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Why not? You get to go to bed w/ a clear conscience and you don't wake up w/ that vile taste of hypocrisy in the back of your throat.
Quote:
Originally Posted by marcopolo
Hey, I'm an employer in the private sector, I'll take a stab at it.
I hired a young man in late 2009 for $10/hour, light office work on a full-time temp basis. I pretty quickly learned that he could be trained to do complex analytics and statistical work that my business requires, and gave him a raise to $2,000/month. Then I encouraged him to become credentialed, provided the time for him to study, paid his exam fees. After a year on the job he got a raise to $3/k month. He'll be at $50k in 2013.
Having neither the interest or desire to get to higher levels, he has spurned my offer to further improve his credentials or elevate his duties to include more valuable tasks. I have done everything in my power to make him as valuable as he is willing and able to be.
I am no philanthropist, and this job is not some twisted form of charity. Everything I have done is intended to improve my own wealth and income--and it has. The more valuable this employee is to me, the more valuable I can be to my customers. And my value to my customers directly impacts the revenues they will pay me.
Moral of the story: the value of an employee to an employer rests mostly in the hands of the employee. It is not possible for me or any employer to pay an employee less than the value of their time--or they will simply sell it to another employer for that higher market price. Every employer I know wishes that each employee were more valuable than they are--not so they could pay more, which they would do, but so that they would make more money.
So what does it tell you that someone who today is doing the job that 5 others used to do, and is more productive than those 5 combined, is still earning what just one of those less productive people was earning?
Quote:
Originally Posted by alphamale
The value that a Costco employee brings to the employer is obviously worth the wages they earn.
You cannot fake it.
A business is not in business for charity.
Let's say you're right... Now pick a side. Is it the value of the employee or supply & demand? Those are not interchangeable concepts. You could easily replace a Costco employee w/ the best Walmart employee and see no drop in value added to the employer.
So what does it tell you that someone who today is doing the job that 5 others used to do, and is more productive than those 5 combined, is still earning what just one of those less productive people was earning?
Back when I was loading trucks in the warehouse at nights and going to school in the days, I figured out a means by which I could do the work of any two other men. I told the boss I had a deal for him: he only had to pay me the wages of 1 and a half men for me to continue to do the work of two men. He told me where the door was.
I walked out of it.
What your parable tells me is that the market value of that work fell by a factor of five. Perhaps four of the others were deadweight; perhaps some investment in technology improved productivity that much; perhaps the management is simply being too tight. But that someone knows where the door is.
A person's value to an employer is strongly impacted by attitudes and work ethic and skills and understanding that the success of the enterprise is vital to maintenance of the work opportunity. We are all human, we all have the capacity to improve our value to employers--or to sell our time to a different employer.
I am amused that in the business universe the value of a person is entirely determined by how much profit they create for their employer. I am also amused by the idea that all employees should continuously strive to improve their value as workers so their employers can make more money. That is a very shallow and degraded view of people. No wonder the extreme examples like Wall-mart are despised by both workers and others.
I am amused that in the business universe the value of a person is entirely determined by how much profit they create for their employer. I am also amused by the idea that all employees should continuously strive to improve their value as workers so their employers can make more money. That is a very shallow and degraded view of people. No wonder the extreme examples like Wall-mart are despised by both workers and others.
I think you are living in the wrong country my friend.
What you envision is not how the US operates.
I am amused that in the business universe the value of a person is entirely determined by how much profit they create for their employer. I am also amused by the idea that all employees should continuously strive to improve their value as workers so their employers can make more money. That is a very shallow and degraded view of people. No wonder the extreme examples like Wall-mart are despised by both workers and others.
On what basis would you propose to set wages? Length of nose, color of eyes, height? With everything you buy for use in your own life, you seek the best value. Why should an employer be any different.
Nobody hinted that "employees should continuously strive to improve their value as workers" for any reason--unless they want to make more money.
I'm amused by the people who believe that employers have some kind of money tree from which they could harvest higher pay for otherwise unworthy employees--who don't see the point in being of value to the enterprise.
More than a million Americans every day put their time to the highest and best use they have available, and get the best paychecks they can find--at Walmart. 120 million Americans visit a Walmart every week, and buy 8% of the retail goods sold in the country. The million workers and the 120 million shoppers have one thing in common: they are there by choice.
The premise of this entire thread is intellectually idiotic.
Why should the private sector promote increased wages?
A for-profit business exists to make money, and potentially grow. Whatever that business does, make a widget to sell, provide a service, both, etc. depends on a number of things. But unless the business is run completely by robots, it needs employees. There is a supply of possible employees, either currently employed somewhere else or unemployed.
Even in a period of high unemployment businesses want and value good employees. Define good just about any way you want. For just about any business, employee productivity and continuity is valuable. Losing an employee is a negative impact to the business. So the employer offers the employee something to stay. Starts with wages, often includes benefits, and perhaps job satisfaction. If this were not true, employers would happily cut wages and/or let workers go for the most trivial reasons. This doesn't happen.
Usually workers become more skilled over time. And a more skilled worker is more valuable. The employer usually increases wages, either on a schedule, or as a merit reward.
It happens. It has always happened this way. And always will because businesses want and need workers to get the job done.
Occasionally something gets out of whack. And a correction occurs that reduces wages. A good example is the auto industry. Automakers probably agreed by mistake to overcompensate UAW workers 10-20 years ago. Sales dropped severely during the recession and because of poor quality. There is no good reason for the workers pay to be held at a level that makes survival of the company doubtful. (Management should suffer too).
Where government often screws up is interfering in corrections that occur. Sometimes the corrections cause pain. Pain causes a change in behavior. Management says "maybe we shouldn't have forecast so many sales of big cars." Workers say "maybe I should have saved more money." Government unfortunately tries to eliminate the pain, which instead perpetuates poor decisions by both labor and management, who are no longer held accountable for their own mistakes.
It seems like it's in the best interest of employers to do everything they can to depress wages.
They crank out more & more productivity out of fewer & fewer workers, diminishing the need for additional workers.
They insource or outsource from labor pools that will accept lower wages and/or increased hours.
There will never be more jobs than there are people looking for jobs, diminishing bargaining power for negotiating wages.
They oppose unions & unionizing, diminishing the bargaining power of employees to capture any increase in profits.
Any savings from research, innovation, or reduced costs either get sent up the ladder to executives, or down the pipe to investors.
Welcome to Realville, USA. It's the same everywhere, cause that it what human nature is.
For example, do you go to Costco and pay more than the listed price for things, or just pay the minimum to transact the deal?
Do you put two stamps on a letter than only needs one.
NOBODY in their right mind deliberately pays more that is required to attain that which they need.
Would, and why would, you expect anything different from anyone, including yourself or the employees. For example, if an employer was willing to pay you $50.00 an hour, would you say, No, I'll take just $40 an hour?
Life IS not and CANNOT be like that, and to hold that there is something wrong with it, or evil about employers who do that, is disgusting and vile.
It seems to me that it would be in the best interests of the American worker to stop having so many children... which leads to having a glut of workers, and asking congress and the president to greatly lessen the numbers of foreigners wanting to become US citizens.
The main problem now is too many workers, and not enough decent jobs to go around. And employers being able to find people willing to work for lower wages. But if there were a shortage of workers, then the employers would have to pay higher wages in order to have enough employees.
Americans are not having so many kids. The problem is immigration, not Americans having kids. Reduce immigration by at least 50% and limit it to developed countries only. There is absolutely no reason why we need immigrants from poor countries, with the vast majority coming in on family visas
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degraded view of people
