Posted on 09/01/2014 5:54:20 AM PDT by Citizen Zed
As the nation celebrates Labor Day, Latino officials and labor leaders state Hispanics increasingly represent the workforce of the future – as well as the future of the labor movement.
U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez believes that the best way to honor workers on Labor Day is to give them a raise. “President Obama’s opportunity agenda is about rewarding hard work with a fair wage,” he said. “That’s why we’ve fought so hard for an increase in the national minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. It’s based on a very basic value proposition: no one who works full-time in America should have to raise their families in poverty. The president’s proposal would benefit 28 million workers nationwide, one quarter of whom are Latino.”
Perez said that too many low-wage Latino workers face difficult choices every day. “Do we buy a gallon of milk or a gallon of gas? Do we pay the utility bill this month or buy school supplies? Raising the minimum wage would put more money in their pockets, giving them a little more breathing room and peace of mind.”
Meanwhile, many union leaders say it is important to understand the significance of Hispanics as a vital force in the labor movement.
“Everyone has read the demographic statistics on what is going on,” said Yvette Herrera, Senior Director, Politics, Communication, and Education of the Communications Workers of America (CWA). She acknowledged that, in years past, unions did not do enough to reach out to Latino workers. “But I see things changing. I see more Latino leaders in the labor movement, and they are really coming up in terms of leadership.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
“Hispanics increasingly represent the workforce of the future.”
Will the “workforce” of the future wear the same color shirt or will they be Americans working to make a living and better their lot?
Just asking.
IMHO
Not a peep about all the benefits they receive. Our tax money is paying for illegals to compete with American workers.
Ethnicity trumps all with these folks.
I just hope Americans enjoy living in Argentina, or Venezuela, or Mexico.
Latin ‘democracies’ have always chosen socialist demagogues to take the fruit of their neighbor’s (whom they detest) labor.
I can’t imagine why someone from these places would vote differently here, in a land they detest, than they did in their homeland.
Fine then, raise the wages OF THE PEOPLE YOU PERSONALLY EMPLOY IN YOU OWN BUSINESS if you want to. But stop forcing others to do what you want them to do to pander for votes.
Just because we see the word "workers" doesn't necessarily mean full time guys with a shovel, or family men of 4 or 5, but more likely single moms with 1-3 kids working 18 hrs at a burger king and collecting every benefit from uncle sugar because they are below the poverty line.
They'll still be at burger king but their hours will be cut to 10 because of the wage squeeze from uncle.
Bennies will increase and politicians will still wonder why society isn't happy.
Personally, I don’t believe in the minimum wage concept, I think it only helps union workers who already make multiples of the minimum but get an automatic raise when the minimum is increased. My question to those who DO believe in the minimum wage is what is it with figures like $10.10? It seems absurd to tack a dime onto the end of ten dollars and why such a little increase? If you believe in the minimum wage and you think it will solve the problems of people who don’t earn enough money now why not at least $25.00 per hour? Heck, why not $125.00 per hour or $500.00 per hour. If you think you can increase incomes by passing a law why be stingy? If I had a magic wand to wave I would not be pinching pennies.
/johnny
“I can’t imagine why someone from these places would vote differently here, in a land they detest, than they did in their homeland.”
That’s a conundrum for sure. And, one I have thought about too. I see this same thing occurring here in Texas with new arrivals from the upper midwest and the northeast. No sooner do they get a job, house, kids enrolled in school and they start with “this is they way we did it back in Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, etc”. When I hear that I’m thinking so if things were so great where you came from why are you here? Go figure....
Illegals or not I’ll say this about hispanics in that the majority of them know how to work.
To keep things very simple, let's say you run hot dog stands in business parks from 10am to 2pm Mondays through Fridays and sell only hot dogs and hire only one part-time employee to staff them. Assumptions are you will sell 2,000 hot dogs a month and these are your monthly costs for each stand:
Stand rental fee (with cookware and utilities included): $1,000/mo
Wholesale cost of hot dog and bun: $1.50 x 2,000 = $3,000/mo
Employee salary: $10/hr x 88 = $880 (avg. 88 work hours per mo)
Total monthly costs to operate business is $4,880
Again, I'm being very simplistic and not considering capital costs and miscellaneous expenses (such as occasional repair/replacement of cooking equipment)
OK, so let's say you charge $3.00 per hot dog. That gives you a monthly revenue of $6,000/mo for a net profit of $1,120 - or a margin of 18.6%. Which I should add is profit BEFORE taxes.
Now the federal government steps in and says you must now pay your workers a minimum wage of $15.00. Now your labor costs rise from $880/mo (per stand) to $1,320. Total expenses are now $5,320 leaving you with a net profit (before taxes) of just $680 - or about an 11% margin with which to pay yourself AFTER taxes and AFTER miscellaneous and any capital expenses, reducing you to a break even situation at best.
The logical thing to do here, in order to keep the same margin, is to raise the price of your hot dogs from $3.00 to about $3.25.
But wait, it doesn't stop there. The vendor supplying you with hots dogs and buns are also seeing increased costs as they now have to pay their truck drivers more and people back at the processing plant and bakeries have to get paid more too. So they pass their costs on to you and suddenly you have to charge closer to $3.50 for that dog.
Now the workers in the business parks start buying less hot dogs. More of them decide to bring a lunch to work from home instead. So now you have to react to the declining revenues by jacking up the price of your hot dogs even more. Now you need to consider reducing the number of the hot dog stands you operate so that you can cut your expenses in order to compete. People get laid off.
I think you gave a fine example except you forgot the declining value of the dollar, i.e. inflation. You can’t buy this year what you could last year with the same dollar!
That kind of wisdom used to be taught in high school business class.
Probably disappeared sometime in the 70s....
We recently had a bathroom completely gutted and remodeled.
There were carpenters, electrician, plumbers, tile guy.
All of them were older guys (50s and 60s).
They all said the same thing, no work to be had in new construction, it’s all done by illegals now. The only work for them is remodeling where the homeowner wants to actually work with a citizen.
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