I'll take stupid for $15 Alex - UC Berkeley raises minimum pay, fires hundreds

[DAB]

UC Berkeley Touts $15 Wage Law, Then Fires Hundreds After It Passe | Stock News & Stock Market Analysis - IBD (http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/uc-berkeley-touts-15-minimum-wage-then-fires-hundreds-of-workers-after-it-passes/)

darn, didn't see that coming. :slap:


Labor Markets: Hundreds of employees at the University of California at Berkeley are getting schooled in basic economics, as the $15 minimum wage just cost them their jobs. Too bad liberal elites “fighting for $15” don’t get it.

A week after California Gov. Jerry Brown signed the state’s $15 minimum wage boost into law, UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks sent a memo to employees announcing that 500 jobs were getting cut.

Coincidence? Not really.

Last year, University of California President Janet Napolitano announced plans to boost its minimum wage to $15 at the start of next school year, independent of the state law. Since UC Berkeley was already in financial trouble — it ran a $109 million deficit last year and is projecting a deficit of $150 million this year — number crunchers there had to have factored in the higher mandated wage when making their layoff decisions.

Those workers might want to have a chat with the folks at UC Berkeley’s Center for Labor Research, who just days before Brown signed the wage-hike bill released a study touting the minimum wage as a boon to low-income household breadwinners.

After that report came out, Ken Jacobs, chairman of the UC Berkeley center, told the Los Angeles Times, “This is a very big deal for low-wage workers in California, for their families and for their children.”

It is a big deal, as well, to those soon to be out of work UC Berkeley workers.

But why is anyone surprised about jobs cuts following a wage hike? It’s one of the most basic laws of economics. Any high school kid taking Econ 101 can explain it: If you raise the price of something, demand goes down.

Keep in mind, too, that a $15 minimum wage is more than twice the federal minimum wage today. And it would set the wage floor higher than it’s ever been. On an inflation-adjusted basis, the minimum wage peaked in 1968 at just over $10 an hour.

Even the liberal Mother Jones admits that a $15 minimum is “terra incognita” and “might not be entirely benign.”

What’s surprising, then, is that unions, liberals and others pushing the minimum wage hike have managed to convince the public that this law somehow doesn’t apply to the labor market, and so succeeded in getting $15 laws in California, New York and Seattle. You can bet that either Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton will push $15 at the national level if either is elected.

Berkeley employees whose jobs are on the chopping block might want to educate these leaders about the perils of this idea.

[Utah997]

I'm 100% confident that you will see more and more of this as it goes forward.

I had a pretty in depth discussion about this with an annoying liberal friend of mine His statement "If a business owner is making $500k/year, why does he care? He should pay his employees more, it's not fair"

My statement back to him was.. (speaking as a business owner) if I'm making $500k/year. I'm damn sure going to make sure it stays there, (or goes up) my employees are/were well aware of the pay scale when they started (I don't have anyone on min wage anyway)

But I basically told him, if this was implemented in a business that I owned. I would lay off/fire employees until it got my profit back in line.

This was never designed, nor should it be treated as a way to raise a family. These jobs should be used to get through school, and be used to motivate people to better their lives with education, or trade training.

My .02

[StaticCling]

I'm 100% confident that you will see more and more of this as it goes forward.

I had a pretty in depth discussion about this with an annoying liberal friend of mine His statement "If a business owner is making $500k/year, why does he care? He should pay his employees more, it's not fair"

My statement back to him was.. (speaking as a business owner) if I'm making $500k/year. I'm damn sure going to make sure it stays there, (or goes up) my employees are/were well aware of the pay scale when they started (I don't have anyone on min wage anyway)

But I basically told him, if this was implemented in a business that I owned. I would lay off/fire employees until it got my profit back in line.

This was never designed, nor should it be treated as a way to raise a family. These jobs should be used to get through school, and be used to motivate people to better their lives with education, or trade training.

My .02

Yup. Making a profit and/or making their shareholders (if applicable) money is the only responsibility a business has, otherwise they wouldn't be in business to begin with.

[DAB]

they like to accuse business owners of being greedy. every business i've ever run across has made their money by providing some good or service to others that the consumer was quite glad to pay for. only the government takes money under threat of penalty. IRS agents carry guns. your local grocery clerk does not take your money while holding you at gun point.

so these whiney, greedy weasels want to take money from the business owner's pocket without having done anything to have earned that money. just take.

[VITE1]

and let's not forget that many Public Employee unions use minimum wage as a benchmark. When minimum wages goes up thier union members get a raise.

This will only magnify the effect on cost for many cash strapped municipalities.

[JRD77VET]

................

This was never designed, nor should it be treated as a way to raise a family. These jobs should be used to get through school, and be used to motivate people to better their lives with education, or trade training.

My .02

:iagree: Entry level jobs are stepping stones. :yesnod:

My first job in the "real world" was changing tires at the local tire store. I made something like $2.35 hour back in 1976. Not a bad starting wage but it also was a major incentive to learn something that would increase my wage potential for a career type job.

[Steve Austin]

I'm 100% confident that you will see more and more of this as it goes forward.

I had a pretty in depth discussion about this with an annoying liberal friend of mine His statement "If a business owner is making $500k/year, why does he care? He should pay his employees more, it's not fair"

My statement back to him was.. (speaking as a business owner) if I'm making $500k/year. I'm damn sure going to make sure it stays there, (or goes up) my employees are/were well aware of the pay scale when they started (I don't have anyone on min wage anyway)

But I basically told him, if this was implemented in a business that I owned. I would lay off/fire employees until it got my profit back in line.

This was never designed, nor should it be treated as a way to raise a family. These jobs should be used to get through school, and be used to motivate people to better their lives with education, or trade training.

My .02

Devils advocate here. If you can get by with less manpower, why not lay off the excess anyway ??

[Kerrmudgeon]

....and all the people who have worked their way up to 15$/hr under the previous min. wage laws now will want a raise to reflect their experience and loyalty to their jobs......it'a a spiraling inflation effect of this stupid legislation...To say nothing of the increased costs of everything Joe Citizen will be buying. :ack:

[FasterTraffic]

and let's not forget that many Public Employee unions use minimum wage as a benchmark. When minimum wages goes up thier union members get a raise.

This will only magnify the effect on cost for many cash strapped municipalities.

The bad news starts early and gets worse from there...

California's legislative analyst projects that the recent increase in the state's minimum wage to $15 an hour will cost taxpayers $3.6 billion more a year in government pay alone.

:slap:

[Stangkiller]

Devils advocate here. If you can get by with less manpower, why not lay off the excess anyway ??

You work your remaining employees harder, longer hours, less vacation, less schedule flexibility. You burn them out, your find somebody fresh, rinse and repeat.

[09CTSV]

Imagine a skilled trades worker earning $30 an hour and you get this burger flipper earning $15 to ask you if you want to supersize your meal.
It irritates the hell out of me some of the "Give Me" generation out there. When I joined the Military in 1981, my base pay was $750 a month. Take taxes out and I averaged about $250 every two weeks, and that wasn't for any 40 hour work week either. These clowns want $15 an hour, if they work 40 hours a week would be $600 per week $31,200 per year. Take about 20% for taxes and they have about $25,000 before getting additional kick backs from the libertards.
Maybe us hard working taxpayers should get an additional $25,000 deduction to offset the BS minimum wage.

[boracayjohnny]

Gov. Brown hails deal to raise minimum wage to $15 as 'matter of economic justice' - LA Times (http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-sac-jerry-brown-minimum-wage-deal-20160328-story.html)

The governor's plan, crafted through weeks of private negotiations among a small group of lawmakers and labor officials, increases the current $10 statewide minimum wage by 50 cents on Jan. 1 to $10.50 an hour. From there, it would rise to $11 in 2018 and subsequent dollar-a-year increases ending at $15 on Jan. 1, 2022.

Among many things just not right with this shit of an "Economic Justice", notice the pay rate increases 50 cents per year under ole douche bag and then one dollar per year under the next governor. Politics, it's good to be the king.

[DAB]

Imagine a skilled trades worker earning $30 an hour and you get this burger flipper earning $15 to ask you if you want to supersize your meal.
It irritates the hell out of me some of the "Give Me" generation out there. When I joined the Military in 1981, my base pay was $750 a month. Take taxes out and I averaged about $250 every two weeks, and that wasn't for any 40 hour work week either. These clowns want $15 an hour, if they work 40 hours a week would be $600 per week $31,200 per year. Take about 20% for taxes and they have about $25,000 before getting additional kick backs from the libertards.
Maybe us hard working taxpayers should get an additional $25,000 deduction to offset the BS minimum wage.

imagine working for 3 days to make a cutting board, and getting stiffed. :slap:

[VITE1]

See: Intel.

Record profits, firing 11% of their workforce.

Intel layoffs: Questions and answers on pending job cuts | OregonLive.com (http://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/index.ssf/2016/04/intel_layoffs_questions_and_an.html)

it's more complicated than you stated.

The PC market is dying and Intel is setting itself up for the new reality.

[VITE1]

imagine working for 3 days to make a cutting board, and getting stiffed. :slap:

Imagine spending 10's of thousand on T& and Nearly 1,000 man hours over two years and then when it comes time to close the business you find out the buyer took a bribe.

BTDT.

[69camfrk]

I hope that all the dumb bastards that voted for the vermin we have running the country from the feds on down to local, get a dose of their own stupidity. They will soon be unemployed, with oh, let me think here......no marketable skills, but want top dollar. Well tough titties boys and girls, grow up. My smypathy level for these idiots is 0 or below. I guess next stop on the 15 dollar train is the unemployment line and then to sign up for all their "free" stuff that we pay for. My rant could continue.....say for a long time, but I'm not saying anything that all of us aren't thinking anyway. When the US falls apart at the seams, well, it will be no surprise to me. Great thing about Murica right now is, that I can self identify as being a woman and start using their toilets at Target. Sure hope they are cleaner than the mens restroom.....:issues::kick:

[Millenium Vette]

I hope that all the dumb bastards that voted for the vermin we have running the country from the feds on down to local, get a dose of their own stupidity. They will soon be unemployed, with oh, let me think here......no marketable skills, but want top dollar. Well tough titties boys and girls, grow up. My smypathy level for these idiots is 0 or below. I guess next stop on the 15 dollar train is the unemployment line and then to sign up for all their "free" stuff that we pay for. My rant could continue.....say for a long time, but I'm not saying anything that all of us aren't thinking anyway. When the US falls apart at the seams, well, it will be no surprise to me. Great thing about Murica right now is, that I can self identify as being a woman and start using their toilets at Target. Sure hope they are cleaner than the mens restroom.....:issues::kick:

The women's restrooms are always worse than the men's. I speak from experience. I was a janitor back in the day.

[6spdC6]

The women's restrooms are always worse than the men's. I speak from experience. I was a janitor back in the day.

:seasix: I was a plumber and by far the girls are much bigger slobs than the boys. They also give us much more work they as they had a nasty habit of trying to flush mice mattress and plugs down the toilet. Hell they even had signs in the stalls put sanitary napkins in the container not the toilet!

[NEED-A-VETTE]

and let's not forget that many Public Employee unions use minimum wage as a benchmark. When minimum wages goes up thier union members get a raise.

This will only magnify the effect on cost for many cash strapped municipalities.

They were asking to be exempt. :rofl:

http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c343/sandyeas/Mobile%20Uploads/6B772315-FD52-4646-A342-DCAD213CE08B_zpsnlvalqp9.jpg

Labor unions were the most vocal in calls for a $15 an hour minimum wage in both Los Angeles and California. After the Los Angeles City Council passed its minimum wage hike last year, labor unions called for an exemption for union members. The Los Angeles City Council decided not to move forward with a proposal calling for the exemption after tabling it. (Photo: Zhao Hanrong Xinhua News Agency/Newscom)



LA Council Halts Discussion of Minimum Wage Exemption

The Los Angeles City Council isn’t currently planning to further discuss a proposal exempting union members from the southern California city’s new minimum wage, despite the proposal having the backing of labor unions.

A spokesperson for Council Member Curren Price, chairman of the Economic Development Committee, told The Daily Signal the union exemption isn’t moving forward and there are no plans to revive the discussion surrounding collective bargaining agreements.

The Los Angeles City Council’s Economic Development Committee discussed a proposal Tuesday that would carve out an exemption for unionized workers from the new $15 an hour minimum wage, which would be phased in by 2020.

The proposal was spearheaded by Rusty Hicks, executive treasurer-secretary of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, and was first floated last year. However, the potential exemption quickly became the subject of much scrutiny, and the measure was temporarily tabled.

The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, did not respond to requests for comment.

Following news that the city council was expected to address the exemption once again, labor experts not only criticized unions’ push for such an exemption, but highlighted how the exemption elevated the needs of organized labor over the needs of the workers represented by the unions.

“If there is an exemption, I don’t see how that benefits the workers,” Ed Ring, president of the California Policy Institute, told The Daily Signal. “This is to the advantage of the companies and the unions.

“The companies are coerced to making the practical decision to unionize, because it’s in the corporate interest to lower their wages,” he continued. “It’s in their interest to unionize, but it’s more difficult to see how it’s in the interest of the workers.”

The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, represents 300 local unions in Los Angeles County. It, alongside other labor unions like the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), emerged as the most vocal in support of a $15 an hour minimum wage. Organized labor also vehemently opposed offering exemptions to specific businesses like restaurants.

As Los Angeles inched closer to passing its ordinance raising its minimum wage to $15 an hour, however, Hicks began pushing for an exemption to the wage hike for businesses with unionized workforces.

In a previous statement, Hicks said that an exemption was needed as a way to preserve collective bargaining agreements and allow companies and unions to negotiate a wage below that required under the law in exchange for other benefits.

“This provision gives the parties the option, the freedom, to negotiate that agreement, and that is a good thing,” he said.

Ring with the California Policy Center said that there is validity to Hicks’ argument of wanting to allow workers to secure other benefits in exchange for a wage lower than $15 an hour. However, he stressed that passing an exemption for union members would have given businesses an incentive to push for unionization.

“The reasons why the unions would want an exemption is because if you have an exemption for unions, then … [it gives] labor intensive businesses that have a lot of low-wage workers … an incentive to unionize because if they unionize, they might be able to lower their labor rates by 10 to 15 percent more,” he said.

“It’s hard to look at that without considering it to be a very cynical move on the part of the unions,” Ring continued.

Because many cities, Los Angeles included, are phasing in $15 an hour minimum wages over a span of several years, the impacts such a wage hike will have on businesses and the workforce aren’t known. However, small businesses across the state of California are already bracing themselves for the impacts higher labor costs will have on their bottom lines.

California Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, signed a bill into law last week raising the state minimum wage to $15 an hour in 2022—two years after Los Angeles’ wage hike will take effect.

Because businesses are anticipating higher labor costs, James Sherk, a research fellow in labor economics at The Heritage Foundation, said an exemption for unionized workers makes unions appear to be the more enticing—and cheaper—option for businesses.

“It’s a way to make the unions more attractive to the employer,” Sherk told The Daily Signal. “[Unions] can say, ‘You don’t have to worry about raising your costs, we can help you crack your wage costs.’”

“It’s very effective in the short term,” he continued. “The risk is that it’s cynical and makes them look like calculating hypocrites. It undermines public support for unions.”

While Hicks’ proposed amendment earned him criticism from the business community, he’s also seen pushback from fellow labor leaders.

Dave Regan, president of SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West, spoke out against the pursuit of exemptions from minimum wage hikes.

“I just think unions should not be in the business of carving out lower wage standards for ourselves,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “We don’t help ourselves with anybody—with our members or with the public—by defending the indefensible.”

While the Los Angeles City Council debated the exemption for union members, other cities that raised their minimum wages above state and federal levels included such carve-outs.

San Francisco, Chicago, and San Jose, Calif., all included exemptions for union members in ordinances raising their minimum wages.

[Millenium Vette]

:seasix: I was a plumber and by far the girls are much bigger slobs than the boys. They also give us much more work they as they had a nasty habit of trying to flush mice mattress and plugs down the toilet. Hell they even had signs in the stalls put sanitary napkins in the container not the toilet!

I did my share of unclogging toilets and drains too. Yes, it was always the women's restroom that had the toilet problems. The great thing is I never forgot those skills. Fast forward a few years when I wasn't a janitor anymore and now had a payroll to worry about. A few employees were surprised when I would save the plumber's fees and roll up my sleeves and unclog that porcelain bitch myself. :D

[markids77]

Ford is spending 1 billion plus on a new manufacturing facility in Mexico because it figures long term that investment will be cheaper than (in part at least) continuing a relationship with the UAW.
Unionized Hostess employees recently learned the folly of demanding more than the home office deems profitable... Hostess simply chose to close the doors.
I have no horse in this race, but if the rank and file is too obtuse to reason that there are limits to the earnings vs profits scales I can offer no sympathy when the hammer falls.

[NavyC5]

I went straight into the military when I graduated from high school so no experience in the "real labor force" however the military is no different. Don't expect top dollar when you're brand new E-1, you work hard, get promoted and get more money. Not the tough of a system to figure out. I did have one of my Airmen complain that he didn't make enough money to support his family. My answer was, "well you chose to have three kids on a E-3's paycheck. Nobody forced you to. Now you're mad because you made a dumb decision. Suck it up buttercup, and check the want ads for part time work." :seasix:

[Bill]

I went straight into the military when I graduated from high school so no experience in the "real labor force" however the military is no different. Don't expect top dollar when you're brand new E-1, you work hard, get promoted and get more money. Not the tough of a system to figure out. I did have one of my Airmen complain that he didn't make enough money to support his family. My answer was, "well you chose to have three kids on a E-3's paycheck. Nobody forced you to. Now you're mad because you made a dumb decision. Suck it up buttercup, and check the want ads for part time work." :seasix:

[insert hurt feelings form here]

[Datawiz]

I went straight into the military when I graduated from high school so no experience in the "real labor force" however the military is no different. Don't expect top dollar when you're brand new E-1, you work hard, get promoted and get more money. Not the tough of a system to figure out. I did have one of my Airmen complain that he didn't make enough money to support his family. My answer was, "well you chose to have three kids on a E-3's paycheck. Nobody forced you to. Now you're mad because you made a dumb decision. Suck it up buttercup, and check the want ads for part time work." :seasix:

You are my hero! :cert:

[69camfrk]

[insert hurt feelings form here]

The Air Force has a (well, maybe not official, but NavyC5 knows what I'm talking about) hurt feelings report. Looks like a standard AF form, but the reading is pretty good. Google would probably turn up a copy!:seasix:

[NavyC5]

The Air Force has a (well, maybe not official, but NavyC5 knows what I'm talking about) hurt feelings report. Looks like a standard AF form, but the reading is pretty good. Google would probably turn up a copy!:seasix:

It actually originated in the Army :seasix:

[Craig]

I'd be willing to bet that within a year, there will be smart phone apps for all the chains that you will use to order your meal, walk up and swipe your credit card, and pick up your meal at the window; you won't interact with anyone.

[Millenium Vette]

I'd be willing to bet that within a year, there will be a smart phone apps for all the chains that you will use to order your meal, walk up and swipe your credit card, and pick up your meal at the window; you won't interact with anyone.

I could live with that.

[Bill]

https://monroeumc.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/hurt-feelings-report.jpg

http://www.maxvelocitytactical.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/butt-hurt-1.jpg