Posted on 07/27/2017 11:20:03 AM PDT by Jagermonster
SEATTLE—The posters on display at the entrance to her Capitol Hill store say it all: “You are safe here.” “Black Lives Matter.” “Resist Trump: keep America great.”
“I was raised on the most progressive politics,” says Jon (pronounced “Joan”) Milazzo, who co-owns Retrofit Home, a furniture shop on a busy corner of downtown Seattle. A native Vermonter who moved west about 30 years ago, Ms. Milazzo is all for the idea that employees – especially those at the bottom of the pay scale – receive a fair wage for their work.
But she is straining to reconcile her principles with what’s best for her business. Seattle’s 2015 minimum wage ordinance raises hourly pay by 50 cents to a dollar per year until all companies in the city hit $15 by 2021. Milazzo says she’d be happy to comply – if she didn’t also have to contend with soaring property taxes and rental and utility rates. Instead, she’s condensed her store hours and cut entry-level jobs.
“You can’t just say to the little people, ‘Now pay everybody more,’ ” she says. “Where does it come from?”
Seattle, among the first cities to adopt a $15-an-hour minimum wage ordinance, has been the setting for a debate over the effects of the policy so far. The dispute centers on two apparently conflicting studies, both released this year. One, from the University of Washington, found that the ordinance significantly reduced average earnings for low-wage workers throughout the city because employment opportunities declined. Another, from the University of California, Berkeley, found that job loss – specifically in the food service industry – was minimal, and that wages indeed rose for workers making the least.
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
Better yet, tie it to town & county employees salaries and see how fast they vote the other way.
A business owner/manager has 50 cents. The owner/manager can do the following with this 50 cents:
— nothing, save it
— spend it on booze
— spend it on entry level employees
— spend it on mid-level employees
— spend it on executive level employees
— spend it on a mink coat for his wife
— spend it on insurance for his employees
— spend it on roof repairs
— spend it on advertising
— spend it on current raw product
— spend it on supplies
— spend it on product upgrades
— spend it on paint
— spend it on the electric bill
Who is in the best position to determine the best way to deploy that 50 cents?
The owner/manager? Or the pompous, santimonious, self-rigteous, phony, power-hungry, vote-sucking ignorant charlatan on the city or county board?
Who has greater moral value? A person working entry level? A person at a paint company? A person at a roofing company? A person at an asphalt company? A person at a butcher company? A person at a supply company? A person in a mid-level position? A person in an executive position? A person at the electic company?
What should be done with politicians who point at a specific class of human and claim that that class, and not some other class, deserves favor of government and wealth redistribution? Hot tar and feathers or cold tar and feathers?
Might the best business and economic choice be to spend this 50 cents on entry level employees? Yes. How likely is this?
AT BEST, LAWS COMPELLING THE BUSINESS OWNER TO DEPLOY HIS RESOURCES IN SPECIFIC WAYS CAN DO NO BETTER THAN ALLOW THE BUSINESS TO BREAK EVEN WITH WHAT MIGHT HAVE OTHERWISE BEEN THE CASE. THEY WILL INSTEAD MOSTLY REDUCE BUSINESS AND ECONOMIC EFFECTIVENESS BY SOME SMALL OR NOT SO SMALL AMOUNT. THEY CAN NEVER, EVER, INCREASE ECONOMIC AND BUSINESS WELL-BEING.
I would love to work with Jon (pronounced Joan) and many other liberals/progressives like her (/no-sarc)
She has goals different from me (I think) but understands the worth/value of employees as an element to wages. She likes the goal of $15/hour but understands a lot of employees are not worth it. I probably like the goal for different reasons - having more people “worth” $15/hour is good for the economy.
I’ve worked for a number of companies who put a lot of effort into making employees “worth more”. And those employees get raises in relation to their value to the company (in one large company almost anyone with ANY personal drive could be doing great financially in a few years after starting at minimum wage if they take advantage of training/mentoring provided).
Politicians give a lot of lip service to education and training but more into minimum wage in places like Oregon. I think Jon (and many other liberals/progressive business owners) could teach politicians a lot about how to make low wage workers WORTH $15/hour. And that’s how to raise the wages that people earn. Paying $15/hour to those who are not providing that value is an economic drain. Making more people worth $15/hour is a huge productivity boost for the economy. And it’s doable if people like Jon start pushing “worth” rather than “wages”.
Fire enough people so that those wages can make up the difference with those that stay?
If I saw a sign saying: ‘Resist Trump: Keep America Great’ at a store, I would tell the owner I’ll resist my business there.
The gradual minimum wage increase each year is boiling the frogs (small business owners) slowly.
At some point they have to jump out of the pot (close the business).
Think of it as the Seattle City Council in action...
“Ms. Milazzo is all for the idea that employees – especially those at the bottom of the pay scale – receive a fair wage for their work.”
Until I impacts her bottom line anyway. Liberals are such frauds.
L
And others will move to red states and foul their new nest.
I don’t know, it seems like the paper isn’t much on either side. This is good reporting in the ‘man on the street’ style, its just that the interviewees are all from Seattle. I think the discussion of the real world (and totally predictable to anybody outside Seattle) effects of the law balance the lefty point of view of the interviewees.
For years, she says, she and her business partner would hire teenagers at entry level, training them in both the nuts and bolts of the business and a meaningful work ethic.She wants her money's worth from the employee. If she has to pay a $15/hr, she wants a $15/hr value employee, not a $9/hr value employee.
But as higher rents and rising taxes converged with the new minimum wage policy, Milazzo says she was forced to trim her staff and use fewer resources on training beginners. “The water level was going up all around us,” she says. “So we made that decision. When you come in, you’ve got to have skills.”
In other words, now that HER ox is getting gored, she's doesn't like it. Typical lib.
LOL! A hard core Lib being hurt by hard core Lib policies and thinks being a hard core Lib makes sense......Priceless!
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