Why we need a minimum wage hike......

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raginduck said:
How many salaried employees know that they are entitled to overtime pay if they work over?
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most know, but when your at the spoke in the wheel level, you want to be seen as a team player and willing to put in time. If you don't get random days off (paid) and the odd Friday afternoon go home early, your working for the wrong manager. It doesn't matter what company policy is, if your manger doesn't throw some bones, smart people leave. Capable people find better work.
 
Sunspark said:
The way CIBC handles the overtime issue since the lawsuit is that you aren't allowed to work overtime without agreed permission from your manager in advance. No permission, no overtime.

If you stay longer than your shift, there is no record of you having made the case for overtime as per policy.
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A little inquiring tells me that Scotiabank was also sued.

raginduck said:
How many salaried employees know that they are entitled to overtime pay if they work over?
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How many managers know that they might also be entitled to overtime pay, if they're salaried? Precious few. Some companies will give an employee the manager position title, when he's really nothing more than a supervisor or even just a lead hand, based on the government's legal definitions of the positions. I was in that position and, after the CFO of a company tried to guilt me into dropping a claim against them for several thousand dollars that I was owed, I educated him on how many tens of thousands I could be claiming.
 
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LiNK666 said:
I'm not sure about other industries, but we usually increase prices when our back end prices go up. We try to stay within ranges and compete on pricing so the consumer the best bang for their buck. What do you think happens when labour costs go up? Prices go up dude. They'll end up in the same situation.

I agree with the wages going up, but in increments of 25 cents not 75 cents and not to $14 which is retarded.
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Do you not give your employees raises?
Any employee that have been with you for a little while?
 
raginduck said:
Do you not give your employees raises?
Any employee that have been with you for a little while?
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They are all entitled to yearly increases so matter what. Some come and ask me early and I give it to them based on their performance. I never turned anyone down yet. I've been in business for 2 years and one lady has been with me for 2 years.
 
Sunspark said:
Ok with me. Someone else will step up and be happy a competitor has left a market, all because of 1 person's greed.
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I have spent most of my career working for American companies that are nice enough to have operations here, GE, Alcoa, auto companies.......would these companies get kicked out of canada lol?
 
To the OP:

Yeah... there's always a strawman argument to these little chain mail type letters since labour markets are nowhere near that simple beyond a very superficial level.

There's fair bit of literature in labour economics that says there's an issue with people taking classical models (higher prices leads to excess supply of labour and reduced demand, hence unemployment) as gospel. There is a fair bit of empirical research done that doesn't support it at all.

Have a look at this paper if you're into labour market related stuff. It's not technical so you don't need much more than a casual interest in the topic to be able to read it.

econ.lse.ac.uk/~amanning/work/AM.MinimumWagesInEurope.pdf‎
 
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Type17 said:
To the OP:

Yeah... there's always a strawman argument to these little chain mail type letters since labour markets are nowhere near that simple beyond a very superficial level.

There's fair bit of literature in labour economics that says there's an issue with people taking classical models (higher prices leads to excess supply of labour and reduced demand, hence unemployment) as gospel. There is a fair bit of empirical research done that doesn't support it at all.

Have a look at this paper if you're into labour market related stuff. It's not technical so you don't need much more than a casual interest in the topic to be able to read it.

econ.lse.ac.uk/~amanning/work/AM.MinimumWagesInEurope.pdf‎
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Linky no worky for me. Nevertheless, the original satirical piece is designed to point out some of the lunacy around minimum wages and the increase their off and the law of unintended consequences. And if the article is about Europe which it seems to be based on the link, I would hesitate to use Europe as a stellar example of how a higher minimum wage can work based on how their overall economic/social degradation continues to increase in velocity. Sure, maybe, just maybe a minimum wage increase might help in the short term, but go long enough and you end up with the predicament that Europe is in now. Way high cost of living but with ever decreasing economic efficiency (and therefore viability). The first world is on it's way to becoming the 3rd world.

Of course a higher minimum wage may be required in the good old US of A because the way Obumercare is going another unintended consequence is workers possibly working less to retain their medicare/Medicaid eligibility which in turn means they produce less but in turn cost more. Simple arithmetic will clearly illustrate that you can't sustain that for any length of time.

h ttp://money.cnn.com/2014/02/04/news/economy/obamacare-work/index.html?iid=Lead
 
https://www.google.ca/#q=dolado+et+al+1996 <- check the 2nd link if you're interested.

Anyway, the paper's not saying that Europeans got it right and Americans got it wrong, it's just looking at some data from multiple countries and draws direct comparisons to the US. All they're saying that it's a mistake to force a direct causal relationship one way or the other because the real world empirical evidence just doesn't seem to support it. Also, the paper is written in 1996 so it's likely that data comes from a time when Europe and the US were doing fairly well despite w/e hiccups. IMO the most recent credit freeze was the beginning of the end for some European countries, not really the wage legislation. Now, one of the reasons much of Europe is in the hole is short-sighted monetary policy in the pre-crash days and slow reactions in the post crash. It's hard to stimulate demand when people are trying to save money due to austerity or struggle to make ends meet in general. In better days, monetary expansion and lowering interest rates would help them out of the hole but when real interest rates are near 0 already and the gov't can't pay their bills that's not really an option.

Anyway, whether Canada or the US needs min wage legislation is not really for me to comment on, I don't know much about labour markets, I just thought I'd point out that these relationships aren't as clear as they seem and labour markets sort themselves out through more than just price mechanisms.

I've also been a little too busy to follow what's happening with Obamacare but I've heard it's off to a rocky start... it's to be expected I suppose... it's a fairly new thing for the US although what you describe seems a bit like a rookie mistake that should've been spotted if it would lead to noticeable drops in output. Maybe the problem is overstated on the news? I find it hard to imagine that anyone would have any sort of clean data on this kind of stuff yet... it literally just got implemented.
 
I saw a fairly pronounced result of a high minimum wage today.

I walked into the McDonalds in Heartland and noticed they had renovated since the last time I was in there (probably at least a year ago).

Now, they only have one or two cash registers... and the space where the other four registers used to be is now a counter for people to receive their orders.

Instead of registers they have four order screens with debit/credit machines.

The line up for the one register was long... so I went up to the machine, quickly selected what I want, tapped my credit card, and it spit out a receipt with my order number. Because I only ordered drinks it took only about 5 seconds before my order number came up on the screen and my drinks were waiting on the counter. No dealing with people, quick and easy, perfect for my anti-social self.

I wonder what people with no skills (i.e. youth or uneducated) are going to do in the future?
McDonald's jobs are being automated. Once self-driving cars and trucks are common place there will be no need for delivery drivers, taxi drivers, or truck drivers. Factories are either automated or moved to places with cheaper wages... so what is going to be left?

Sure, it may be great in theory that everyone can make a 'living wage' -- until the reality that once the cost of labour exceeds the cost of automation means goodbye jobs.
 
The power of socialism
 
Motorcycle Mike said:
I saw a fairly pronounced result of a high minimum wage today.

I walked into the McDonalds in Heartland and noticed they had renovated since the last time I was in there (probably at least a year ago).

Now, they only have one or two cash registers... and the space where the other four registers used to be is now a counter for people to receive their orders.

Instead of registers they have four order screens with debit/credit machines.

The line up for the one register was long... so I went up to the machine, quickly selected what I want, tapped my credit card, and it spit out a receipt with my order number. Because I only ordered drinks it took only about 5 seconds before my order number came up on the screen and my drinks were waiting on the counter. No dealing with people, quick and easy, perfect for my anti-social self.

I wonder what people with no skills (i.e. youth or uneducated) are going to do in the future?
McDonald's jobs are being automated. Once self-driving cars and trucks are common place there will be no need for delivery drivers, taxi drivers, or truck drivers. Factories are either automated or moved to places with cheaper wages... so what is going to be left?

Sure, it may be great in theory that everyone can make a 'living wage' -- until the reality that once the cost of labour exceeds the cost of automation means goodbye jobs.
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I saw these in the U.S. recently at Panera bread. Years ago when Loblaws introduced self service check out machines I wondered where it might end. The ease in which you can do stuff without interacting with people is all fine and dandy but if you have less people earning a wage (from being replaced by automation), you have less people buying things too which all has a knock on effect eventually. I didn't see any prices go down in Loblaws due to reduced overheads and I bet your McDonalds meal cost the same too so at some point something's got to give.
 
The automation's going to happen regardless of minimum wage going up. look at gas pumps. it's not like they've reduced the person behind the counter in the kiosk, still only one person working there. as for self serve ordering/check out, the only time i see them full is when they don't have any regular registers open and some of the customers still need someone to guide them through using them.
 
CruisnGrrl said:
as for self serve ordering/check out, the only time i see them full is when they don't have any regular registers open and some of the customers still need someone to guide them through using them.
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I disagree, in the Supercentre around here they are always in use. Cashiers standing around, wondering who's gonna notice...I love them, no chatting or "polite" comments that mean nothing. Lately I've noticed a limit sign on the self serves, like <25 items. That's ******** to me, I ignore it, if I'm going to shop, scan and bag my own groceries it ought not matter how much I have in my cart.
 
I love the self-serve stands at stores. They are way faster (when people know what they're doing) and when they work. If not, well then it's a whole different story. I don't see them at Walmart here yet, but the CT store on Queensway had them, and removed them. There were always issues with them, and the cashier was always busy trying to correct things. HD also has them on Queensway and they're great if it's a few items.
 
caboose56 said:
Swing and a miss.
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Not really.
Since you don't add valuable points to the discussion, I'll add. Socialism drives prices up because of higher minimum wage, think Canada vs US; Norway vs Canada. Businesses wants to reduce overhead because of customer demand hence, automation whenever necessary.

Lots of our jobs are being shipped to other countries because we don't want to do the job or because of minimum wage. Increasing minimum wage just means more jobs will be shipped out. When people tell me they don't shop at Walmart because of so & so, I start to laugh because I'm sure they are not willing to do that job
 
RockerGuy said:
Not really.
Since you don't add valuable points to the discussion, I'll add. Socialism drives prices up because of higher minimum wage, think Canada vs US; Norway vs Canada. Businesses wants to reduce overhead because of customer demand hence, automation whenever necessary.

Lots of our jobs are being shipped to other countries because we don't want to do the job or because of minimum wage. Increasing minimum wage just means more jobs will be shipped out. When people tell me they don't shop at Walmart because of so & so, I start to laugh because I'm sure they are not willing to do that job
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I've already responded to that in this thread.

Raising minimum wage without enacting many other policies is stupid. You can't mix socialist and capitalist policies and expect it to work.

I think raising minimum wage here, in this economic climate, wont help.


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RockerGuy said:
Not really.
Since you don't add valuable points to the discussion, I'll add. Socialism drives prices up because of higher minimum wage, think Canada vs US; Norway vs Canada. Businesses wants to reduce overhead because of customer demand hence, automation whenever necessary.

Lots of our jobs are being shipped to other countries because we don't want to do the job or because of minimum wage. Increasing minimum wage just means more jobs will be shipped out. When people tell me they don't shop at Walmart because of so & so, I start to laugh because I'm sure they are not willing to do that job
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Yes...we compete with Mexico now for jobs. Mexico...pesos...sombreros.......not Germany...technological....cutting edge. Germans get handsomely paid for a superior product admired around the world. I know which of these scenarios I'd rather try to be copying.

Oh...and Germany....social democrats.....great welfare system etc etc.
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