[HN Gopher] Applebee's exec urges using high gas prices to push ...
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Applebee's exec urges using high gas prices to push lower wages,
sparks walkout
Author : Geekette
Score : 300 points
Date : 2022-03-24 20:33 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www2.ljworld.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www2.ljworld.com)
| nostromo wrote:
| Ethics aside, this is bad analysis.
|
| Gas prices putting financial stress on Applebee's employees will
| also put financial stress on Applebee's customers, who may cut
| spending on things like going to Applebee's.
| crackercrews wrote:
| I agree they may need to cut their prices. How would this email
| have been received if it had said:
|
| We are facing headwinds and may need to cut prices
|
| To stay viable this means we need to cut costs
|
| One way to do this is offer lower starting wages. Though this
| wasn't viable in the recent past, it may be possible now.
| That's because our pool of workers are feeling pinched and may
| need to pick up extra jobs
|
| I understand he does not talk about the need to tighten the
| belt on prices in his email. But obviously all restaurants have
| been under pressure with COVID and inflation. It may be
| understood by the recipients that they need to cut costs
| wherever possible.
| munk-a wrote:
| I think _maybe_ workers would be receptive to this if it
| weren 't for the fact that whenever there's plenty of cash
| going around it doesn't loosen the belts of workers - it just
| gets dumped into BS like stock buybacks.
|
| You can't ask for grace when you offer none.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Wages have been going up for restaurant staff, not down,
| because nobody wants such a high-stress, low-quality job.
| Offering lower starting wages will end up with reduced staff
| and burnout.
| Traster wrote:
| The core line of logic "We can pay our workers less, because
| our workers are more desperate" never gets any better. It's
| one thing to say they're going to pay less because the
| business isn't viable at these levels of pay, but extending
| that to "so we're going to focus on who we can exploit" is
| where it crosses the line. Becuase if the reason you're
| cutting wages is that you can't afford them... well, let's
| start with that big fat juicy CEO bonus.
| jasonhansel wrote:
| It will also force employees to look for higher-paying jobs,
| potentially causing them to leave if Applebees doesn't raise
| its pay. Normally inflation is associated with higher wages,
| not lower ones.
| gruez wrote:
| >It will also force employees to look for higher-paying jobs
|
| ...implying they weren't already doing so? I'm not sure about
| you, but I don't think applebees is the type of place you
| stick around for "the good work culture" or whatever.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| I think you overestimate the mobility of a lot of these
| people. For many it will push them out of work if the wages
| stop covering the costs
| gruez wrote:
| Shouldn't it be _easier_ to look for new jobs if you have
| a financial buffer? If anything being more pinched = >
| more time being stressed out and/or more time at work
| (trying to rack up OT) => less time/energy to spend
| looking for new jobs.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| In fact, high transit costs might make low paying jobs like
| Applebees completely untenable. Why take a job if the cost of
| getting there is higher than what they pay?
| archhn wrote:
| These chain restaurants have always freaked me out. I know most
| of the people working there are at the bottom of the barrel, but
| their job forces them to feign a cheery demeanor. It's like
| underclass hell--imo.
| sosodev wrote:
| It's interesting because I'm sure many executives think these
| things. They just aren't dumb enough to put it into writing.
| karmasimida wrote:
| I don't understand the reasoning.
|
| If the inflation is up, why won't the employees demand more wage
| to cover the rising cost? It isn't like Applebee is a high-sought
| after career, isn't it?
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Economic analysis has shown the low skill labor market has
| monopsony power.
| https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/103530462110424...
| This means the workers at applebees don't have much leverage to
| demand higher wages. Their options are accept a shitty job or
| don't work. This manager believes higher gas prices will force
| them to shift towards the "accept a shitty job" part of the
| spectrum.
| savanaly wrote:
| Based on the abstract you are overstating the conclusions of
| that paper to a ridiculous degree.
| bladegash wrote:
| Think the premise is that people who work there don't have many
| alternative options other than continuing to work for them. In
| addition, greater financial pressures presumably contributes to
| forcing them to remain employed where they already are.
|
| These are not employees who get paid time off and can take days
| off to go looking for other jobs/interview.
|
| Meaning any time they take to find another job might be eating
| into their finances even more, and really be more of the same
| (e.g., another restaurant).
| _jal wrote:
| The core idea is the more desperate people are, the lower you
| can push their wages.
|
| Same reason exploitive employers oppose increasing the minimum
| wage, single payer, etc. Keeping people wretched means a steady
| supply of new bodies if the ones you're employing start
| thinking they can negotiate.
| karmasimida wrote:
| Currently it is definitely not a good time for those
| employers to talk about slashing wages or adding up hours,
| when there is literally a labour shortage in US.
|
| The talk to exploit the high gas prices to their benefits
| sound nothing but delusional.
| fundad wrote:
| That's your BS detector tingling, they're making up any reason
| to pay people less and keep more money.
|
| Alternatively, they're projecting more people will need second
| jobs and take the lower wages if offered.
| crate_barre wrote:
| Is it better that this was said or left unsaid?
| aluminussoma wrote:
| Exactly. He is not the only person thinking this; he was just
| the only one who put his thoughts on paper. I remember when
| American capitalism was about succeeding by making other people
| successful. This kind of business - succeeding by sucking the
| blood out of your employees - should never be tolerated.
| freeone3000 wrote:
| When, exactly, was American capitalism about anything other
| than extracting maximal value from labor?
| rpmisms wrote:
| Henry Ford, capitalist extraordinaire, famously paid his
| workers $5 a day, double the average automaker's wage at
| the time. This extracted maximum value from said labor.
| gruez wrote:
| I know the popular story is that:
|
| 1. pay workers extra (ie. above the market rate)
|
| 2. workers are richer now
|
| 3. they use that money to buy the stuff you make
|
| 4. ???
|
| 5. profit!
|
| Has this actually been studied empirically? If you had to
| choose between paying your workers $1000 more and
| pocketing it, surely the latter option is the better one?
| Sure, they might use some of that money to buy your
| product, but they're not going to spend all of it, and
| after your own costs (eg. cost of goods sold), you're
| going to end up with less than $1000? How is that
| extracting "maximum value from said labor"?
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| 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.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| > Surely they know that the culture and environment that will
| attract people will be the one that pays better, right?
|
| No, it's the one that offers the most perks, like foosball
| tables and microkitchens. Ask any successful Silicon Valley
| startup. /s
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| This is the restaurant industry so it's more on the level of
| like, the one that lets you take an unpaid day off every once
| in a while.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| These are businesses that operate on single digit profit
| margins. And are easily replaced by eating meals at home.
| They either find a way to procure cheap labor, or shut
| down, because Applebees clientele do not really have the
| will or ability to spend more at Applebees.
| darknoon wrote:
| I appreciate the quote from corporate: "We are still scratching
| our head about what this gentleman was thinking."
| bremac wrote:
| As much as I am not a fan of Applebee's, the article title on HN
| should probably be fixed. The executive who sent the email works
| for Apple Central, a mid-sized franchisee with less than fifty
| locations. They do not work for Applebee's itself, nor do they
| represent a major franchisee. (Though in this case, it sounds
| like their views aren't even representative of their own
| franchise.)
| rdiddly wrote:
| And then he suggests doing things _"...to make sure you are the
| employer of choice."_ - LOL
|
| So if your Chotchkies franchise is in the middle of a wasteland
| where nobody can walk, bike, or take the bus to work, and then
| gas prices go up, doesn't that mean people need, y'know, _more_
| money? Won 't they be looking for _higher_ wages? Paying less
| just makes other employers look better and positions you to
| capture exactly zero of the supposed new growth in the applicant
| pool. Even _not working at all_ (i.e. not driving to a job) gains
| a few preference points compared to working at your Flingers.
| Seems like when they were handing out brains, this guy thought
| they said trains and said "gimme a slow one."
| vmception wrote:
| This local franchise executive is an economist?
|
| From reading the full email it seems like just one sentence
| lacked tact, only _maybe_ inaccurate, and the rest was ....
| decent management? Like the part about making schedules for
| employees further in advance so they could accomodate their other
| jobs? That 's pretty good.
|
| The part about what employment trends will look like due to gas
| prices and competing employers having to shut down? _Is that
| inaccurate?_
|
| Mentioning directly to offer lower wages, didn't have to be
| mentioned... _that way_.
|
| Do I like that the managers walked out over that? Absolutely
| [deleted]
| tyingq wrote:
| A walkout at one franchise, though I suppose the press value is
| helpful.
| [deleted]
| rileyphone wrote:
| Title is wrong, wasn't a corporate executive but instead "Wayne
| Pankratz, executive director of operations for Applebee's
| franchisee Apple Central LLC", from franchisee that has 47
| locations, out of 1787 total. In conclusion, this was corporate
| sabotage by Chili's.
| [deleted]
| metadat wrote:
| > 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 prices
| continue to go up, that means more hours employees will need to
| work to maintain their current level of living."
|
| Just wow, what a soulless scumbag.
|
| Not that I ever went to Applebee regularly, but seeing as how
| this is the kind of person the organization promotes, I will
| never return. I'd even rather starve. Utterly disgusting.
|
| Thank goodness for HN today, because with this broadcast I know
| that by tomorrow or the next day the news feeds will be awash
| with this story.
|
| Is it just one worm, or is this Apple is rotten to the core?
| nvahalik wrote:
| 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 overspending of
| unemployment and COVID benefits. The people out there looking
| for jobs were in a sellers market. They could get a better rate
| because people were staying at home because "they could make
| more on unemployment". Now we're moving back to a buyer's
| market as that runs out and people are forced to re-enter the
| workforce.
|
| While I think we can agree what he is saying here is cold, he
| has an interesting point. Ultimately the government is
| responsible for this and it will be interesting to see how it
| impacts wages and the mid-terms given what inflation is doing.
|
| Personally, it seems like we are in for a "correction" in the
| labor market where we will see wages go down since more people
| _need_ jobs and aren't relying on government handouts. But I
| think he's mainly pointing out that the wages were artificially
| high and are going to lower back down. Perhaps to $12-15 an
| hour? Who knows.
| Schroedingersat wrote:
| Seller's market is a funny way of saying they're not being
| held hostage for their lives.
| seneca wrote:
| > Seller's market is a funny way of saying they're not
| being held hostage for their lives.
|
| Sorry, are you saying that expecting people to work to meet
| their own needs is them being "held hostage for their
| lives"?
| dlp211 wrote:
| When they are denied the opportunity to easily obtain
| better positions through structural roadblocks, I would
| to an extent say this. At a minimum I would say that they
| are being exploited.
| mym1990 wrote:
| I think thinking through the economics of the situation is
| one thing, but voicing it to the people you employ is a bit
| different.
| nvahalik wrote:
| 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. All the while not realizing that the person who
| is employing them is just barely more than they are (and
| bearing the brunt of bad months by making less).
|
| So personally, I know that many small business owners are
| definitely hoping that the market changes so that they can
| hire not only quality people but at a rate that makes more
| economic sense.
|
| In this case, this isn't some super-specialized job, it's
| just a job with high variability in load and requires
| (sometimes) long hours doing tedious (but not physically
| demanding) work.
| jhgb wrote:
| > For some small businesses this is a hard ask.
|
| On that note, I've seem someone remark that some business
| owners apparently believe that "don't buy things you
| can't afford" applies to everyone but them.
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| 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.
| mym1990 wrote:
| I am not suggesting that the owners try to make the
| economics work in an impossible way that makes them go
| out of business, I know the uncertainty in this
| environment is making things very difficult. But while
| owners can look at aggregate data, a single worker is
| looking at this as a way to survive until tomorrow. They
| don't want to be made into a statistic, so the owners
| should keep that to themselves.
| ch33zer wrote:
| 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.
| dvtrn wrote:
| Fasting as a form of protest is now "hyperbole", is it?
| daenz wrote:
| Aside from the fact that this person is a soulless scumbag, how
| do you ever even get to the position of executive director
| without realizing what a toxic and abusive attitude that is and
| should never ever be expressed by anyone in his position? Did
| he think that what he said was smart business sense? Is he that
| disconnected from the average employee? I just don't understand
| how it made it past all of the ethical filters that someone in
| a leadership position should have, and how that failing never
| manifested itself sooner.
| conductr wrote:
| I've been at executive level for a decade or so and am
| honestly not surprised at all.
|
| 1) their main job is "be strategic" and as such they throw
| out all kinds of horrible ideas to improve the normal
| business metrics / profitability. In healthcare, I hear
| things that clearly and obviously would worsen patient care
| and the line "let's run that by Clinical" essentially means I
| really doubt that idea deserves consideration.
|
| 2) they've been hit with a multitude of problems. Rising
| wages is certainly the hottest topic since they were
| furloughing people in 2020. They begrudgingly raised menu
| prices. It continues to puzzle them where all the labor went?
|
| 3) as much as I hate to admit it, there might be some truth
| to the point he's making regarding gas prices. I'd never put
| that in writing, but it happens and is rather normalized
| behavior.
| kirykl wrote:
| Happens all the time. Steve Jobs had several non poach
| agreements which both lowered wages and lowered attrition
| tablespoon wrote:
| > I just don't understand how it made it past all of the
| ethical filters that someone in a leadership position should
| have, and how that failing never manifested itself sooner.
|
| Ethical filters? They're probably less likely than you think.
| There's a not-uncommon idea that the _sole_ ethical
| obligation of a business is to make money for its
| shareholders, and this soulless scumbag seems to be thinking
| that way.
|
| This guy's professional mistake probably just saying the
| quiet part loud, not so much thinking what he did or acting
| on that strategy.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| 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)
| watwut wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Does not sound like a structural solution to me
| happytoexplain wrote:
| It's both. There's a tendency to excuse bad behavior because
| they "have to" due to systemic forces, but the system does
| not have them at gunpoint. Businesses in this system can and
| do survive without being ruthless and amoral right up to the
| edges of legality, even when they don't reap the rewards of a
| positive image because they decline to publicize such small
| integrities. You're right, however, that the system is the
| bigger problem.
| bin_bash wrote:
| It seems you're mixing up Applebee's and the franchisee that he
| works for--Applebee's never promoted him.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Offtopic: These people are everywhere, which is why policy
| guardrails to defend against sociopaths is so important.
| colpabar wrote:
| To put this another way: any argument that boils down to "the
| free market will solve it" is complete bullshit because it
| doesn't account for these people.
| nightski wrote:
| Theoretically it would (and actually we are seeing that
| unfold now in the great resignation). With competition
| people aren't forced to work at Applebees. In fact it's a
| great time to be looking for work right now.
| profile53 wrote:
| Agreed. One of the things that surprised me the most working
| in healthcare was how many people have a flagrant disregard
| for anything but self interest -- even human life. Sadly the
| policy mechanisms have failed to keep these people out.
| metadat wrote:
| Yes, I've been appalled by the pervasivness of the self-
| interest mentality throughout healthcare.
|
| Anecdotally, Kaiser is easily the worst offender, not even
| trying to hide it.
| aerovistae wrote:
| Not off-topic. Strictly on-topic.
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| And now you know why everyone talks so loudly about property
| rights - to have people think that they are the only kind of
| right that needs protection.
| [deleted]
| dominotw wrote:
| > how you ask?
|
| prbly thought he came up with a genius insight
| user3939382 wrote:
| My open letter to Wayne would read: your food sucks, the
| portions are small, and your prices are high. The service is
| hit-or-miss at best.
|
| You've bean-counted this chain into the ground, maybe spend a
| little less time looking at financial tricks on your balance
| sheet and a little more figuring out how you can make food
| people want to eat at a reasonable price.
| mym1990 wrote:
| I can hardly blame the hit-or-miss service when you have to
| worker under management like this.
| glitchc wrote:
| Why do folks like this always end up with a sleazy-sounding name?
| It can't be a coincidence.
| Fargoan wrote:
| Is this even real? I saw it posted on r/antiwork and it sounded
| fake.
| fundad wrote:
| Right, What are the odds some regional manager is actually
| putting this out? An investment banker would predict more
| people taking second jobs as expenses rise and charge a lot for
| the information. It takes analysis, skills, a budget...
| endisneigh wrote:
| 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
| wernercd wrote:
| That idea ("1 bed room within 1 hour") is simplistic when you
| consider places like CA that have NIMBY brigades and huge
| amounts of red-tape making housing needlessly limited driving
| up prices with bad leadership.
|
| Hard to feel super supportive of massive changes to min-wage
| for places that literally make affordable housing impossible.
|
| Growing population + massive regulation + NIMBY = you're gonna
| have a bad time.
|
| Increasing minimum wage without fixing other issues is a ticket
| to non-solutions.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| > if minimum wage was defined as; two people being able to
| afford a 1 bedroom apartment within a 1 hour drive without
| traffic.
|
| It would implode or we would adjust our standards in every
| other area to make it happen. We are simply not rich enough to
| afford that for everyone the way things are currently
| structured.
| sg47 wrote:
| You should also add 'with one job per adult family member under
| 65'.
| deegles wrote:
| A better method is to give everyone a universal basic income
| enough to afford a place to live and to eliminate the minimum
| wage. That way jobs would have to pay what the job is worth to
| people, not amounts that create a poverty trap.
| vsareto wrote:
| The real estate industry would need significant overhauls
| before tying it to UBI. A minimum wage increase based on
| inflation would be vastly easier to get done politically in
| the US and even that bare minimum still hasn't happened yet.
| bo1024 wrote:
| A universal basic income would have some advantages over a
| minimum wage. Minimum wage interferes with supply and demand in
| the labor market, which is why some economists dislike it. UBI
| moves the supply curve to a different place, but it allows
| those principles to function.
| glitchc wrote:
| 1) UBI is not UBI unless everyone gets it.
|
| 2) Any income surplus generated by UBI is rapidly consumed by
| middle people and rent-seekers. That's how we get inflation.
| tacitusarc wrote:
| I do not understand what you are trying to convey through
| either of these points. Would you mind clarifying?
| ars wrote:
| He's saying that if everyone has extra money, then
| everyone can afford higher prices.
|
| Since they can afford higher prices, people will charge
| those higher prices. And you are back where you started.
| xwdv wrote:
| UBI won't do anything I'm afraid, that experiment already
| failed during the pandemic and now we have massive inflation
| across all assets.
| cortesoft wrote:
| Umm, there might have been a FEW confounding factors during
| the pandemic that makes the conclusion not as clear as
| that.
| tasty_freeze wrote:
| It is very tempting to draw a straight line between
| something you don't like and some other event that is
| negative and declare causation.
|
| Do you really think this is what is causing inflation?
| Perhaps there are other facts, such as trillions of dollars
| of almost zero interest money injected since 2008, massive
| tax cuts for highly profitable companies (eg AAPL) that
| result in great payouts to people who are already paying
| low taxes (long term capital gains), complex interacting
| forces that moved the cost of a barrel of oil from a low of
| $20 to over $100?
| bogwog wrote:
| UBI could allow the elimination of minimum wage entirely,
| along with a ton of other scattered welfare programs that
| have lots of administrative overhead and the typical
| middleman industries that leech off of government programs.
|
| It's a no-brainer!
| njarboe wrote:
| Most people working for minimum wage (and probably most
| people in general in the US) work pay check to pay check
| (like the Applebee's manager stated in the article). They
| max out their available credit so that the interest takes
| up all of the possible slack in their income. Under UBI how
| to you prevent people from now borrowing more money
| (spending it on a vacation, clothes, fancier car, etc.),
| paying all the UBI as interest and ending up back in the
| same financial situation they were before. I don't think
| UBI solves peoples financial problems. I think Thomas
| Paine's idea of getting a large lump sum when reaching the
| age of maturity has some merit. Maybe a manditory two year
| service in the military or other government org after high
| school and then they receive a large chunk of money to
| start their life ($200k or something like that). The person
| could spend it on school, start a business, down payment on
| a house, wedding, etc. Having classed in high school
| discussing what one should do with that money would be a
| great way for students to think about the future and in a
| positive way.
| dlbucci wrote:
| Or, you know, have a Cost of Living/Inflation adjustment every
| year. That's such a simple idea to me and it's sort of insane
| to me that not only is that not something that happens, but no
| one seems to be even suggesting it (or at least, no politicians
| are campaigning on it). Hell, adjusting the 70's minimum wage
| to today's dollars puts it at like $24, so just hearing that, I
| don't know how it shouldn't be around there today, but people
| talk about $15 like it's crazy.
| frumper wrote:
| Maybe a source? I was curious and using federal minimum wages
| from either 1970($1.45/hr) or 1979($2.90/hr) would yield less
| than $12/hr. I know you can contest how inflation is
| calculated, or use shadow stats, but then you're getting into
| murky waters. The official numbers are no where near the
| claim of $24/hr though.
| throwbigdata wrote:
| Please don't confuse the socialist agendas with evidence or
| data.
| boredumb wrote:
| Would probably look like everyone working for the same dozen
| companies.
| PhileinSophia wrote:
| Grollicus wrote:
| 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.
| tshaddox wrote:
| > You can rent them for very cheap but just as you're about
| to move in they suddenly become unavailable for whatever
| reason?
|
| I mean, presumably in this hypothetical situation we wouldn't
| want to simultaneously dissolve basic renter's rights.
| glenstein wrote:
| Yeah, and this is the trouble with trying to get people to
| engage with hypotheticals on the internet in thoughtful
| ways.
|
| The usual formula for any engagement with hypothetical
| ideas is for it to be reflexively dismissed with a "that'll
| never work" response. Most of the time I think this is the
| instinctive friction we feel at being asked to engage with
| a new idea, and saying that'll never work for [insert
| reason] is intended not to express a counter-argument so
| much as it is to reject the invitation to participate in
| the exercise.
|
| But even in the genre of "that'll never work" responses,
| this one is uniquely strange. Normally the "that'll never
| work" response suggests that there's some obstacle that
| arises as a consequence of the change to the status quo.
| But here, it's just a list obstacles that aren't connected
| to any underlying principle. It doesn't even feel like the
| usual "that'll never work" response.
| wedowhatwedo wrote:
| You obviously don't live in Indiana....to think there are
| basic renter's rights. That would be a huge win.
|
| I'm only slightly kidding. The Indiana legislature was "too
| busy" to consider a renter's rights bill this year. They
| were busy trying to "solve the problem" of transgender kids
| playing on sports teams in schools. That's obviously way
| more important than lower income people having affordable,
| safe places to live.
| tablespoon wrote:
| >> 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.
|
| > [imagined nonsense rules-layering]
|
| That won't happen for two reasons:
|
| 1. It requires a massive conspiracy.
|
| 2. Any law like the GP describes would most likely be written
| to block off the exploits that it took you five minutes to
| think of. Exploits that are missed can be addressed in
| subsequent laws.
|
| Practically, a minimum wage defined like the GP's would
| require a detailed census of actually-paid one bedroom
| apartment rents, which would be immune to your exploits.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| The BLS already publishes similar statistics. It's not
| rocket science.
|
| GSA does the same thing for travel expenses. You can
| determine lodging and per diem expenses for every county in
| the US.
| nostrademons wrote:
| Inflation, probably followed by corruption. Minimum wage would
| rise to the point where a person could afford a 1BR apartment
| within a 1 hour drive without traffic. Then the rents of those
| 1BR apartments would rise to capture that new minimum wage.
| Then minimum wage would rise to afford the new rent, and so on.
| Eventually someone's going to say "Hey, I own an apartment
| block downtown, I'm supposed to rent it out to the hoi polloi,
| but I'll let you live there rent free if you work for me and do
| exactly as I say, _wink wink_ ".
|
| This is a very common situation in much of Latin America - both
| inflation being transmitted through CoL-indexed social goods,
| and the corruption that comes from trying to bypass that.
|
| Any durable solution needs to address the questions of "How do
| we ensure that there are enough 1BR apartments within a 1 hour
| drive for everyone who wants one to get one?", "How do we
| incentivize the construction of these 1BR apartments?", "How do
| we maintain the desirability of these apartments once they're
| built?", and "How do we prevent one firm from owning all of the
| desirable 1BR apartments and setting whatever price they want?"
| dv_dt wrote:
| If the rent pricing exceeds the production cost of the
| apartments by too high a profit margin, then a government or
| regulated private entity should be formed to build them at a
| reasonable margin, thus controlling the minimum wage growth.
|
| Alternately a large enough ratio of government controlled
| units within a market could be managed to provide a market
| weighting to reasonable prices. (you can see that in play in
| some European cities).
| glenstein wrote:
| >Then the rents of those 1BR apartments would rise to capture
| that new minimum wage.
|
| This is commonly expressed as a consequence of raising the
| minimum wage, but in the most nuanced discussions of
| inflation that I've been exposed to, people are mindful of
| the fact that inflation ripples out into different segments
| of the economy in different ways.
|
| I think the most reasonable outcome is that certain segments
| of the economy function as shock absorbers, which take the
| hit of inflation disproportionately as the economy rebalances
| itself and relieves pressures on segments of the economy that
| were being squeezed unsustainably hard.
|
| And so there is indeed a ripple effect of raising the minimum
| wage, that there's more money to spend, but it radiates out
| into the economy and disproportionate ways, and can be a net
| benefit to wage earners because prices on critical
| necessities may rise, but not in proportion to the rise in
| wages, so it's still in a benefit in the end.
| quantum_magpie wrote:
| >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?
| licebmi__at__ wrote:
| It's funny that the ideals of granting everyone "life,
| liberty and a the pursuit of happiness" are regarded as
| wisdom, but as soon as somebody tries to ponder of what that
| might be on the specific, then it's regarded as crazy.
| Seattle3503 wrote:
| The quote talks about the pursuit of happiness, not
| happiness.
| TecoAndJix wrote:
| I think you need some level of opportunity to pursue,
| though
| [deleted]
| shafyy wrote:
| Exactly. Even the mindset of thinking in "driving" vs.
| walking or public transport shows a lot.
| XorNot wrote:
| It is however realistic given the the US's urban layout and
| population preferences. Also nowhere has succeeded in
| keeping essential, low paid workers living near where they
| work - gentrification forces them out.
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| That's because their work has so much value and they get
| paid none of it.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| An hour? Why is it acceptable or reasonable to spend 2 hours
| of your unpaid time wasted on commuting?
| IMTDb wrote:
| Because the only way to guarantee that people have less
| than an hour of commute to their job is to create
| _extremely_ dense population center which means _extremely_
| small living spaces which are almost universally hated. And
| most jobs cannot be done remotely, so to guarantee that
| each individual has space, he must accept to be some
| distance ways from the hub where people concentrate to
| perform their daily tasks.
|
| Think of how many people a big hospital employs, and how
| you'd need to organise living center if all of them had to
| have a reasonable living space within few minutes of
| commute. Now you need stores and restaurant there as well
| _and_ the space to host the workers of these places too,
| etc. The only way is to build huge tower hosting tons of
| small appartements, kill all green areas to gain as much
| space as possible. People don 't seem to like that idea
| that much.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Also, you'd think the people with 'traditional values' or
| whatever would be really excited if a single worker could
| support a couple.
| astrange wrote:
| Dual-income families are because of equality, not poverty.
| When women earn nearly the same pay, it's worth it for them
| to work (and hire childcare) because then you can use the
| money to buy stuff.
|
| When they don't work, it's because it wouldn't allow the
| household to buy more stuff on the margin - but rather than
| "spouse earns so much their income doesn't matter", it's
| more likely "they wouldn't earn enough to pay for the
| childcare they have to hire". Which is a bad thing.
| Aeolun wrote:
| This sounds to me like they want to be able to provide for a
| SO?
| jpcfl wrote:
| >Otherwise it sounds like you don't think anyone should be
| able to live anywhere reasonable without roommates?
|
| I think your confusing "should be able to" with "shall be
| able to, enforceable by law".
|
| I don't expect that a 15 year old working his first job as a
| fry cook at an Arby's should be compensated enough that he
| can afford to live on his own. In fact, that could be
| dangerously disincentivizing his hard work toward his
| education.
| tinco wrote:
| Well thank Reagan for ruining the honest living wage
| forcing your lazy ass to go to college instead of wasting
| your talent as an Arby's fry chef.
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| Those college cardboards are talismans. I was looking in
| the Stanford bookstore and saw the following description
| on a box:
|
| PRESIDENTIAL Masterpiece Diploma Frame in Jefferson with
| Black Suede & Premium Silver Wood Millet Mats - Stanford
| U
|
| $249.00
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| This rationale is always based on the fact that a
| "teenager" doesn't need a livable wage. The problem with
| this, is that not every fry cook is a teenager that doesn't
| need to pay for food and shelter. Fast food is a $300bn
| industry in the US. It doesn't need to be subsidized by
| parents.
| monkeybutton wrote:
| Pay should scale with the value of work produced, not the
| perceived "worth" of the worker. You argue with a
| hypothetical teenager. But what about my racist and sexist
| hypothetical uncle who owns an Arby's?
| ramones13 wrote:
| But should a 27 year-old fry cook make enough money to live
| alone? Labor is labor. Pay shouldn't be less because it's
| going to an acceptable to abuse class of person.
| Bermion wrote:
| Why shouldn't someone working as a fry cook be able to live
| on his salary? It's not dangerous to have a system where
| not everyone needs a university degree to earn a living.
| ars wrote:
| Think about that. Let's take your world, the fry cook can
| live on his salary. Now the person with a University
| degree can command a much higher wage since his skill is
| in great demand.
|
| He's got more money, so he can afford more expensive
| stuff, increasing demand, which increases prices, and now
| your fry cook can no longer live on his salary.
|
| Do you want to respond by raising wages again? You're in
| a never ending loop.
| namecheapTA wrote:
| 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.
| srjek wrote:
| That was also my first reaction, but an alternate reading is
| that it's two people living on the (minimum) wages of one
| person.
| monkeybutton wrote:
| Perhaps the assumption is of a couple living together? Also
| known as: shack up and produce offspring/future worker bees.
| endisneigh wrote:
| Yes, that's what I was assuming here
| foolfoolz wrote:
| living alone is a luxury all over the world. i don't think
| it's good to expect minimum wage will afford you a luxury
| style of living. we don't have the infrastructure to support
| that for all. nor does any country
| imgabe wrote:
| Mass confusion. Every location has to have a custom minimum
| wage based on the local real estate market? How are you going
| to enforce that?
|
| How about people figure out how much money they need to afford
| the lifestyle they want and then get a job that pays that much?
| all2 wrote:
| The US Department of Defense already has a Cost of Living
| Allowance (COLA) calculated for most of the United States,
| large parts of Germany, and large parts of Korea.
|
| The work is already done.
| imgabe wrote:
| That takes into account the specific set of apartments
| within a 1 hour drive of each individual work location in
| the US and automatically updates as apartment rents
| fluctuate?
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| If this was a real law, lawmakers would definitely need
| to flesh out the requirement beyond what an HN commenter
| presumably spitballed in a couple minutes or less, yes.
| As written, the requirement also doesn't account for
| factors like public transit.
|
| But I do think the idea has merit.
| nathancahill wrote:
| Even further, the US State Department has a COLA for any
| city it has an embassy or consulate in the world. But it's
| for a diplomatic lifestyle, not for minimum wage workers in
| the US.
| gunfighthacksaw wrote:
| > Every location has to have a custom minimum wage
|
| I think the federal structure of the USA lends itself nicely
| to that problem.
|
| There would be an issue in extremely heterogeneous states
| like Washington or California, where the big cities on the
| coast are known for being expensive while the interior is
| often cheaper, less desirable and subject to snobbery, as in
| the case of Bakersfield which I have never heard anything
| good about.
| imgabe wrote:
| States and even cities already do set their own minimum
| wages. I don't see how further complicating the issue by
| requiring each individual building to consider the
| apartments available within a 1hour drive radius to figure
| out what their minimum wage needs to be.
| philipsunrise wrote:
| For a lot of people, the lifestyle they want is "a place to
| live" and getting a job that pays that much is impossible.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| That was my initial reaction, but the more I think about it--
| is it really so unreasonable? Right now, we force employees
| to deal with the burden of ever-changing real-estate markets.
| Why not make employers do that?
|
| And if it's too much of a hassle for your business, just pay
| your employees substantially above the minimum.
| imgabe wrote:
| Most people are more than capable of dealing with the
| burden of managing their personal finances and budgeting.
| The more responsibility you want to shove off on
| institutions to take care of for you, the greater you
| increase your dependence on them and the more susceptible
| you make yourself to their control.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| I suppose people are poor because they are irresponsible
| and it's important they remain that way for freedom is an
| interesting take.
| johnrob wrote:
| Without debating the merits of said concept, the effect would
| be to (finally) boost the supply of housing, and find a way to
| transition (decouple?) stored wealth from real estate assets to
| something else.
| [deleted]
| gruez wrote:
| > 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.
| tshaddox wrote:
| I'm pretty sure any restaurant in the United States that
| prepares meals on site does so because that's a crucial part
| of the product they're offering, not because it's cheaper to
| prepare the meals on site.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| If it is a crucial part of the product, some restaurants
| will switch products and others would go out of business.
| exac wrote:
| Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't it be better for the
| environment if all the produce is delivered in one trip,
| verse the environmental cost of 50 employees driving 100
| miles / day? I'm assuming the LCOL employees live close to
| the factory.
| babelfish wrote:
| Places like Applebee's already do this...
| bun_at_work wrote:
| Unfortunately, adding complexity to legislation often makes it
| impassable. This is especially true now, with the increased
| polarization in our politics.
|
| Some variation of your suggesting is better than what we
| currently have for minimum wage. However, getting that through
| congress seems impossible, IMO.
| Schroedingersat wrote:
| Nah,
|
| Make it one bedroom per adult (so 1 bed apt for one, or 2 bed
| for 2, whichever is more) with a 30 minute commute in peak hour
| (by any means), as well as enough left over for a deposit on a
| similar home in 5 years for 20% lvr assuming current property
| value growth continues.
| thepasswordis wrote:
| >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.
|
| It would look like both minimum wage, and rent/real estate
| prices going directly to infinity.
| golemiprague wrote:
| tenebrisalietum wrote:
| >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.
|
| A lot of stuff would be automated or simply not exist. I don't
| see how high minimum wage can "work" to solve social issues if
| companies can choose between not hiring people and paying a
| high minimum wage.
| munk-a wrote:
| If automation was free it'd be here already. Automation
| creates high skilled jobs to manage the automation - it can
| be a significant labour save but the way healthy economies
| work that freed labour is going to find some other service to
| offer.
| woah wrote:
| I wonder what the USA would look like if zoning laws were
| defined as: Issue building permits until people can afford a 1
| bedroom apartment within a 1 hour drive of work without traffic
| kube-system wrote:
| It would look like somewhere between $7.25 - $725/hr, depending
| on their circumstances.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| I think there should be an exception for people who are
| financially dependent on someone else. If you're a teen living
| at home you should be able to work for whatever someone will
| pay.
| bobro wrote:
| why?
| munk-a wrote:
| To distort the labour market and make it harder for adults
| to actually bargain with their employers for a reasonable
| wage - I'd assume.
| karaterobot wrote:
| Everybody is giving you theoretical answers, but I am literal
| minded.
|
| So, according to some website, Miami, FL is the most expensive
| real estate market in the country, and Florida has a fairly low
| minimum wage currently. So, I'll work with that.
|
| I assume that a 1 hour drive without traffic puts you at most
| around 55 miles (freeways are faster, city streets are slower,
| but this is an estimate).
|
| That could put you in places like Belle Glade, Florida, where
| the 1 bedroom apartment listings are between $400 and $650 per
| month.
|
| But, it could also put you in the much nicer West Palm Beach,
| Florida, where (according to Zillow Fair Market Rent for ZIP
| Code 33401) the average rental for a 1 bedroom apartment is
| $1274 per month.
|
| Divided between two people, that's $637 per month. If we go
| with the rule that 1/3 of your wages should go to housing, that
| means you'd need to make $1911 per month to afford that
| apartment. If you worked 40 hours a week, and there are (on
| average) 4.3 weeks per month, that means you'd need to make
| $11.11 per hour to afford that apartment.
|
| According to this other random website, the average hourly wage
| in Miami is $21 per hour. The minimum wage in Florida is
| currently $8.65 per hour.
|
| In summary, if they took the least generous interpretation of
| your rule set (the Belle Glade case) they could safely lower
| the minimum wage. If they took the most generous (the West Palm
| Beach case) they would need to raise it by about $2.50 per
| hour.
|
| The average wage across the U.S. is about $27, and 2/3rds of
| people make "at least" above $15/hour, so it may not affect
| most people at all, _ceteris paribus_ , and making the
| assumption that the example region is a useful example.
|
| This is all very hand-wavey and back of the envelop, of course.
| elil17 wrote:
| God a one hour drive without traffic is like a inhumanely long
| commute
|
| Interesting thought though
| shadowgovt wrote:
| 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...).
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| That's with traffic though.
|
| I live about 45 minutes from downtown LA without traffic.
| Which turns into 2.5 hours with traffic.
| kbelder wrote:
| My commute is 45 minutes without traffic... 46 minutes
| with traffic. (I live in Oregon.)
| mrfusion wrote:
| You should include traffic in it.
| bloaf wrote:
| Employers would pay apartment owners to keep a below market
| apartment "available" but turn down all applicants, then use
| that below market price to justify arbitrarily low wages.
| wnevets wrote:
| >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.
| gruez wrote:
| >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.
| ..
| paulpauper wrote:
| there are way more expenses besides that. it will never be
| enough without creating problems . Rather than putting the onus
| on business, just fire up the brrrrinter.
| munk-a wrote:
| I am failing to understand what that second sentence means -
| can you de-meme it a bit?
| brightball wrote:
| I know this won't be popular but minimum wage shouldn't exist.
| Basic income, sure but not minimum wage. Every discussion of
| minimum wage blames employers for something that is completely
| out of their control: inflation. When the price of gas, housing
| and food rises the business where you work doesn't suddenly
| have more money to hand out. If anything their costs have gone
| up too reducing what they can afford to pay out.
|
| It blows my mind that people continue to act like rising costs
| are the fault of their employers, who have no control of it at
| all.
|
| No doubt, this exec in particular was a moron who deserves to
| be fired for even suggesting what he did but the overall
| sentiment just doesn't jive for so many businesses that are
| getting squeezed harder and harder everyday.
| tssva wrote:
| Hmmmm, how could a business possibly compensate for increased
| costs including labor costs?
| brightball wrote:
| By raising prices and further cementing inflation across
| the board, which will be passed on to other people and
| other business to persist the effect even further if they
| don't lose customers because of the price increases.
|
| It sounds so simple to just raise prices, but if it were
| that simple it would have happened long before. Especially
| on the lower end of the consumer goods and services market
| the price sensitivity of people is sky high. In grocery
| stores companies chose to shrink their products and hope
| people didn't notice rather than increases prices for that
| exact reason.
|
| It gets passed along somewhere and in the end the more
| people who decide to "just raise prices" the worse the
| problem gets.
| ars wrote:
| Think about the positive feedback loop you are proposing here:
|
| Minimum wage goes up -> everything costs more -> minimum wage
| needs to go up some more.
|
| So labor expense grows and grows, while expense for "stuff"
| becomes a smaller and smaller part of that.
|
| So how do you make that stuff? You can't hire anyone - too
| expensive. So either automation, or buy things from other
| countries. This means firing people.
|
| Your proposal will lead to mass unemployment.
|
| But it gets worse, since you've tied your numbers to the cost
| of housing, and cities have the most expensive housing, people
| won't be able to live in the city (no jobs available that pay
| enough).
|
| So mass migration to places with lower housing, until the cost
| of housing in a city goes down. What's you've done is
| incentivized everyone to kind of spread out in a diffuse way to
| keep down the cost of housing.
|
| But where are the jobs in these places? There are no service
| jobs, since services are too expensive for anyone to buy. You'd
| have to drive more than an hour to find a job.
|
| People will respond by demanding rent control, but that also
| means less housing is available.
|
| So not only did you cause mass unemployment, you also caused
| mass homelessness.
| wccrawford wrote:
| That's not nearly enough detail for the setting of the wage.
| Companies would simply assume that they always eat the cheapest
| food, buy the cheapest transportation, never go on vacation, no
| luxuries at all, etc etc. If you don't factor all that in,
| they'll factor it out.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| > Companies would simply assume
|
| This could be defined by local governments with additional
| standards not written in to this internet comment.
| aksss wrote:
| Nothing stops a local government, to my knowledge, or a
| state government from raising minimum wage for the unique
| conditions their locale faces and the ideals they want to
| reflect. People too often think about federal minimum wage,
| but think about how diverse the environments are that
| federal minimum wage affects. If you live in a city/state
| where the minimum wage is lower than you think it should
| be, you'll probably have better luck changing local
| conditions rather than trying to boil the ocean that is the
| US with 350m people and an enormous landmass consisting of
| the densely urban and sparsely rural, the rich coastlines
| and wealthy mountain resorts to the impoverished hill
| countries.
| tartoran wrote:
| Even with all that factored in, and even with skipping meals,
| not traveling anywhere minimum wage does not afford one a
| roof over their head. Maybe with hours of commute it could
| start working out (if far away remote places are considered)
| but commute time is not included as wage and commute also
| costs money so it breaks the equation again. But CEOs are
| getting insane paychecks and bonuses.
| wowokay wrote:
| I don't think commute should factor into this discussion at
| all. People choose to live in expensive urban cities, why
| not move to a cheaper place? The point of opportunity is
| that everyone has it, but people that take advantage of it
| and succeed get chastised while other people who don't wish
| to apply themselves get angry. Then add children on top of
| it and you have people with multiple kids living on minimum
| wage who feel entitled to earn more money because of their
| poor choices and family planning.
| Schroedingersat wrote:
| Still a great deal better than the current situation.
| Currently if you do all that stuff and have room mates you
| might break even.
|
| I'd be here for using the same standards as rental agencies
| do though so it's actually possible to get a place: 3x the
| rent of 1 bedroom for one full time job. And make it within
| 30 minutes during peak hour (by whichever means is fastest).
| Also if they cite a train as their fastest, then no car or
| license requirements on the job and no penalizing anyone if
| the train is late.
|
| If they want to be feudal lords, they can at least have the
| bare minimum responsibilities that actual feudal lords had.
| sokoloff wrote:
| The word "afford" is doing a lot of work there. Is paying 40%
| of gross income for rent "too much"? 35%? 30%? What if
| utilities were included vs not? 10th percentile rent? 25th
| percentile?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Pics of email:
| https://twitter.com/vote4robgill/status/1506666976344784900
| grover35 wrote:
| 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.
| ivan_gammel wrote:
| As far as I can see, one particular flavor of capitalism works
| quite well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_market_economy
|
| It's not like bad things do not happen, but the system
| continuously checks the balance between employee and employer
| interests and adjusts.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| 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.
| cardiffspaceman wrote:
| Achieving the optimum economy by allowing human nature to do
| its thing was supposed to be the way capitalism works. To me
| that would mean including scumbags, somehow the invisible
| hand would create paradise.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| I don't think any economic system can create paradise. Some
| are certainly better at optimally distributing scarce
| resources though.
| vkou wrote:
| Paradise is here, it's just not evenly distributed.
| daenz wrote:
| 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.
| metadat wrote:
| Unfortunately only some of us have realized this, and there is
| no clear path forward yet. We still have a long, long way to go
| to achieve meaningful improvements.
| vlunkr wrote:
| One guy that works for a franchise of an increasingly
| irrelevant restaurant chain has a bad take in a private email
| conversation and you think this is the end of capitalism?
| mbostleman wrote:
| Capitalism punishes this behavior, as it did here. The market
| worked as we would expect and hope.
| rat9988 wrote:
| 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.
| FredPret wrote:
| Capitalism is a system, this guy is just a participant. Make
| him famous and turn the system against him.
|
| I'm a dyed-in-the-wool ubercapitalist, and I hate scarcity-
| focused, race-to-the-bottom companies and people like these.
| It's a question of values and approach to life.
| subpixel wrote:
| If I were King of America, the tax code (and other financial
| instruments I can't think up on the spot) would reward companies
| based on the degree to which they enrich their rank and file
| employees.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| Start off by charging them extra in taxes to cover any welfare
| their full-time employees qualify for.
|
| edit: with a 200% penalty for administrative fees.
| gruez wrote:
| >Start off by charging them extra in taxes to cover any
| welfare their full-time employees qualify for.
|
| Isn't this equivalent to raising the minimum wage? I'm not
| sure what's the point of policies like this other for the
| cathartic effect/grandstanding.
| gruez wrote:
| >would reward companies based on the degree to which they
| enrich their rank and file employees.
|
| How would this work? How is this different than a payroll
| subsidy or the EITC?
| tartoran wrote:
| You never hear about lowering bonuses or executive paychecks. Why
| is that not revolting people anymore?
| yalogin wrote:
| This is textbook example of a bad manager. These kind of people
| are the reason why employees leave. The person should be removed
| from that position and made into an individual contributor.
| rekabis wrote:
| The Parasite Class cares only for profit. Human suffering? Let's
| leverage that! Let's use that as a form of control, to extract
| even more profits!
| aerovistae wrote:
| stonemetal12 wrote:
| I saw this on Reddit yesterday, the comments were much worse.
|
| In this thread there is a mention of Ethics, and even a post
| that shows the thinking of how someone could write the email
| without being Satan's brother.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| Having someone in here arguing for the ethics of this sort of
| thing is _not_ better. Just because it looks like we all
| follow an official style guide in here doesn 't make what is
| said here automatically _better_. It has to do that on its
| own merits, and as long as "arguing persuasively for evil,
| as a thought exercise" is considered a good thing here that
| can't happen imo.
|
| Civility and debate themselves are not virtues! What purpose
| do they serve for us? What are we doing here? If you want to
| make an argument that we're superior to reddit you need to
| make it on more than the aesthetics of the prose bc that
| isn't shit in the end.
| warent wrote:
| > 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
| naoqj wrote:
| He didn't say that hn is turning into reddit, he ist talking
| about this particular thread, and at the moment that he had
| posted the comment, I would have agreed with him.
| thehappypm wrote:
| I agree as well. This particular thread oozes the classic
| eat-the-rich trope that dominates Reddit and doesn't match
| the culture here.
| aerovistae wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| mxkopy wrote:
| I don't think the reasoning of this individual deserves any
| other consideration than disgust.
| aerovistae wrote:
| Sure. I agree. But a thread-full of that disgust doesn't have
| any value as a conversation. We already all know how we all
| feel about this sort of treatment of other people, it's a
| given.
| mxkopy wrote:
| Sure, but discrediting the disgust on the basis of it being
| valueless has a similar effect of discrediting the
| positions that disgust is based on, especially when you
| aren't adding value yourself. Mention some solutions!
| Otherwise you're just talking about HN vs reddit in a
| thread about vile corporate practice that is very real and
| serious.
| [deleted]
| warent wrote:
| This is the reason why communities like r/antiwork are so
| massive. The sad fact is that working class people who don't
| possess rarer skills are frequently mistreated this severely. In
| other words it's much easier for a sociopath to exploit unskilled
| labor than skilled labor. This in my opinion is part of the
| responsibility of the government which they've been largely
| failing at lately, it's supposed to balance businesses so they
| don't just throw humans into the furnace to keep the wheels
| turning.
| jasonhansel wrote:
| At least he was being honest.
|
| I think that many corporate executives have thoughts along these
| lines: they want employees to be so desperate that they'll accept
| low wages and bad working conditions. That is, of course, why
| they tend to campaign against e.g. minimum wages, food stamps,
| and reforms that would make it easier to unionize.
|
| The only difference is that other execs have the good sense not
| to put such thoughts in writing.
| mateo1 wrote:
| Yeah, this guy clearly hasn't worked in a company big enough to
| know he has to translate this to corporate speak for all
| written communications.
| slantedview wrote:
| The only reason this new story became a problem for Applebees was
| the suggestion to exploit high gas prices. But the suggestion to
| hire people at lower wages is par for the course, unfortunately.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| 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.
| WestCoastJustin wrote:
| Your suggested title is too long for submission. Sometimes you
| need to use your best judgement in applying the HN guidelines.
| bjterry wrote:
| The headline is deceptive as written. It's an executive at an
| Applebee's franchisee with 47 restaurants, not the chain
| itself.
| dlp211 wrote:
| This is a distinction without a difference. I don't care
| that different Applebee's are managed by different groups.
|
| It never ceases to amaze me the way that people with any
| type of power treat and think about people with less power.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| That's fine, but the title should at least be factually
| accurate if the user is going to write their own.
| WestCoastJustin wrote:
| Yeah, makes sense. I agree with you.
| dragontamer wrote:
| Reading down to the later parts of the article, this sounds like
| a bad game of telephone from upper-management to middle-
| management.
|
| Central Applebee management puts out vague message about
| inflation affecting costs and revenues. That hiring managers need
| to work harder to retain their employees by giving potential
| employees more flexible schedules (which may have a benefit of
| cutting costs: some employees may be willing to take a lower pay
| if they can have a different schedule).
|
| Some middle-manager reads that statement as having to do with
| gas-prices making prospective employees more desperate for a job.
|
| And the rest is history.
|
| ------------
|
| Upper-management always issues vague strategic-level statements.
| Its the middle-managers who have to translate the vague
| statements into something that connects with the lower-level
| employees. This middle-manager colossally failed at the job.
| orky56 wrote:
| 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.
| tenebrisalietum wrote:
| This thinking seems to assume that employers are unable to
| choose how, when, and where they employ people. At some point
| it's cheaper to automate the job than hire someone to do it, or
| simply put money into higher ROI generators.
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| Normalize releasing shady internal executive emails
| patientplatypus wrote:
| sudden_dystopia wrote:
| Regional manager is not quite "exec" but disgusting email non the
| less.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| 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.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| The logic only works because we're coming out of a period where
| workforce participation fell off a cliff.
|
| Rising CoL because of energy and inflation -> people need the
| jobs more badly -> more labor available -> reduce wages
|
| And before anyone tries to score a few easy points building a
| strawman, I'm just explaining the logic. I'm not endorsing it
| or saying it's ethical.
| ch33zer wrote:
| Many people will have no choice, they're force to work wherever
| they can at whatever wage they can get.
| V-eHGsd_ wrote:
| > 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.
| awa wrote:
| I think the point was since the stimulus money has stopped
| they don't have to compete with the government and with
| inflation these folks will need to find a job.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| This reeks of motivated reasoning on behalf of the manager,
| as this analysis makes absolutely no sense.
| ffggvv wrote:
| there is a point that with inflation, people who thought
| they could retire are now realizing they are going to need
| more money and having to unretire.
| elliekelly wrote:
| They'll also eat at Applebee's less. This exec seems really out
| of touch with who the typical Applebee's customer is and how
| much money they earn.
| jabbany wrote:
| The idea is that they think of themselves as a labor monopsony.
| They are foreseeing an increase in supply (due to higher living
| costs forcing more people into the labor market, either those
| not previously working or those who are now taking on second
| jobs) and thus plan to accordingly reduce the price (wages).
|
| The main fault in their reasoning is the belief that higher
| living costs necessarily results in more people getting into
| the labor market.
|
| At some point the marginal benefit to a worker becomes zero or
| negative, where higher living costs can actually result in a
| reduction in the labor pool. Whether we are at that point
| though, is not known yet without more information about the
| localized economy.
| juancb wrote:
| Those with exploitative mindsets have learned over time that
| it's easier to take advantage of those who they see as weak and
| desperate.
| 22c wrote:
| See also: employees on a sponsored work visa
| mistrial9 wrote:
| a 7-11 franchise in New York USA was convicted of modern
| slavery, using a non-citizen laborer and adding unpaid
| hours and duties.. iir
| sammalloy wrote:
| I just don't understand how Mr. Pankratz's opinion is considered
| acceptable in modern society. It's 2022. Isn't it time for
| humanity to evolve past this kind of thing? Why are we as a
| civilization still mired in a culture of exploitation and
| incentivizing suffering?
| matrix12 wrote:
| This is a very common end result of many policies that claim
| otherwise. He's merely describing it openly. e.g. Gas cars idling
| for miles of backup on the freeway, as the rich $100k car races
| past in the HOV lane.
| mywittyname wrote:
| > "Most of our employee base and potential employee base live
| paycheck to paycheck.
|
| Including store management.
| zitterbewegung wrote:
| I believe the opposite is happening for people who do ridesharing
| / taxi drivers and delivery services .
| eatonphil wrote:
| I don't think it's an Applebee's exec it's an Applebee's
| franchise exec. Unless I'm misunderstanding.
| cardiffspaceman wrote:
| I agree with this interpretation. Notice that "Apple Central"
| is referred to at least once.
| [deleted]
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| The former will get more clicks.
| sonotathrowaway wrote:
| I think the article said it was from a regional manager. That
| counts as an Applebees corporate exec.
| azinman2 wrote:
| Not when it's a franchise that affects a small portion of
| their stores.
| [deleted]
| InitialLastName wrote:
| Actions of the franchisees reflect on the brand (that's the
| point of franchise agreements). In case I want to avoid giving
| this guy money (as is my right as a consumer under capitalism),
| how can I easily confirm which franchises his company owns? I
| can't, you say? Well, next time I want to eat mediocre food in
| a bland corporate environment, I'll have to go to Chili's
| instead.
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