You know, like, BEFORE inflation makes $15 an hour equal to today's $7.25 A nice Big Box of nice time for you all this Monday: Target stores announced today they'll be raising their minimum wage to $11 an hour starting in October, with a gradual increase in starting wages to $15/hour by 2020. Turns out that Target and Walmart have been in a bit of a wage war for a little while now:
Weird. You tellin me that if you make you stores happy for your customers, you...get more customers? And if you treat your employees like employees and not liabilities, they ....stay longer? HUH Next you will tell me that if you pay them more, they might actually be able to afford your shit!
Good on you. Lady MS was raised by an abandoned teen Mom who first did the BellTel overnight operator gig, then spent years in retail. Hey...it was a living! At her wake, displayed a classic photo where Mom was an elf during store's Xmas promo. While she managed men's dept., she served as surrogate mentor to p/t local boys whom she encouraged to seek greener pastures. Eventually, she retired as a Congressional liaison at the Social Security Admin. During her retail years, she learned style & thrift.Thus, nearly 50 years later, I have a stash of designer clothing she bought with employee discount and evermore cherished. You go, WITP:)
Hey, very sorry for the OT in this thread and feel free to delete this comment once you've read it; I'd prefer to use a private message but Disqus doesn't appear to have that functionality.
The commenter who was going by "L E" in the previous thread at the time of your moderation has been going around progressive blogosphere Disqus, impersonating regulars of the Slacktivist comment section by changing his avatar and display name, apparently with the aim of poisoning the well against us by acting like a dick in related communities. You seem to have fallen for one of his tricks earlier where he changed his comments to make it seem like I was doing a childish "repeat what the last guy said" thing, rather than just pointing out that he was impersonating L E. I don't know if moderators can see edit histories, but if not, please be aware of that tactic.
Judging by his pattern it may be my turn soon: he seems to impersonate the last person he harrassed in another commenter's garb. Please don't think less of me if he comes in here wearing my name and avatar and starts shitting all over the place. Thanks.
For the record, I haven't once argued against gradualism, nor am I necessarily advocating some kind of Bernie-ized litmus test on a national-level minimum wage. I'm noting that the terms of the discussion are completely screwed up, and also noting the very strange fact that this particular cross-section of a gang of pinko bleeding heart liberals like the Wonketariat doesn't seem to appreciate that, moving any discussion of the minimum wage immediately to the issue of gradualism or the defense of Mom and Pop stores or god knows what displacement technique that is uncomfortably reminiscent of the range of rhetoric that the right typically deploys. They, the right, have shoved the Overton window all the way round to the back of the house. Why are we letting them do that?If we could not do that for a minute - are we at all near agreement on some long-standing principles of the labor movement? That wage workers should all be in the middle class. That there is no excuse, ever, for having a large poor class in a rich society. That if any company's viability or dreams of growth or plans to accumulate capital or whatever, whether they're Walmart or Mom-and-Pop(-and-poor-people-employees), Inc., is built on exploiting poor people, then that business is not an acceptable one and shouldn't be allowed to build it's dream on the backs of people living in poverty. Nor should it be invisibly subsidized by welfare to do that. FDR said it better - https://takingnote.blogs.ny...We knew these things 80 years ago.
When Loomstate (an ethical and sustainable clothing company; their organic denim jeans are the best I've ever had) did a small collection for Target, I actually went to a Target store to check it out, and bought a little black dress made of organic cotton and silk. I wore it yesterday. OTOH, I've never bought anything from Walmart.
Wait a minute, where did I ever say I disagreed with those things? For that matter, when has anyone here? I merely said we'll be more successful using the boiling frog technique and getting those wages up a chunk at a time, not that I'm in favor of the working poor. I get the frustration, we shouldn't have to settle for doing it that way. Then again, we shouldn't have to settle for being the last civilized country with some sort of universal healthcare. We shouldn't have to still deal with racism or sexism or climate change denial either. But we do, because that is the reality of life in this country. If you can show me a viable, practical and realistic plan to double the federal MW in one fell swoop, I'm all ears. But so far I haven't seen one. Appealing to the better angels of a nation that is stupid, lazy, uninformed and brainwashed with lies about labor, as well as lies about their imminent upward mobility and the caricature of the American Dream™ is a fool's errand. Until you break the fever dream and overcome the lies and lack of knowledge, you won't make progress on any of those things. The gains the labor movement made last time around were hard fought and they didn't happen overnight- they won't this time either.
Want to get those wages to $15? Fight hard to successfully get them to $10 and get people used to the idea. Fight to get them to $12 and show people that the sky is not falling nor is the world ending. Then go for $15, along with making sure that the middle class understands and is fully onboard with the notion that a rising tide lifts all boats. Right now, the focus has been so narrowly on that MW, especially re: fast food workers, that the issue is easy to demagogue. Just scare middle class voters that their middle class wages are in danger of being overtaken by a burger flipper and that MW vote will never happen. You have to bring the middle class along, so they see the benefits to them too and that means broadening the pitch. It will also take time to get them used to the ideas, so yes, sometimes gradualism can actually get things done faster than a full frontal assault that fails.
Again, I haven't argued against gradualism, anywhere. I accept your and others' tactical insights.I have, admittedly, implied that something is not quite right when we always and immediately start talking about gradualism, and tactics, as soon as the MW comes up. And something is even more wrong with a lot of the other kinds of things said about the MW, here and other places, for example the, to my mind, exaggerated concern for small business owners, who apparently can't survive in many cases without being able to pay employees less than a living wage. I'm also arguing that if we always frame the discussion as the, let's say, $25/hr-with-benefits middle class grudgingly accepting a slight bettering of the lives of poor people (and we're talking about a large segment of the workforce permanently consigned to being working poor, with your "surviving wage" income levels), then I think we've unnecessarily ceded ground to right-wing propaganda. We are not able to ask the question that was historically asked - "wait a minute, why do we have poor people at all, when this society is rich?"And I would also claim that that question was answered, a long time ago - "No actually there is no need to have that at all, it's something we have decided to have, or allowed to happen". That answer is still the basis of there being, loosely speaking, no working poor (with "survival wages") in various capitalist countries with social-democratic traditions. The principle, the question, the answer, the proof of concept in numerous countries, these need to be front and center in MW discussions, is what I'm arguing. Alongside whatever tactical accommodations advocates land on. I'm missing that "front and center" in a lot of discussions in the US, and, weirdly, in this thread, with the points advanced by quite a few wonkers.
I would be happy for Wal-Mart employees if they received a $15 wage, but I will never give Mr. Walton's gazillionaire, tight ass relatives the pleasure of me stepping in their shitty stores.
Weird. You tellin me that if you make you stores happy for your customers, you...get more customers? And if you treat your employees like employees and not liabilities, they ....stay longer? HUH Next you will tell me that if you pay them more, they might actually be able to afford your shit!
I have a 15 year old and a 12 year old.Where do I drop them off? And how much am I paying you?
Don't trust the invisible hand of the free meerkat, yo.
https://uploads.disquscdn.c...
Robert the Bruce? /s
Good on you. Lady MS was raised by an abandoned teen Mom who first did the BellTel overnight operator gig, then spent years in retail. Hey...it was a living! At her wake, displayed a classic photo where Mom was an elf during store's Xmas promo. While she managed men's dept., she served as surrogate mentor to p/t local boys whom she encouraged to seek greener pastures. Eventually, she retired as a Congressional liaison at the Social Security Admin. During her retail years, she learned style & thrift.Thus, nearly 50 years later, I have a stash of designer clothing she bought with employee discount and evermore cherished. You go, WITP:)
I volunteer for anime conventions. Does that count?
Hey, very sorry for the OT in this thread and feel free to delete this comment once you've read it; I'd prefer to use a private message but Disqus doesn't appear to have that functionality.
The commenter who was going by "L E" in the previous thread at the time of your moderation has been going around progressive blogosphere Disqus, impersonating regulars of the Slacktivist comment section by changing his avatar and display name, apparently with the aim of poisoning the well against us by acting like a dick in related communities. You seem to have fallen for one of his tricks earlier where he changed his comments to make it seem like I was doing a childish "repeat what the last guy said" thing, rather than just pointing out that he was impersonating L E. I don't know if moderators can see edit histories, but if not, please be aware of that tactic.
Judging by his pattern it may be my turn soon: he seems to impersonate the last person he harrassed in another commenter's garb. Please don't think less of me if he comes in here wearing my name and avatar and starts shitting all over the place. Thanks.
checking with not regular poetry readers I have always found is the best way to do this.
I have a 16 yr old. If you can pay his car insurance and keep him in cereal & milk, he'll lift whatever you need. He's also great with cats.
cheers, jen.
edit: just so you know, it's not that i have a dog in the purity fight. i don't.
it's that the fight is happening at all.
we gotta get up and organize. (riffing on pigeonhed.)
For the record, I haven't once argued against gradualism, nor am I necessarily advocating some kind of Bernie-ized litmus test on a national-level minimum wage. I'm noting that the terms of the discussion are completely screwed up, and also noting the very strange fact that this particular cross-section of a gang of pinko bleeding heart liberals like the Wonketariat doesn't seem to appreciate that, moving any discussion of the minimum wage immediately to the issue of gradualism or the defense of Mom and Pop stores or god knows what displacement technique that is uncomfortably reminiscent of the range of rhetoric that the right typically deploys. They, the right, have shoved the Overton window all the way round to the back of the house. Why are we letting them do that?If we could not do that for a minute - are we at all near agreement on some long-standing principles of the labor movement? That wage workers should all be in the middle class. That there is no excuse, ever, for having a large poor class in a rich society. That if any company's viability or dreams of growth or plans to accumulate capital or whatever, whether they're Walmart or Mom-and-Pop(-and-poor-people-employees), Inc., is built on exploiting poor people, then that business is not an acceptable one and shouldn't be allowed to build it's dream on the backs of people living in poverty. Nor should it be invisibly subsidized by welfare to do that. FDR said it better - https://takingnote.blogs.ny...We knew these things 80 years ago.
When Loomstate (an ethical and sustainable clothing company; their organic denim jeans are the best I've ever had) did a small collection for Target, I actually went to a Target store to check it out, and bought a little black dress made of organic cotton and silk. I wore it yesterday. OTOH, I've never bought anything from Walmart.
Wait a minute, where did I ever say I disagreed with those things? For that matter, when has anyone here? I merely said we'll be more successful using the boiling frog technique and getting those wages up a chunk at a time, not that I'm in favor of the working poor. I get the frustration, we shouldn't have to settle for doing it that way. Then again, we shouldn't have to settle for being the last civilized country with some sort of universal healthcare. We shouldn't have to still deal with racism or sexism or climate change denial either. But we do, because that is the reality of life in this country. If you can show me a viable, practical and realistic plan to double the federal MW in one fell swoop, I'm all ears. But so far I haven't seen one. Appealing to the better angels of a nation that is stupid, lazy, uninformed and brainwashed with lies about labor, as well as lies about their imminent upward mobility and the caricature of the American Dream™ is a fool's errand. Until you break the fever dream and overcome the lies and lack of knowledge, you won't make progress on any of those things. The gains the labor movement made last time around were hard fought and they didn't happen overnight- they won't this time either.
Want to get those wages to $15? Fight hard to successfully get them to $10 and get people used to the idea. Fight to get them to $12 and show people that the sky is not falling nor is the world ending. Then go for $15, along with making sure that the middle class understands and is fully onboard with the notion that a rising tide lifts all boats. Right now, the focus has been so narrowly on that MW, especially re: fast food workers, that the issue is easy to demagogue. Just scare middle class voters that their middle class wages are in danger of being overtaken by a burger flipper and that MW vote will never happen. You have to bring the middle class along, so they see the benefits to them too and that means broadening the pitch. It will also take time to get them used to the ideas, so yes, sometimes gradualism can actually get things done faster than a full frontal assault that fails.
Ferdinand?
Again, I haven't argued against gradualism, anywhere. I accept your and others' tactical insights.I have, admittedly, implied that something is not quite right when we always and immediately start talking about gradualism, and tactics, as soon as the MW comes up. And something is even more wrong with a lot of the other kinds of things said about the MW, here and other places, for example the, to my mind, exaggerated concern for small business owners, who apparently can't survive in many cases without being able to pay employees less than a living wage. I'm also arguing that if we always frame the discussion as the, let's say, $25/hr-with-benefits middle class grudgingly accepting a slight bettering of the lives of poor people (and we're talking about a large segment of the workforce permanently consigned to being working poor, with your "surviving wage" income levels), then I think we've unnecessarily ceded ground to right-wing propaganda. We are not able to ask the question that was historically asked - "wait a minute, why do we have poor people at all, when this society is rich?"And I would also claim that that question was answered, a long time ago - "No actually there is no need to have that at all, it's something we have decided to have, or allowed to happen". That answer is still the basis of there being, loosely speaking, no working poor (with "survival wages") in various capitalist countries with social-democratic traditions. The principle, the question, the answer, the proof of concept in numerous countries, these need to be front and center in MW discussions, is what I'm arguing. Alongside whatever tactical accommodations advocates land on. I'm missing that "front and center" in a lot of discussions in the US, and, weirdly, in this thread, with the points advanced by quite a few wonkers.
I would be happy for Wal-Mart employees if they received a $15 wage, but I will never give Mr. Walton's gazillionaire, tight ass relatives the pleasure of me stepping in their shitty stores.