears as my crazy idea of how to lose weight - “eat less, exercise more”. Obviously i am a bit of a crank. . . ) End of tirade. :)
Posted by wolf on Apr 25, 2006 at 8:38 AM Wolf,
Your anti-consumerist message is fine except as the world comes to depend and be based upon new technologies they become necessities and not luxuries. People got along before electricity, autos, telephones, and indoor plumbing at one time but try doing without it now! Not practical! Although cutting down on some excesses and substituting healthy and socially gregarious alternatives would doubtlessly help society and even the economy.
Here’s a tip for you. Try working for $5.15/hour and getting by in any US city. Not to easy. We have income ratios in the economically active population of almost 500 to one. Forty years ago the same ratios were only twenty to one. Let’s look at median house values of the top 20% versus the lowest 20%. Forty years ago about a ten to one ratio. Today, often well over 100 to one. Thirty five years ago the top 20% of the population had 38% of the income. Today they have over two-thirds of the income. They also have over 90% of the marketable wealth. Today, over 80% of the population has almost all its marketable wealth invested in a primary residence. Only the top 1% has significant marketable wealth way beyond primary real estate. The society is based on greed and yes it is the fault of the very rich and not middle-class consumerism which drove the profits of the rich for the last three decades! We need reform and now! We need a new New Deal because the US working and middle classes are about where they were in 1929 and so are many other trends in the US economy. That is not a reassuring sign!
Try reading Robert Pollen’s The Contours of Economic Descent. Also look up economic studies by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The Economic Policy Institute is good as well and so is the Center for American Progress.
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Apr 25, 2006 at 3:45 PM cabdriverinchicago
I note that i *have* lived on or near minimum wage, for about a decade (1976-1988). It was very difficult, which was one of the motivators for me to get a degree (call me doctor). I doubt that minimum wage is going to ever be enough to support a family - do you think it ought to be that high? If so, should students get paid a “living wage”? How about heads of households, if they are doing the same work? (Ah the 50’s, when men were paid more, since they supposedly supported families . . .)
I agree that wealth and wages are skewed in the US (west?) today. I would like to see the tax policies changed to rectify this.
That said, it is clear that the middle class folk can accumulate significant amounts of wealth, in addition to purchasing a house. But, just as people get fat from overeating, they get poor from overspending (again, this is directed at the middle class folk, not the poor). While i do not advocate living without electricity, i do recommend cutting back on cable tv, dining out, extra cars, the latest electronic gadget, cell phones, etc etc, until one spends less than **90** % of their net income (plus, of course, if a 401k is offered one should contribute to it with before tax income).
The rich are no worse than the middle class. They *are* greedy - just as we are. But the solution must be two fold: 1) fix the tax structure so that income/wealth is more evenly divided; 2) fix *ourselves* so that we live below our means. The latter can begin today, the former is a long drawn out process, that may or may not succeed.
Posted by wolf on Apr 26, 2006 at 9:03 AM Wolf,
It isn’t possible for anyone but the top 1% of the population to cut back to 10% of their pre-tax income.
I agree that restoring progressive taxation is a good start. We need more. Numerous studies have historically shown that progressive taxation, while useful for paying the governments bills and holding down the rate of deficit growth, doesn’t actually redistribute wealth and income in US society. This is well agreed upon.Reinvigorating trade unions, establishing a “social” wage comprised of universal health care, transportation, education, and other services, and establishing a living wage since a growing number of housefolds have come to rely on at least one earner earning the minimum to keep them out of poverty, would go a long way in fixing the maldistribution of wealth. Public investment in things like alternative energy resources and environmental protection, mass transit and some public works projects would create labor intensive jobs to take up the slack in the labor supply and reestablish a middle class living standard while saving energy and bringing costs down for everyone. Also increasing the overall fleet CAFE standards might bring some small car manufacture back to the US since the fuel economy of the small cars would be needed to balance the US annual fleet average against the gas guzzling SUVs. Bush established separate standards for different weight class vehicles removing the only reason to continue small car manufacture in the US. This should be reversed. It was all part of Bush’s plan to increase US energy consumption to swell oil profits which he succeeded in doing. Further, we need job training programs in high tech to keep up with the rest of the world in places like China and India and keep jobs here.
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Apr 26, 2006 at 3:32 PM Imagine you have two workers. One is a single mom who supports her 3 kids and perhaps an elderly parent. The other is a student. Both work at the same job (maybe as a maid, or fast food worker. or some such). Should we pay them what they need to survive, even if that means they get vastly different wages for the same work?
Posted by wolf on Apr 24, 2006
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you have 3 kids with no college education, they you are stupid.
My brother has his own Insurance Agency and his wife is a teacher. They only had 1 kid. Why? because they are expensive.
My sister’s husband makes over $300,000 a year and they only have 2 kids.
If your poor ... DON’T HAVE KIDS !!!
Posted by tina1 on May 2, 2006 at 2:27 AM “If you have 3 kids with no college education, they [sic] you are stupid” Tina1
You are the moron as usual! People should get a living wage for the work they do. They have a right to raise families as much as the rich who exploit them. Right now one in six people are at the poverty line and one in five children are at the poverty line. This is not poor family planning.This is because of a class war on working Americans!
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on May 2, 2006 at 7:00 AM Page 1 of 1 pages -
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