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Certainly that is how it should work, and it's the way it 'used to' work but things have changed. Many large companies hire their rank and file labor through contractors or hiring agencies as 'temps' even though they may work there for a very long time. Temps don't usually get pay raises and if they do they are meager, Amazon is a good example of this, they even pay some of their direct hires to quit so that they can replace them with cheaper labor hired through an agency. You used an example of roofers, most laborers doing roofing are hired through an agency, if they want a pay raise their option is to quit work, pay increases are negotiated between the labor contractor and the employer the employee is in a 'take it or leave it' situation.
Another problem is that companies like Walmart control such a large segment of the market that there is little to no competition in some areas, the same happens with fast food stores who have been known to collude at least on a local level to hold down wages.
I find many of these claims very hard to believe. Most roofers are hired through an agency?
And from your article:
Contract restrictions, such as noncompete clauses and no-poaching agreements, that prevent workers from quitting their jobs for better ones have grown across the work force. Once reserved for highly paid, highly skilled employees like doctors and engineers, these contracts have filtered down the ladder to nurses, laborers and even retail clerks.
Non-compete clauses for retail clerks and laborers? Unbelievable.
I find many of these claims very hard to believe. Most roofers are hired through an agency?
And from your article:
Contract restrictions, such as noncompete clauses and no-poaching agreements, that prevent workers from quitting their jobs for better ones have grown across the work force. Once reserved for highly paid, highly skilled employees like doctors and engineers, these contracts have filtered down the ladder to nurses, laborers and even retail clerks.
Non-compete clauses for retail clerks and laborers? Unbelievable.
Here is one I just found on Google. The site even brags at one point that "Since the economic downturn of 2008" they have drastically increased their available pool of workers (didn't out that part in quotes cause I can't recall the exact wording). They offer workers in both skilled and unskilled trades.
Still if everyone thinks they are underpaid at that job then either no one takes it or the few that do don't stay. At that point the employer has to raise the pay or suffer without the employee. If someone pays 10 an hour for a roofer and there are no takers they will have to raise it until they get someone who takes the job because the feel the pay is worth it. If it's 20 then the employer has to pay it if he wants an employee to do roofs.
If the employee leaves because he can get 5 more per hour for the same thing the employer can adjust pay to match. But then again if the job next door only has one spot open then he doesn't have to raise his pay 5 per hour because there is no longer a higher paying employer to compete with as the spot got filled.
While a new employee may cost, they may get started as an entry level and get paid even less. Eager to please the new employee could outperform the old employee who may have gotten slower and less efficient.
I once worked at UPS and their philosophy was to hire part timers and hope to get them to leave in 6 months. Why? Because the new people busted their butts but after they got past probation started slowing down, so it was better to hire new people at starter wages and then rinse and repeat.
And yet some companies wonder why their is no loyalty among their employees. Company i use to work for did exactly that, and yet complain that they cant keep people at the same time.
I find many of these claims very hard to believe. Most roofers are hired through an agency?
And from your article:
Contract restrictions, such as noncompete clauses and no-poaching agreements, that prevent workers from quitting their jobs for better ones have grown across the work force. Once reserved for highly paid, highly skilled employees like doctors and engineers, these contracts have filtered down the ladder to nurses, laborers and even retail clerks.
Non-compete clauses for retail clerks and laborers? Unbelievable.
Well I'm sorry you don't believe them, but you might have answered your own question if you had googled for the answer:
Noncompete clauses
"Princeton economist Alan Krueger has written about the prevalence of no-poach agreements in most franchise operations and says 80 percent of fast-food chains include such agreements. In franchised industries more generally, about 58 percent include similar restrictions." https://www.npr.org/2018/07/12/62854...whom-they-hire
“Non-competes are being used systematically, even for workers who have no access to trade secrets or less than a college education,” said Evan Starr, an assistant professor at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, Management and Organization who has done extensive research on the topic."Employers use non-compete agreements even for low-wage workers - Baltimore Sun
Temp Work
It's difficult to find data for how many laborers are hired through day labor or temp agencies. , I got my information from a friend who is a roofer. He has a skilled assistant and only hires day labor for the grunt work, he said he doesn't know of any roofer who hires laborers directly. The number of new jobs being temporary continues to increase.
"According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the nontraditional workforce includes "multiple job holders, contingent and part-time workers, and people in alternative work arrangements." These workers currently represent a substantial portion of the US workforce, and "nearly four out of five employers, in establishments of all sizes and industries, use some form of nontraditional staffing". "People in alternative work arrangements" includes independent contractors, employees of contract companies, workers who are on call, and temporary workers." https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmXoypizjW3WknF...gent_work.html
"Trade unionists in the construction industry have documented the practices of unscrupulous employers who fire regular workers and rehire them as "independent contractors." The Internal Revenue Service estimates that as many as 38 percent of employers deliberately misclassify their employees as "independent contractors" to avoid paying unemployment compensation taxes as well as Social Security and workers' compensation." Flexibility Trap: The Proliferation of Marginal Jobs
“We find that 94% of net job growth in the past decade was in the alternative work category,” said Krueger. “And over 60% was due to the [the rise] of independent contractors, freelancers and contract company workers.” In other words, nearly all of the 10 million jobs created between 2005 and 2015 were not traditional nine-to-five employment."https://qz.com/851066/almost-all-the...are-temporary/
And yet some companies wonder why their is no loyalty among their employees. Company i use to work for did exactly that, and yet complain that they cant keep people at the same time.
in most business's that really makes little sense. so much is lost in the expense of training new people and they remain inefficient at their job for a quite a while assuming it is not a totally unskilled labor job.in which case if it is temporary help may be the more profitable choice .
in most business's that really makes little sense. so much is lost in the expense of training new people and they remain inefficient at their job for a quite a while assuming it is not a totally unskilled labor job.in which case if it is temporary help may be the more profitable choice .
Of course it’s the more profitable choice. But if you read the post above yours you will see that it is created a seismic shift in the American economy and jobs force that is resulting in the decline of the middle class. That’s the point. Of course it’s more profitable, it’s always been more profitable but never used to be seen in these industries. Those workers who are used to get yearly raises, retirement plans, health benefits, even sick days that are no longer getting any of them. And if they get hurt on the job not only don’t they have health insurance they don’t have Worker’s Comp. anymore either.
Priorities have shifted. CEOs used to get something like 35 times the compensation of the companies average employee, now it's something like 250x that. Execs didn't used to get bonuses for nearly bankrupting the country and forcing millions out of their homes. CEOs who were forced out for presiding over a decade of fraudulent practices (Wells Fargo) didn't get $130,000,000 consolation prizes. These numbers are sickening to me because they come on the backs of $10 an hour employees, many of whom got fired in this scandal and none of which got ANY compensation to walk away with. It's like there is nothing they can do that people will be enraged by.
I think so many who post here about "My grandfather did this and I did that" don't know how drastic the changes have been. I worked for a company for 8 years that never once contributed any type of match to the 401K. In the past employers made profits but rewarded loyalty. I can't tell you how many women patients I've had (skilled nursing facility rehab) who have lifetime healthcare and pension and were not highly skilled but relatively low-paid telephone operators, the same with men who were factory workers.
I worked with a late-90's patient a couple of weeks ago who was retired from a big company since his 50's. For close to 50 years, he's been collecting a big pension and had all his health care paid for. He was able to buy a home with his first job and had no student debt. He and his wife travel all the time and have a condo on a beach in another country. The home he bought many years ago is worth much more than he paid for it.
Today people either graduate into good jobs but with student debt that forces them to put off home owning for decades, or those who are skilled and unskilled blue collar, making much less that they used to and having to pay $2000 a month to insure their family's health because they don't get benefits. These changes matter. To pretend they don't because there are exceptions is to put one's head willingly in the sand, IMO. Again I am not saying there is no way to succeed today, I am simply saying it is much harder today and some of the reasons why.
Last edited by ocnjgirl; 09-30-2018 at 02:15 PM..
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