Raising the Minimum Wage, Yes Please

I know, you’re all like, where is the feminist breakdown of all the things wrong with Valentine’s Day? I actually don’t care very much about Valentine’s Day except the low-wage labor required to pull it together. I know there is a lot wrong with Valentine’s Day like the gender norms it perpetuates, etc. etc. etc. So on that note, let’s talk about Obama’s assertion we’re going raising the minimum wage.

My dream boyfriend, Josh Eidelson, wrote about Obama’s request to raise the minimum wage and index it, which is a first. Everyone let out a sigh of relief when President Obama pulled this one out. I didn’t see it coming which is why “raise the minimum wage” is always one of my phrases for Obama based drinking games; it keeps me sober.

Obama said: “We know our economy is stronger when we reward an honest day’s work with honest wages. But today, a full-time worker making the minimum wage earns $14,500 a year.” Obama urged Congress to raise the minimum wage to $9 an hour and “tie the minimum wage to the cost of living so that it finally becomes a wage you can live on.”

Eidelson provides a little background on when the minimum wage was raised and President Obama’s thoughts on the minimum including how full-time workers shouldn’t be living under the poverty line. 19 states have minimum wages higher than the federal minimum wage.

So this is good news. A $9 minimum wage isn’t a living wage in DC and certainly isn’t a living wage for a family. A full-time 40 hour a week worker (yeah, thanks Walmart, I have to state 40 hours), brings the annual wage to $18,720. Poverty thresholds can be found here. Now, a $9 wage is above the national poverty threshold, but that doesn’t mean a living wage. Raising the minimum wage just makes sense, and indexing it makes the minimum wage mean something. The indexing will prevent the minimum wage from losing value, which is probably the best we can hope for.

There is broad support for raising the minimum wage, and we already know that the opponents will claim it will kill jobs, which it wrong. It only kills jobs when the owners decide to punish everyone.

Tipped workers left out of Obama’s speech. Their wage has been $2.13 since 1991. Obviously, tipped workers need a wage increase. Congresswoman Donna Edwards will hold a Hill briefing on a bill that would raise the tipped rate to $3.75 within three months.

Obama also had a lot of misses in his speech like the Israel crap and the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, which endangers labor rights.  All and all I wasn’t impressed with anything but the raising minimum wage and universal pre-K.

Now, I’ve been following all the lefties pointing out that raising the minimum wage won’t do a lot right away and isn’t enough, but I can’t even articulate how great this is going to be for low-wage workers at least immediately following the increase. So, I’m seeing this one as a win.

Et tu, Target?

Just kidding, we all know Target is awful like Walmart, well not exactly like Walmart. Walmart is a special brand of sinister, but Target is really trying. Josh Eidelson, my dream boyfriend, wrote about Target locking employees in their stores overnight for The Nation.

Twenty-five workers filed OSHA charges last week against Target in the Twin Cities alleging they were regularly locked in the stores overnight.

But Target? Don’t hipsters shop there? I know, I do too because they are the not-Walmart of the stores that have everything you could ever think of needing.

Three of the janitorial contractors named in the OSHA complaints are Carlson Building Maintenance, Prestige Maintenance USA, and Diversified Maintenance Systems. Three of the janitorial contractors named in the OSHA complaints are Carlson Building Maintenance, Prestige Maintenance USA, and Diversified Maintenance Systems. The Minnesota labor group, Centro de Trabajoadores Unidos en la Lucha (CTUL) are organizing the workers. In an email to Eidedson, Target spokesperson, Molly Snyder said the company hadn’t been informed of an OSHA complaint, “At Target, we are committed to maintaining the highest standards of ethical business practices and we expect our vendors to do the same. We take allegations of inappropriate working conditions seriously and complete a thorough external audit of every housekeeping vendor on an annual basis.”

The cleaning staff are employed by Target’s contractors, but the CTUL alleges that Target management was aware of the staff being locked in the stores overnight. According to the workers, there was usually one manager onsite during his shift, and that manager was an employee of Target not the contractors.

Spokesperson Snyder was asked about the corporate policy regarding workers being locked inside of stores overnight and said, “All individuals who are in Target stores after hours receive information on Target’s standard safety protocol which includes the locations and use of clearly marked fire exits and doors, which allow them to exit the building anytime.” However, employees claim they never received this information.

Phil Toomey, Prestige’s outside general counsel, didn’t comment on the OSHA charges because he hadn’t seen them. When asked about the company policy on locking workers in stores, he responded, “ It’s practice at Prestige to comply with federal and state law. They don’t own the building.” The other two maintenance contractors declined to comment.

Target is the US’s second largest discount retailer after Walmart, but many labor organizers have alleged that both companies squeeze labor costs in similar ways and both are vehemently opposed to unions. Walmart faced charges similar to this back in 2004 for locking employees in their stores overnight. Target is entirely non-union in the US. UFCW filed a union election in 2011 at a Target in Long Island, but lost after an anti-union campaign, and the union alleges illegal threats and bribes by management.

The OSHA complaints are one aspect of the CTUL’s campaign to improve working conditions for retail cleaning workers in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

I know Target is lame, and I’ve known for a while. I also know in a lot of ways they are just like Walmart. Alright, Target, we’re over. It will be interesting to see how this turns out and if it has any long lasting effects on the way retail maintenance staff is treated.  There could be serious ramifications for Target and Walmart if employees of contractors can file charges against them for unfair practices because the protection these contractors provide these major corporations are the reason their hire them in the first place.

Labor wins again in Chicago

Josh Eidelson has a piece over on Salon on the huge win for labor coming out of the Chicago City Council. One has to wonder what happens if the Chicago Teachers’ Union can prove wage theft?

Regardless, as of last Thursday, the Chicago City Council passed what is being considered one of the strongest “wage theft” laws in the US. Wage theft occurs when employers do not pay workers what they are legally owned, and it is perceived to be one of the easiest crimes to get away with. The term “wage theft,” popularized by labor activists, invokes images of robbery rather than accounting disputes and has been fairly successful.

Ok, but really, how bad could this be? Pretty bad. The National Employment Law Project, advocates, and academics claim that in 2008 around 4,000 low-wage workers in Chicago, New York City, and Los Angeles were victims of wage theft. 68% of these people experienced wage theft of some form the week of the study. The researchers calculated that out of a low-wage salary average $339 per week, low-wage workers could lose an average of $51 per week that they earned and never received. The figure the advocates have put $56 million per week in workers earnings stolen.

Under Chicago’s new law, companies convicted of wage theft could lose their business licenses. Mayor Rahm Emanual signed on as a sponsor and has pledged to sign it. However, it is worth noting Emanual and labor aren’t close in Chicago.

Workers and activists mobilized last Thursday in committee to show they were serious about this. The pro-labor team was able to win over holdouts in committee after amending the language of the bill to include the revoking of incense for those businesses convicted of wage theft.

Riddle me this, is there any place it is legal to commit wage theft? Of course not, so how is this still going on? To begin it is really hard to enforce partially because the number of Department of Labor enforcement agents has dropped. State labor agents only make up 15% of the total enforcement coverage from a few decades ago. USA USA USA!

Additionally, even if a company is caught committing wage theft they aren’t really punished. Specifically, they aren’t prevented from receiving government contracts. Finally, when low-wage workers are victims of wage theft and they speak up about it or try to organize around it; they are often illegally punished for it with cuts in pay or calls to immigration. So perhaps the system of capitalism is broken?

Eidelson also points out that with union membership falling there has been an increase in the numbers of “workers’ centers” and other alternative labor groups. But in Chicago, this comes down to how this new law will be enforced. My suspicion is not very diligently unless the labor activists stay on them, which is totally a possibility now given the resurgence in the movement.

I also think it is time traditional labor start paying better attention to the direct coming off the small scale labor movements. To be honest with the prolific right to work laws we’re seeing this might be where we make headway back. Of course that will depend on the enforcement. Also, revoking a business license in Chicago, but the feds letting them keep one in DC or in the suburbs of Chicago won’t mean much. Also, if the I’m curious as to who is protected on this law, specifically what are the residency requirements. I guess I’ll just have to wait because I’m not reading local Chicago laws.

Walmart unionbusting? You don't say...

So I’d kind of want Josh Eidelson to be my boyfriend. The Frisky has this sarcastic “be my boyfriend” column, but while I’m joking there is no sarcasm here. We could just talk about why Walmart blows for hours. Le sigh.

Eidelson wrote a piece Monday on a VP over at Walmart potentially admitting to union busting. Walmart Vice President of Communications David Tovar told reporter Susan Berfield, Bloomberg Businessweek, when asked about the labor campaign facing Walmart:

“We have human resources teams all over the country who are available to talk to associates, and we will get questions about joining a union. We would say, ‘Let us remind you of all that Walmart offers, and of what might go away. Quarterly bonuses might go away, vacation time might go away.’”

 So that is about all the article in Businessweek says. Walmart didn’t respond immediately to any of Eidelson’s requests for comment. However, they eventually responded. My favorite Walmart spokesman Dan Fogleman responded to Eidelson’s request for comments. He said that Tovar’s quotes “as published: lack “additional context.” Additionally, Fogleman said, “David’s comments were intended to illustrate that there are no guarantees in the collective bargaining process. Everything is on the table and subject to negotiation, up or down, by both sides. We believe that is an important fact for our associates to know, especially given that Walmart’s pay and benefits package typically meet or exceed those at a majority of our competitors, including those that are unionized.”

After I read that I heard Dwight Schrute say “FALSE.”

Of course, we already know that Walmart and companies like it threaten their employees to prevent unionization. It is a large concern of labor leaders because US law doesn’t restrain companies from threatening workers who aim to unionize. This is because minor threats to punish workers for organizing yield minor penalties and employers can intimidate workers though threats as predictions without breaking any laws. It looks like usually the employers threatened wage cuts or plant closures according to Cornell Director of Labor Education and Research Kate Bronfenbrenner.

Former NLRB attorney Jeff Hirsch was asked about Tovar’s Businessweek’s comments and said: “These types of comments (and worse) are extremely common and effective.” Hirsch pointed out this isn’t a far cry from the mandatory on-the-clock “captive audience” meetings, and the implicit threats.

Now, back to the legality of this. So can employers threaten actions like these? No, but they can predict them. So you can’t say if you want a union we’re going to cut your wages, but you can say if you get a union then we might have to cut your wages.

Lance Compa, a labor law professor at Cornell, believes the comments described by Tovar might be a violation of labor law, but depending on the context. Compa said, “To be safe management normally has to couch the possible loss of benefits in a discussion about collective bargaining, saying that bargaining is a two way street, wages and benefits are negotiable, management has to right to bargain hard, you might lose some benefits, you might gain some benefits, maybe nothing will change except you’ll be paying dues, and so on.”

Last month OUR Walmart filed an NLRB charge that noted a different statement Tovar made to the media as a threat, specifically if workers didn’t show on Black Friday, “depending on the circumstances, there could be consequences.”

You guys, we're blowing this Walmart thing out of proportion #nobigdealguys

So Rick Newman wrote a kind of anti-labor wrapped up in the “these poor fools don’t know we’re powerless and should be ok with Walmart” kind of way.

So as you may have heard, Walmart is going ok strike on Friday, some aspects in the supply chain have already walked off the job this week, last week, and last month. They want these things we on the left call rights. Rights like the right to organize (or assemble as I call it in my inner monologue, accompanied by a mental image of the Avengers), a living wage, having a say in your schedule, and safe working conditions.

Newman wants to frame the Walmart discussion in terms of Hostess, which I don’t really get because all labor is not the same, and Hostess was running their company into the ground before they decided to blame the workers, but sure totes the same. Really, it boils down for me that Hostess though they could capitalize on some anti-labor sentiment (note unlike Mr. Newman), but they didn’t realize that people are more ok with labor now than they have been in decades. However, this is how Newman sees the Hostess situation:

“The debt-saddled company asked for union concessions on pay, benefits, and work rules to lower costs and become more competitive. Several unions agreed, but one, representing bakers, went on strike, shutting down two thirds of Hostess’s 36 plants. Now, Hostess says it may have no choice but to liquidate its assets, threatening the jobs of more than 18,000 workers.”

Ok, so first, as of Monday, Hostess was willing to meet and mediate with the bakers’ union. So, this is awkward. Second, the poor corporation did this to itself. Third, with concessions on pay, etc, are these 18,000 jobs going to be the jobs desired? Probably not.

But in Newman’s interpretation, the Hostess situation should scare off Walmart employees. He also employs language as if the strike/protest isn’t actually going to happen on Black Friday. It is. I’m making cookies. Unfortunately, I don’t know if the Walmart where I’ll be in rural West Virginia is going on strike, but if they do there will be cookies.

As JJ pointed out here, Josh Eidelson has excellent coverage of all things Walmart, and I sincerely hope The Nation brings him on full-time to cover labor after all this. Anyway in Eidelson’s second most recent article, Walmart is so ok with the insignificant “walk offs” that they have filed a complaint with the NLRB. Way to blink Walmart.

Anyway, back to Newman, he argues that Walmart’s interest is to keep labor costs low and fend off unions because they push up costs. Liar. Walmart’s main concern and interest in a profit margin. And here is where Newman had my attention:

“But it’s the wrong decade—maybe even the wrong century—for workers protesting labor conditions to expect much for their efforts. Beyond that, old fashioned protests and pickets seem to completely miss the point in an era dominated by high unemployment, an underskilled work force and falling pay for menial work. What we really ought to be protesting is mediocre education, naïve worker expectations and faulty thinking about what it takes to get ahead these days.“Walmart epitomizes globalization and the cost-benefit tradeoffs that raise some people up and push other people down. The company obviously relies on cheap overseas labor and other cost-cutting innovations to keep prices remarkably low, which is great for consumers. The annual rate of inflation hasn’t been above 4 percent since 1991, due partly to Walmart and its may imitators.”

Got all that? Protesting and strikes don’t work, please see Occupy, Greece, the others in the Walmart supply chain, the Chicago Teachers’ Union…I’m glad this man has a job with skills like these the only other place he would work is Fox News. Also, we need to stop bitching about fair and safe working conditions. Don’t we know there is unemployment out there? Looming and any job is a good job when there is the fear of unemployment. And everyone is unskilled, which definitely wasn’t a tactic used to undercut unions and workers. The real problem are workers who don’t know their place and think they deserve a fair wage and those damn teachers unions that are ruining education. I see what you’re doing here Newman. Finally, I don’t know how I missed this: Walmart is responsible for a lack of inflation, which is true. Prices have to remain low, people don’t make enough to buy things.

Newman is willing to concede that some of Walmart’s tactics are bad for workers, including that the pay is so low they have a hard time making anything. Though, Newman uses the generous wage of $9 per hour, which is the average, not the median. He also mentions Walmart’s use of part-time workers to get around benefits.

Newman argues that the power of unions comes not from solidarity, but from a lack of skilled workforce…I’m not sure that’s right. I’m pretty sure a general strike would work in forcing employers to pay a living wage and treat workers with respect, but I don’t think that is going to happen. While in today’s economy more people are willing to take work and shop even if it means crossing a line, I don’t think the surplus of available workers usurps power from unions.

I also agree with Newman, that Walmart keeps pay low because there is nothing forcing them to raise it, but I think collective action could be just the thing. Newman concludes by talking about how support for unions has dwindled to which I say look toward the Midwest. Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio fought back against anti-labor legislation, and while not all victories Ohio kicked Kasich’s ass on the subject. There were also several labor victories in the last election. During my thesis interviews, though I didn’t ask about the Ohio repeal of anti-labor measure, all of my participants who brought it up were pro-labor though none of them had ever held employment with union protections. Newman also invokes the old “unions are corrupt and abusive” train of thought. To which I say, please see the photo I took, here, of a bumper sticker that reads “My President is Jimmy Hoffa” next to an Army bumper sticker.

Newman concludes with this gem:

“Many Walmart employees seem to feel that tougher rules or pressures from outraged customers will help them get higher pay and better treatment. But you don’t have much bargaining power when you have indistinct skills shared with millions of others. A better way to get ahead is to gain new skills that employers want and other workers don’t have. Instead of attending union rallies, take a class. And above all, don’t get in the way of penny-pinching shoppers who need those Black Friday bargains.”

Well, I would argue that those unskilled masses are exactly the power you need. I’ve complained to my family about Walmart for the better part of a decade and was at times mocked for it. However, I sent an email asking my family not to shop there this year and in the very least not cross a line. The response was one of indignation. How could I ever think that any of them would cross a picket line? Also, this notion of taking a class and not organizing is completely ridiculous. It is a distraction; you see you as the worker is the problem, not the system, not the corporations that get rich as you get poorer and poorer. I dare someone to say something to me about blocking their way into buy cheaply made goods, from poorly paid employees. They’d have quite some explaining to do on the rationalization behind the exploitation of hundreds.  So the only thing I need clarification on is chocolate chip or peanut butter?