When Workers Come Together

[_Kevin Graham]

What's wrong Bach, couldn't get anyone to give you any attention in your thread?

Can't imagine why.

[_Bach]

What's wrong Bach, couldn't get anyone to give you any attention in your thread?

Can't imagine why.

Probably can't answer as well.

[_Kevin Graham]

I'm sure you can't.

[_Quasimodo]

Quasi

Ever run a profitable business?

Yep. Three. The first one had about 50 employees. Sold that one after five years and bought a photography studio. Sold that one after about six years when I became a medical illustrator (self employed). All were profitable. Now I am semi-retired and doing just fine.

For all your talk, Bach, you don't sound like the businessman type to me.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

I grew up in a 'small business family'. Both KG and Bach (and perhaps others) seriously don't understand the dynamics involved.

My parents ran a "Big Lou's Carpentry" business before I could really remember much of anything. My Dad would essentially do industrial gigs laying carpet, building this or that, or whatever. It was back breaking work. He was so cash poor he couldn't hire others and support his family unless he'd 'hire' a guy under the table to work for a few days. It was what it was. I still see the same thing today when I hire a handyman to do whatever on my property and he sub-contracts a guy to move 300 lbs of Quickrete because he can't do it. So I pay a guy, say, $300 to fix my fence, and he pays a guy, say, $40 to move material. So, my contractor is out $40 for sub-contracting, minus materials, and all of a sudden he's down to, say, $200 for the job that may or may not take a few days to accomplish.

Can anyone, within this scenario, afford to pay $15/hr and then keep track of all the expenses and deal with a government bureaucracy to make sure they're not breaking the law? No.

Anyway. Moving on. So my Dad opened a gift shop because he couldn't physically keep up with a carpentry job.

Now. You realize he not only had to support six people (himself included because he's a human being and we should count him, no?) thanks to the Mormon church telling him he should crap out a bunch of kids and certainly not abort any unwanted kids (me), but he now had to pay rent, overhead, inventory, marketing, plus allot himself a certain amount of wages to live on.

Now. If he wants to hire someone he has to pay not only the 'x' amount but also various other related taxes and expenses.

This is a dude, a 'small business owner', who was just scraping by to begin with and now we have people clamoring that he's a vile exploiter of labor if he doesn't crap out his profit margin, the margin with which he's paying the mortgage on a split-level home in sub-urban Spokane, for a bunch of kids he may or may not have wanted, to what? Die and become a God?

Jesus. damned. Christ.

It's insane.

I get there's a boiling point where profit margins begin to outpace morality. And I agree that we should take a look at that. However, where is the boiling point? Where does it become moral to start taking from the man or woman who works 70 hours a week to make their enterprise profitable?

What about their lifetime commitment to the business that now employs 'x' amount of people? What about a back pay for all that time, energy, and LIFE they put into the enterprise? Don't they deserve compensation for that? <- (by the way, I'm giving my kind all the child support her mother is paying me for "back pay" because she was never given anything when she was living with her mother, but was absolutely taken advantage of).

Anyway. Instead of lobbing salvos at one another we ought to be logically looking at the situation and addressing economic realities rather than crapping all over each other. But, sadly, that's just too much to ask.

- Doc

[_Kevin Graham]

Sounds like your dad didn't pay or charge by the hour. Like most handymen he charged by the job, which has its own benefits since you can typically work at your own pace. That's not exactly the kind of "small business" we're talking about and none of this really applies to the minimum wage.

I hired a guy from Russia two weeks ago to install a backsplash in the kitchen of a home we're renovating. He said he charged $300 for 20 sq feet. I thought I would only need 12 sq ft so he agreed to do it for $150. He talked me into extending it around the entire kitchen and it ended up being 22 sq ft but he cut me a deal and did the whole thing for $250. It took him about 6 hours working with his son and a wet saw on the back deck. Since I paid for all the materials, he was only out labor and so he made a cool $40/hr.

I can't think of any handymen worth their salt in this day and age, making below $15/hr. I've received quotes from more than a half dozen handymen in the past two months, for various odd jobs and I can't think of a single one that would be that low.

[_canpakes]

Why shouldn't [Walmart] be commended for the million of jobs they have created?

Bach -

As a seller of simple commodities, how many jobs has Walmart created versus jobs that have simply transferred to the corporation from other employers?

[_Kevin Graham]

Why shouldn't [Walmart] be commended for the million of jobs they have created?

Bach -

As a seller of simple commodities, how many jobs has Walmart created versus jobs that have simply transferred to the corporation from other employers?

Good point. Reminds me of the Mormon argument for their precious City Creek mall. "But all those jobs now!"

And what about all the smaller local businesses that went under because of the mall? Their employees simply moved over there. They weren't "created," the jobs were already there because of demand. All the mall did was shuffle them around. The only real jobs Walmart is responsible for creating are the jobs in Indonesia where they pay peasants 31 cents to knit a Liz Claibourne sweater which they turn around and sell for $60.

[_canpakes]

The wage a person charges is their "billing amount" to the employer.

You aren't comparing equal situations. You are comparing a rate of pay, which can be subdivided or multiplied by time, against a minimum amount of dollars to be billed regardless of time expended on the service involved.

To illustrate: if I am an independent design professional, I will likely advertise my services at a particular rate of, say, $50 per hour. But I might also impose a minimum cost for services of 200.00 for a design regardless of how much (or little) time was actually devoted to it.

[_Jersey Girl]

The only real jobs Walmart is responsible for creating are the jobs in Indonesia where they pay peasants 31 cents to knit a Liz Claibourne sweater which they turn around and sell for $60.

Liz Claibourne at Walmart?