Minimum wage should be a state issue.
House Passes Bill to Raise Minimum Wage to $15, a Victory for Liberals
- Thread starter Serious
- Start date
I made the joke earlier about ice cream scoops, but there's an ice cream company here that pays their staff 15/hr to scoop ice cream and they're making plenty money.https://smallbusinessmajority.org/s...h-reports/042413-minimum-wage-poll-report.pdf
And the majority of small businesses polled support an increase in the minimum wage tied to inflation and COL standards.
Economists in support of a federal minimum wage of $15 by 2024
Man, all these tenured economists must be idiotsSho nuff I sure do wish I knew basic maths so that I could deny people a living wage because "well working for pennies is better than working for nothing" like that doesn't describe a totally alienated and collapsing society.
It's like people don't even want to make good products or a good business plan. Just leech, pilfer, pocket the cash and do it again.
The current system isn't doing well for black folks. Arguing for the status quo isn't an option if that's our metric.Reducing the number of jobs nationwide doesn't bode well for blacks in this racist economy.
Progressive blacks need to realize they are inadvertently pushing a federal 'uplift cacs' policy.
Hood Critic
The Power Circle
Reducing the number of jobs nationwide doesn't bode well for blacks in this racist economy.
Progressive blacks need to realize they are inadvertently pushing a federal 'uplift cacs' policy.
Minimum wage should be a state issue.
You can't have it both ways and consider progressive policy detrimental to black folks then want to leave the well being of a large part of the black folks in this country up to the leadership in states like Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.
State economies(in my opinion) are too dynamic for a one size fits all approach. What you will end up doing as the CBO report shows is reducing the number of jobs. Allowing states to gradually increase the min wage on their own is the path forward.
A federal min wage mistake would be far too difficult to undo.
Black unemployment is currently at historic lows and we shouldn't be in a rush to ruin this trend.
The status quo sucks, so you want to make it worse?
Until we are some sort of equal footing(socially) with the other races in our economy, we shouldn't(in my opinion) be trying to shrink the number of jobs available.
… and lets attack Amazon, not Walmart 
WalMart is this countries leading employer of African Americans. We def don't want them closing up shop.
WalMart is this countries leading employer of African Americans. We def don't want them closing up shop.
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Domingo Halliburton
Handmade in USA
What about the people already making 15 an hour ? They just supposed to be making the same thing as a nikka dumping fries ???
Terrible posting.
how ironic
Labor fight roils Bernie Sanders campaign, as workers demand the $15 hourly pay the candidate has proposed for employees nationwide
Sean Sullivan
Unionized campaign organizers working for Sen. Bernie Sanders’s presidential effort are battling with its management, arguing that the compensation and treatment they are receiving does not meet the standards Sanders espouses in his rhetoric, according to internal communications.
Campaign field hires have demanded an annual salary they say would be equivalent to a $15-an-hour wage, which Sanders for years has said should be the federal minimum. The organizers and other employees supporting them have invoked the senator’s words and principles in making their case to campaign manager Faiz Shakir, the documents reviewed by The Washington Post show.
Sanders has made standing up for workers a central theme of his presidential campaigns — this year marching with McDonald’s employees seeking higher wages, pressing Walmart shareholders to pay workers more and showing solidarity with university personnel on strike. The independent from Vermont has proudly touted his campaign as the first presidential effort to unionize its employees, and his defense of the working class has been a signature element of his brand of democratic socialism and a rallying cry for the populist movement he claims to lead.
Details about the negotiations between Shakir and the union representing Sanders’s campaign workers have not been publicly reported until now. A review of emails, instant messages and other documents obtained by The Post show that the conflict dates back to at least May and remains unresolved. The documents were provided to The Post on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the private talks.
The Sanders campaign late Thursday issued a statement lauding its union contract. “We know our campaign offers wages and benefits competitive with other campaigns, as is shown by the latest fundraising reports,” Shakir said. “Every member of the campaign, from the candidate on down, joined this movement in order to defeat Donald Trump and transform America. Bernie Sanders is the most pro-worker and pro-labor candidate running for president. We have tremendous staff who are working hard. Bernie and I both strongly believe in the sanctity of the collective bargaining process and we will not deviate from our commitment to it.”
It was unclear when or whether Sanders had been made aware of the situation.
In a statement issued earlier Thursday night, the union representing the campaign workers, United Food & Commercial Workers Local 400, said it could not comment “on specific, ongoing internal processes between our members and their employer.”
“As union members, the Bernie 2020 campaign staff have access to myriad protections and benefits secured by their one-of-a-kind union contract, including many internal avenues to democratically address any number of ongoing workplace issues, including changes to pay, benefits, and other working conditions,” the statement said.
“We look forward to continuing to work closely with our members and the management of the Bernie 2020 campaign to ensure all workers have dignity and respect in the workplace.”
In a draft letter the union earlier had prepared to send Shakir as soon as this week, the union said that the field organizers “cannot be expected to build the largest grassroots organizing program in American history while making poverty wages. Given our campaign’s commitment to fighting for a living wage of at least $15.00 an hour, we believe it is only fair that the campaign would carry through this commitment to its own field team.”
The draft letter estimated that field organizers were working 60 hours per week at minimum, dropping their average hourly pay to less than $13. It said that “many field staffers are barely managing to survive financially, which is severely impacting our team’s productivity and morale. Some field organizers have already left the campaign as a result.”
Field organizers are the lowest caste in politics apart from unpaid volunteers — often people in their 20s who uproot themselves and move to far-flung parts of the country to work long hours and gain campaign experience in high-stress environments.
By encouraging these workers to unionize, Sanders and his campaign opened a path to negotiate for more than the low wages that typically have prevailed in past campaigns. They are seizing the opportunity.
The Sanders campaign made history in March when it announced that all employees below the rank of deputy director would be represented by a union.
“We’re honored that his campaign will be the first to have a unionized workforce,” Shakir said in a statement at the time. Other campaigns have followed suit, with workers unionizing in at least two other active campaigns: those of Sens. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) and former housing secretary Julián Castro.
The union and the Sanders campaign reached a collective bargaining agreement that went into effect on May 2 and expires on March 31, 2021. The agreement established wage classifications for national and state staff, ranging from $15 an hour for interns and canvassers to $100,000 annual salaries for bargaining unit deputies.
Field organizers, who are on the front lines of the campaign’s crucial voter contact efforts, were to be paid not by hours worked but via an annual salary set at $36,000. Regional field directors were to be paid $48,000 annually, and statewide department directors were allocated $90,000 per year.
It was not completely clear why the wage dispute began so swiftly after the campaign and the union reached the initial agreement, though at that point the campaign had yet to assemble its sprawling roster of field organizers. But on May 17, Shakir convened an all-staff meeting, during which he recommended raising the pay for field organizers to $42,000 and changing the workweek specifications, according to an email he later wrote to staff. The union draft indicated he was seeking to extend the workweek to six days.
Shakir pressed for a swift vote so he could make budget decisions and decide how many field organizers to hire, according to his email.
The union rejected his offer, because the raise would have elevated field staff to a pay level responsible for paying more of their own health-care costs, according to the draft proposal the union was preparing this week.
The campaign workers decided to press harder. On July 11, dozens logged into Slack, the popular instant-messaging service used by the campaign’s employees, and began bombarding Shakir with appeals to raise pay for field organizers.
“Hi @Faiz,” the messages began. They poured in from across the country.
“I am struggling financially to do my job, and in my state, we’ve already had 4 people quit in the past 4 weeks because of financial struggles,” wrote one field organizer. Another employee said his co-workers “shouldn’t have to get payday loans to sustain themselves.”
A third said he supported the demands for higher wages “because I need to be able to feed myself.” A fourth quoted a line Sanders often uses in speeches, writing, “As you know, real change never takes place from the top on down, it always takes place from the bottom on up.”
The messages caught Shakir’s attention, and later that day he sent an email to the staff thanking them for their comments. “I do believe you are owed an explanation for the situation we find ourselves in,” he wrote in an email obtained by The Post.
In his email, Shakir recapped his thinking from May 17 and expressed regret with the outcome.
“I have no idea what debates and conversations were had, but candidly, it was a disappointing vote from my perspective,” he wrote of the union’s decision to reject his proposal. “But the campaign leadership respected the union process and the will of the membership.”
Shakir said that it would be damaging to the campaign’s budget to implement a pay hike after expanding field staff based on previously planned salary figures. In conclusion, he said, he would negotiate the matter only through the channels established by the union arrangement.
This week, the union, in conjunction with the Sanders campaign staffers it represents, has been preparing to send Shakir a new proposal. According to a draft of the proposal obtained by The Post, they are asking for $46,800 for field organizers and $62,400 for regional field directors.
The draft also asked the campaign to cover 100 percent of the health-care costs for employees making $60,000 per year or less. Under the current agreement, the campaign pays all premiums for salaried employees making $36,000 or less per year. Those making more are covered at a rate of 85 percent.
It also requested that the campaign reimburse field staff for automobile transportation at $0.58 per mile.
“We expect negotiations and concessions to be given to this committee by July 31st at the latest, given the urgent nature of raising pay for Field staff and the unsustainability of the current situation,” the draft said.
Sanders, meanwhile, has continued his push for a $15-an-hour wage across the country, hailing the bill recently passed by the House to set that as the federal minimum. In an online video, his campaign featured an Iowa woman who has fought cancer and says she is struggling on $8.25 an hour from her job at McDonald’s.
“Today, we say as loudly and clearly as we can to McDonald’s: Pay your workers a living wage and negotiate with a union!” Sanders says as the video concludes.
@wire28 @Return to Forever @ezrathegreat @Jello Biafra @humble forever @Darth Nubian @Dameon Farrow @Piff Perkins @BigMoneyGrip @Lucky_Lefty @johnedwarduado @Armchair Militant @panopticon @88m3
This had nothing to do with your point. Which was bad, btw.
Domingo Halliburton
Handmade in USA
Napoleon has never seen a boot he didn't want to lick: whether it be our wars, capital, or the overall white supremacist power structure of the US. It's why he spends half of his (seemingly endless) amount of time on here posting spy novels and cheering on our terrible foreign policy.
I read somewhere the other day the average McDonald's employee generates over $63,000 in revenue for their employer. $15/hr isnt a problem.
This is just your brain on neoliberalism
I read somewhere the other day the average McDonald's employee generates over $63,000 in revenue for their employer. $15/hr isnt a problem.
This is just your brain on neoliberalism
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afterlife2009
Superstar
afterlife2009
Superstar
how ironic
you definitely saw the headline, read none of the text and just pasted it here hype as hell.
the last thing they are negotiating over is that the higher pay pushes them into an income bracket where they have to cover 15% of their insurance premiums instead of 0%
a renegotiation is the correct move and the union is doing it. working as intended and they're about to get paid more
This is the only issue I have with national minimum wage laws. Cost of living is straight double in some places. And there are definitely rural spots where a $15/hour minimum wage really isn't necessary and would be a huge burden on small business owners who honestly might be struggling to even make that much themselves. I wouldn't mind at all if minimum wage was only $12/hour in some spots and $18/hour in others.
The assistant stacking goods in some rural town's only bookstore/thriftshop where the whole establishment doesn't even clear $1000/week and you can still buy a home for less than $50,000.
I can see a national $15/hour wage being real rough for certain rural small businesses and shyt unless the rest of the Green New Deal (free education, health care, etc.) also goes through.