I wonder what the USA would look like if minimum wage was defined as; two people being able to afford a 1 bedroom apartment within a 1 hour drive without traffic.
The static (both in the nominal and inflation adjusted sense) for minimum wage doesn't make sense imo. Minimum wage should be tied to some level of living (not necessarily a great living, but something)
Inflation, probably followed by corruption. Minimum wage would rise to the point where a person could afford a 1BR apartment within a 1 hour drive without traffic. Then the rents of those 1BR apartments would rise to capture that new minimum wage. Then minimum wage would rise to afford the new rent, and so on. Eventually someone's going to say "Hey, I own an apartment block downtown, I'm supposed to rent it out to the hoi polloi, but I'll let you live there rent free if you work for me and do exactly as I say, wink wink".
This is a very common situation in much of Latin America - both inflation being transmitted through CoL-indexed social goods, and the corruption that comes from trying to bypass that.
Any durable solution needs to address the questions of "How do we ensure that there are enough 1BR apartments within a 1 hour drive for everyone who wants one to get one?", "How do we incentivize the construction of these 1BR apartments?", "How do we maintain the desirability of these apartments once they're built?", and "How do we prevent one firm from owning all of the desirable 1BR apartments and setting whatever price they want?"
>two people being able to afford a 1 bedroom apartment within a 1 hour drive without traffic.
My immediate reaction to this statement was.. it's insane? In my opinion it should read 'a single person able to afford a 1 bedroom apartment within an hour of public transport commute.'
Otherwise it sounds like you don't think anyone should be able to live anywhere reasonable without roommates?
A universal basic income would have some advantages over a minimum wage. Minimum wage interferes with supply and demand in the labor market, which is why some economists dislike it. UBI moves the supply curve to a different place, but it allows those principles to function.
Everybody is giving you theoretical answers, but I am literal minded.
According to some website, Miami, FL is the most expensive real estate market in the country, and Florida has a fairly low minimum wage currently. So, I'll work with that.
I assume that a 1 hour drive without traffic puts you at most around 55 miles (freeways are faster, city streets are slower, but this is an estimate).
That could put you in places like Belle Glade, Florida, where the 1 bedroom apartment listings are between $400 and $650 per month.
But, it could also put you in the much nicer West Palm Beach, Florida, where (according to Zillow Fair Market Rent for ZIP Code 33401) the average rental for a 1 bedroom apartment is $1274 per month.
Divided between two people, that's $637 per month. If we go with the rule that 1/3 of your wages should go to housing, that means you'd need to make $1911 per month to afford that apartment. If you worked 40 hours a week, and there are (on average) 4.3 weeks per month, that means you'd need to make $11.11 per hour to afford that apartment.
According to this other random website, the average hourly wage in Miami is $21 per hour. The minimum wage in Florida is currently $8.65 per hour.
In summary, if they took the least generous interpretation of your rule set (the Belle Glade case) they could safely lower the minimum wage. If they took the most generous (the West Palm Beach case) they would need to raise it by about $2.50 per hour.
The average wage across the U.S. is about $27, and 2/3rds of people make "at least" above $15/hour, so it may not affect most people at all, ceteris paribus, and making the assumption that the example region is a useful example.
This is all very hand-wavey and back of the envelop, of course.
There'll be a bunch of cheap singular apartments spread all over the US - let's for convenience's sake assume they're about a one hour drive apart from each other but that's a totally random number of course.
You can rent them for very cheap but just as you're about to move in they suddenly become unavailable for whatever reason? Probably the owner lost their keys or something and then lawyers can argue for years if the owner is actually required to hand over the keys. Or maybe the apartment has no way to enter and lawyers can now argue for years if an apartment needs to have a door?
I know this won’t be popular but minimum wage shouldn’t exist. Basic income, sure but not minimum wage. Every discussion of minimum wage blames employers for something that is completely out of their control: inflation. When the price of gas, housing and food rises the business where you work doesn’t suddenly have more money to hand out. If anything their costs have gone up too reducing what they can afford to pay out.
It blows my mind that people continue to act like rising costs are the fault of their employers, who have no control of it at all.
No doubt, this exec in particular was a moron who deserves to be fired for even suggesting what he did but the overall sentiment just doesn’t jive for so many businesses that are getting squeezed harder and harder everyday.
That's not nearly enough detail for the setting of the wage. Companies would simply assume that they always eat the cheapest food, buy the cheapest transportation, never go on vacation, no luxuries at all, etc etc. If you don't factor all that in, they'll factor it out.
I wonder what the USA would look like if zoning laws were defined as: Issue building permits until people can afford a 1 bedroom apartment within a 1 hour drive of work without traffic
>I wonder what the USA would look like if minimum wage was defined as; two people being able to afford a 1 bedroom apartment within a 1 hour drive without traffic.
A lot of stuff would be automated or simply not exist. I don't see how high minimum wage can "work" to solve social issues if companies can choose between not hiring people and paying a high minimum wage.
>I wonder what the USA would look like if minimum wage was defined as; two people being able to afford a 1 bedroom apartment within a 1 hour drive without traffic.
A better method is to give everyone a universal basic income enough to afford a place to live and to eliminate the minimum wage. That way jobs would have to pay what the job is worth to people, not amounts that create a poverty trap.
Or, you know, have a Cost of Living/Inflation adjustment every year. That's such a simple idea to me and it's sort of insane to me that not only is that not something that happens, but no one seems to be even suggesting it (or at least, no politicians are campaigning on it). Hell, adjusting the 70's minimum wage to today's dollars puts it at like $24, so just hearing that, I don't know how it shouldn't be around there today, but people talk about $15 like it's crazy.
It wouldn't fix things if that is what you are wondering. You MIGHT get away with 1 person with a 1-bedroom apartment. However, regarding gas prices, contrary to popular belief, the US does not have any permanent control at all over gas prices. They COULD have control over gas prices, however that would require all parties to pass a law to prohibit speculations (aka "futures") on oil pricing. There are too many hands in the pot for that to happen. Note that this isn't an issue unique to the US. Not a single country in the world has a law like this.
That being said, I 100% agree with minimum wage being 3x the median cost of a 1-bedroom apartment for 1 person working 20 hours a week. Why 20 hours a week? Companies LOVE to only give folks part time hours. Of course, in my area that equates to $42/hour, however, note that even at 40 hours a week you are looking at $21/hour. Also, why 3x? When you apply for a mortgage OR sign a lease you typically need to earn 3x the housing cost in order to qualify. Mortgage companies and landlords alike typically want to see housing take less than 33% of your pretax income.
Think about the positive feedback loop you are proposing here:
Minimum wage goes up -> everything costs more -> minimum wage needs to go up some more.
So labor expense grows and grows, while expense for "stuff" becomes a smaller and smaller part of that.
So how do you make that stuff? You can't hire anyone - too expensive. So either automation, or buy things from other countries. This means firing people.
Your proposal will lead to mass unemployment.
But it gets worse, since you've tied your numbers to the cost of housing, and cities have the most expensive housing, people won't be able to live in the city (no jobs available that pay enough).
So mass migration to places with lower housing, until the cost of housing in a city goes down. What's you've done is incentivized everyone to kind of spread out in a diffuse way to keep down the cost of housing.
But where are the jobs in these places? There are no service jobs, since services are too expensive for anyone to buy. You'd have to drive more than an hour to find a job.
People will respond by demanding rent control, but that also means less housing is available.
So not only did you cause mass unemployment, you also caused mass homelessness.
The anchor you're looking for is the median wage. In the US, the minimum wage tends to be around 35-45% of the median wage, and is mostly harmless to employment. In Chile, it hovers around 65% and the effects are more significant, while the distributional effects seem to be exhausted:
Half the median wage is obviously the simplest answer, but some studies have suggested other numbers.
Now you're probably wondering: what does the median wage have to do with a "level of living"? It's simply the presently existing normal "level of living"! The median wage reflects various aspects of the local economy, and is responsive to things like housing prices.
> I wonder what the USA would look like if minimum wage was defined as; two people being able to afford a 1 bedroom apartment within a 1 hour drive without traffic.
More labor being "outsourced" to cheap counties, for one. Rather than a restaurant making meals on site, they'll do most of the prep work 50 miles away where the CoL (and minimum wage) is cheap and truck it in.
> if minimum wage was defined as; two people being able to afford a 1 bedroom apartment within a 1 hour drive without traffic.
It would implode or we would adjust our standards in every other area to make it happen. We are simply not rich enough to afford that for everyone the way things are currently structured.
Gas prices putting financial stress on Applebee's employees will also put financial stress on Applebee's customers, who may cut spending on things like going to Applebee's.
Rising gas prices mean we can lower wages to keep employees?
Outside of the moral implication, this doesn't even logically make sense.
People are already facing higher costs, if you pay them lower, they will not work for you, because you know, commuting to work at your place will eat into the budget.
I think that many corporate executives have thoughts along these lines: they want employees to be so desperate that they'll accept low wages and bad working conditions. That is, of course, why they tend to campaign against e.g. minimum wages, food stamps, and reforms that would make it easier to unionize.
The only difference is that other execs have the good sense not to put such thoughts in writing.
"that means more hours employees will need to work to maintain their current level of living."
Wayne really should have had someone who isn't siloed in an upper class bubble proofread this, because 'maintain their current level of living' really sounds like "in order to not die", which is worse than what he meant - even though what he meant is still super gross.
Title is wrong, wasn’t a corporate executive but instead “Wayne Pankratz, executive director of operations for Applebee’s franchisee Apple Central LLC”, from franchisee that has 47 locations, out of 1787 total. In conclusion, this was corporate sabotage by Chili’s.
When you run a business, you choose a location. If the landlord does something that causes a noxious smell, it's on you to fix it. We don't say, "Well, that's the landlord's fault." Your business, your leasing arrangements.
When you run a business, you choose employees. If an employee does something noxious, it's on you to fix it. We don't say, "Well, that's the employee's fault." Your business, your employee hiring, firing, and training.
In conclusion:
When you run a business, you choose franchisees and set standards of behaviour. If a franchise does something noxious, it's on you to fix it. We don't say, "Well, that's the franchisee's fault." Your business, your franchisee selection, training, and standards enforcement.
There's no weaseling out. You run a business, the buck stops at your desk. If you don't like that, don't run a business. It's 100% on you to choose your vendors, landlords, employees, franchisees, contractors, &c.
All your responsibility. In exchange for which, you enjoy the benefits when you get it right.
p.s. Your conclusion is speculation. It's fine to speculate, but I reject the claim that your conclusion follows from your argument. Your speculation could be correct, maybe Chillis bribed the manager to send a bad email, or heard about the ruckus and put their PR machine into high gear to publicize it. All possible, but it doesn't follow in any way from the relationship between franchisor and employee of a franchisee.
> Besides hiring employees in at a lower wage to decrease our labor ( when able ) make sure you have a pulse on the morale of your employees...Do things to make sure you are the employer of choice. Most importantly, have the culture and environment that will attract people.
This is kind of amazing. Surely they know that the culture and environment that will attract people will be the one that pays better, right? The only thing more amazing is that some brown-nosing sycophant managed to call it "words of wisdom" without vomitting.
And then he suggests doing things “...to make sure you are the employer of choice.” - LOL
So if your Chotchkies franchise is in the middle of a wasteland where nobody can walk, bike, or take the bus to work, and then gas prices go up, doesn't that mean people need, y'know, more money? Won't they be looking for higher wages? Paying less just makes other employers look better and positions you to capture exactly zero of the supposed new growth in the applicant pool. Even not working at all (i.e. not driving to a job) gains a few preference points compared to working at your Flingers. Seems like when they were handing out brains, this guy thought they said trains and said "gimme a slow one."
If the inflation is up, why won't the employees demand more wage to cover the rising cost? It isn't like Applebee is a high-sought after career, isn't it?
Economic analysis has shown the low skill labor market has monopsony power. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/103530462110424...
This means the workers at applebees don't have much leverage to demand higher wages. Their options are accept a shitty job or don't work. This manager believes higher gas prices will force them to shift towards the "accept a shitty job" part of the spectrum.
The core idea is the more desperate people are, the lower you can push their wages.
Same reason exploitive employers oppose increasing the minimum wage, single payer, etc. Keeping people wretched means a steady supply of new bodies if the ones you're employing start thinking they can negotiate.
Think the premise is that people who work there don’t have many alternative options other than continuing to work for them. In addition, greater financial pressures presumably contributes to forcing them to remain employed where they already are.
These are not employees who get paid time off and can take days off to go looking for other jobs/interview.
Meaning any time they take to find another job might be eating into their finances even more, and really be more of the same (e.g., another restaurant).
this is probably uncharitable, but i can’t help but wonder if they’re true thoughts were with the addition of “We are still scratching head about what this gentleman was thinking saying this out loud.”
This quote from corporate sounds insincere. It's not hard to understand what this "gentleman" was thinking. Disagree with him, sure, but _not understanding_ him? Please.
I just don’t understand how Mr. Pankratz’s opinion is considered acceptable in modern society. It’s 2022. Isn’t it time for humanity to evolve past this kind of thing? Why are we as a civilization still mired in a culture of exploitation and incentivizing suffering?
From reading the full email it seems like just one sentence lacked tact, only maybe inaccurate, and the rest was .... decent management? Like the part about making schedules for employees further in advance so they could accomodate their other jobs? That's pretty good.
The part about what employment trends will look like due to gas prices and competing employers having to shut down? Is that inaccurate?
Mentioning directly to offer lower wages, didn't have to be mentioned... that way.
Do I like that the managers walked out over that? Absolutely
The title should be "An email urging lower wages for new employees due to higher gas prices sparks walkout at Lawrence Applebee’s", per HN guidelines.
The user-created title is also incorrect, because it was not an Applebee's exec, it was the director of operations for a company that franchises Applebees who wrote the email.
I also find it interesting that the author of the email doesn't even get a smidgen of credit for his parting paragraph:
> "Your employees that live check to check are impacted more than the people reading this email. Be conscious of that. Many will need to work more hours or get a second job. Do things to make sure you are the employer of choice. Get schedules completed early so they can plan their other jobs around yours. Most importantly, have the culture and environment that will attract people"
I don't think the author is a bad person. He was just caught treating a certain business expense like one treats other business expenses, except in this case it is the wages of the employees and so looks wrong. Many people are of the mind that businesses aren't charities, have no need to pay their employees anything more than the employees accept, and through free association, if you accept an offer, that means you agree with the terms of the offer.
In my mind: If you don't like the wages Applebees will pay, then don't accept a position at Applebees. Maybe there are huge structural problems with society forcing your hand, or maybe you're just a skill-less deadbeat, or maybe Applebees is shooting itself in the foot by not offering high enough wages, but regardless, that is not Applebee's responsibility to pay you more than what they view your labor as worth.
As much as I am not a fan of Applebee's, the article title on HN should probably be fixed. The executive who sent the email works for Apple Central, a mid-sized franchisee with less than fifty locations. They do not work for Applebee's itself, nor do they represent a major franchisee. (Though in this case, it sounds like their views aren't even representative of their own franchise.)
Reading down to the later parts of the article, this sounds like a bad game of telephone from upper-management to middle-management.
Central Applebee management puts out vague message about inflation affecting costs and revenues. That hiring managers need to work harder to retain their employees by giving potential employees more flexible schedules (which may have a benefit of cutting costs: some employees may be willing to take a lower pay if they can have a different schedule).
Some middle-manager reads that statement as having to do with gas-prices making prospective employees more desperate for a job.
And the rest is history.
------------
Upper-management always issues vague strategic-level statements. Its the middle-managers who have to translate the vague statements into something that connects with the lower-level employees. This middle-manager colossally failed at the job.
This is the reason why communities like r/antiwork are so massive. The sad fact is that working class people who don't possess rarer skills are frequently mistreated this severely. In other words it's much easier for a sociopath to exploit unskilled labor than skilled labor. This in my opinion is part of the responsibility of the government which they've been largely failing at lately, it's supposed to balance businesses so they don't just throw humans into the furnace to keep the wheels turning.
[+] [-] endisneigh|4 years ago|reply
The static (both in the nominal and inflation adjusted sense) for minimum wage doesn't make sense imo. Minimum wage should be tied to some level of living (not necessarily a great living, but something)
This guy smh
[+] [-] nostrademons|4 years ago|reply
This is a very common situation in much of Latin America - both inflation being transmitted through CoL-indexed social goods, and the corruption that comes from trying to bypass that.
Any durable solution needs to address the questions of "How do we ensure that there are enough 1BR apartments within a 1 hour drive for everyone who wants one to get one?", "How do we incentivize the construction of these 1BR apartments?", "How do we maintain the desirability of these apartments once they're built?", and "How do we prevent one firm from owning all of the desirable 1BR apartments and setting whatever price they want?"
[+] [-] quantum_magpie|4 years ago|reply
My immediate reaction to this statement was.. it's insane? In my opinion it should read 'a single person able to afford a 1 bedroom apartment within an hour of public transport commute.'
Otherwise it sounds like you don't think anyone should be able to live anywhere reasonable without roommates?
[+] [-] bo1024|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] karaterobot|4 years ago|reply
According to some website, Miami, FL is the most expensive real estate market in the country, and Florida has a fairly low minimum wage currently. So, I'll work with that.
I assume that a 1 hour drive without traffic puts you at most around 55 miles (freeways are faster, city streets are slower, but this is an estimate).
That could put you in places like Belle Glade, Florida, where the 1 bedroom apartment listings are between $400 and $650 per month.
But, it could also put you in the much nicer West Palm Beach, Florida, where (according to Zillow Fair Market Rent for ZIP Code 33401) the average rental for a 1 bedroom apartment is $1274 per month.
Divided between two people, that's $637 per month. If we go with the rule that 1/3 of your wages should go to housing, that means you'd need to make $1911 per month to afford that apartment. If you worked 40 hours a week, and there are (on average) 4.3 weeks per month, that means you'd need to make $11.11 per hour to afford that apartment.
According to this other random website, the average hourly wage in Miami is $21 per hour. The minimum wage in Florida is currently $8.65 per hour.
In summary, if they took the least generous interpretation of your rule set (the Belle Glade case) they could safely lower the minimum wage. If they took the most generous (the West Palm Beach case) they would need to raise it by about $2.50 per hour.
The average wage across the U.S. is about $27, and 2/3rds of people make "at least" above $15/hour, so it may not affect most people at all, ceteris paribus, and making the assumption that the example region is a useful example.
This is all very hand-wavey and back of the envelop, of course.
[+] [-] Grollicus|4 years ago|reply
You can rent them for very cheap but just as you're about to move in they suddenly become unavailable for whatever reason? Probably the owner lost their keys or something and then lawyers can argue for years if the owner is actually required to hand over the keys. Or maybe the apartment has no way to enter and lawyers can now argue for years if an apartment needs to have a door?
At least that's what I can imagine would happen.
[+] [-] brightball|4 years ago|reply
It blows my mind that people continue to act like rising costs are the fault of their employers, who have no control of it at all.
No doubt, this exec in particular was a moron who deserves to be fired for even suggesting what he did but the overall sentiment just doesn’t jive for so many businesses that are getting squeezed harder and harder everyday.
[+] [-] elil17|4 years ago|reply
Interesting thought though
[+] [-] wccrawford|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] woah|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tenebrisalietum|4 years ago|reply
A lot of stuff would be automated or simply not exist. I don't see how high minimum wage can "work" to solve social issues if companies can choose between not hiring people and paying a high minimum wage.
[+] [-] wnevets|4 years ago|reply
Slightly smaller yachts for the executives.
[+] [-] deegles|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dlbucci|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eek2121|4 years ago|reply
That being said, I 100% agree with minimum wage being 3x the median cost of a 1-bedroom apartment for 1 person working 20 hours a week. Why 20 hours a week? Companies LOVE to only give folks part time hours. Of course, in my area that equates to $42/hour, however, note that even at 40 hours a week you are looking at $21/hour. Also, why 3x? When you apply for a mortgage OR sign a lease you typically need to earn 3x the housing cost in order to qualify. Mortgage companies and landlords alike typically want to see housing take less than 33% of your pretax income.
[+] [-] ars|4 years ago|reply
Minimum wage goes up -> everything costs more -> minimum wage needs to go up some more.
So labor expense grows and grows, while expense for "stuff" becomes a smaller and smaller part of that.
So how do you make that stuff? You can't hire anyone - too expensive. So either automation, or buy things from other countries. This means firing people.
Your proposal will lead to mass unemployment.
But it gets worse, since you've tied your numbers to the cost of housing, and cities have the most expensive housing, people won't be able to live in the city (no jobs available that pay enough).
So mass migration to places with lower housing, until the cost of housing in a city goes down. What's you've done is incentivized everyone to kind of spread out in a diffuse way to keep down the cost of housing.
But where are the jobs in these places? There are no service jobs, since services are too expensive for anyone to buy. You'd have to drive more than an hour to find a job.
People will respond by demanding rent control, but that also means less housing is available.
So not only did you cause mass unemployment, you also caused mass homelessness.
[+] [-] scythe|4 years ago|reply
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ilr.12007
https://take-profit.org/en/statistics/wages/chile/
Half the median wage is obviously the simplest answer, but some studies have suggested other numbers.
Now you're probably wondering: what does the median wage have to do with a "level of living"? It's simply the presently existing normal "level of living"! The median wage reflects various aspects of the local economy, and is responsive to things like housing prices.
[+] [-] gruez|4 years ago|reply
More labor being "outsourced" to cheap counties, for one. Rather than a restaurant making meals on site, they'll do most of the prep work 50 miles away where the CoL (and minimum wage) is cheap and truck it in.
[+] [-] throwaway0a5e|4 years ago|reply
It would implode or we would adjust our standards in every other area to make it happen. We are simply not rich enough to afford that for everyone the way things are currently structured.
[+] [-] imgabe|4 years ago|reply
How about people figure out how much money they need to afford the lifestyle they want and then get a job that pays that much?
[+] [-] nostromo|4 years ago|reply
Gas prices putting financial stress on Applebee's employees will also put financial stress on Applebee's customers, who may cut spending on things like going to Applebee's.
[+] [-] darth_avocado|4 years ago|reply
Outside of the moral implication, this doesn't even logically make sense.
People are already facing higher costs, if you pay them lower, they will not work for you, because you know, commuting to work at your place will eat into the budget.
[+] [-] eatonphil|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jasonhansel|4 years ago|reply
I think that many corporate executives have thoughts along these lines: they want employees to be so desperate that they'll accept low wages and bad working conditions. That is, of course, why they tend to campaign against e.g. minimum wages, food stamps, and reforms that would make it easier to unionize.
The only difference is that other execs have the good sense not to put such thoughts in writing.
[+] [-] cwkoss|4 years ago|reply
Wayne really should have had someone who isn't siloed in an upper class bubble proofread this, because 'maintain their current level of living' really sounds like "in order to not die", which is worse than what he meant - even though what he meant is still super gross.
[+] [-] rileyphone|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] a4isms|4 years ago|reply
When you run a business, you choose employees. If an employee does something noxious, it's on you to fix it. We don't say, "Well, that's the employee's fault." Your business, your employee hiring, firing, and training.
In conclusion:
When you run a business, you choose franchisees and set standards of behaviour. If a franchise does something noxious, it's on you to fix it. We don't say, "Well, that's the franchisee's fault." Your business, your franchisee selection, training, and standards enforcement.
There's no weaseling out. You run a business, the buck stops at your desk. If you don't like that, don't run a business. It's 100% on you to choose your vendors, landlords, employees, franchisees, contractors, &c.
All your responsibility. In exchange for which, you enjoy the benefits when you get it right.
p.s. Your conclusion is speculation. It's fine to speculate, but I reject the claim that your conclusion follows from your argument. Your speculation could be correct, maybe Chillis bribed the manager to send a bad email, or heard about the ruckus and put their PR machine into high gear to publicize it. All possible, but it doesn't follow in any way from the relationship between franchisor and employee of a franchisee.
[+] [-] toomuchtodo|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CobrastanJorji|4 years ago|reply
> Besides hiring employees in at a lower wage to decrease our labor ( when able ) make sure you have a pulse on the morale of your employees...Do things to make sure you are the employer of choice. Most importantly, have the culture and environment that will attract people.
This is kind of amazing. Surely they know that the culture and environment that will attract people will be the one that pays better, right? The only thing more amazing is that some brown-nosing sycophant managed to call it "words of wisdom" without vomitting.
[+] [-] shadowgovt|4 years ago|reply
No, it's the one that offers the most perks, like foosball tables and microkitchens. Ask any successful Silicon Valley startup. /s
[+] [-] rdiddly|4 years ago|reply
So if your Chotchkies franchise is in the middle of a wasteland where nobody can walk, bike, or take the bus to work, and then gas prices go up, doesn't that mean people need, y'know, more money? Won't they be looking for higher wages? Paying less just makes other employers look better and positions you to capture exactly zero of the supposed new growth in the applicant pool. Even not working at all (i.e. not driving to a job) gains a few preference points compared to working at your Flingers. Seems like when they were handing out brains, this guy thought they said trains and said "gimme a slow one."
[+] [-] sosodev|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] karmasimida|4 years ago|reply
If the inflation is up, why won't the employees demand more wage to cover the rising cost? It isn't like Applebee is a high-sought after career, isn't it?
[+] [-] colinmhayes|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _jal|4 years ago|reply
Same reason exploitive employers oppose increasing the minimum wage, single payer, etc. Keeping people wretched means a steady supply of new bodies if the ones you're employing start thinking they can negotiate.
[+] [-] bladegash|4 years ago|reply
These are not employees who get paid time off and can take days off to go looking for other jobs/interview.
Meaning any time they take to find another job might be eating into their finances even more, and really be more of the same (e.g., another restaurant).
[+] [-] fundad|4 years ago|reply
Alternatively, they're projecting more people will need second jobs and take the lower wages if offered.
[+] [-] danielmarkbruce|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] darknoon|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] toofy|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] baobabKoodaa|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bufordtwain|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mywittyname|4 years ago|reply
Including store management.
[+] [-] sammalloy|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vmception|4 years ago|reply
From reading the full email it seems like just one sentence lacked tact, only maybe inaccurate, and the rest was .... decent management? Like the part about making schedules for employees further in advance so they could accomodate their other jobs? That's pretty good.
The part about what employment trends will look like due to gas prices and competing employers having to shut down? Is that inaccurate?
Mentioning directly to offer lower wages, didn't have to be mentioned... that way.
Do I like that the managers walked out over that? Absolutely
[+] [-] oh_sigh|4 years ago|reply
The user-created title is also incorrect, because it was not an Applebee's exec, it was the director of operations for a company that franchises Applebees who wrote the email.
I also find it interesting that the author of the email doesn't even get a smidgen of credit for his parting paragraph:
> "Your employees that live check to check are impacted more than the people reading this email. Be conscious of that. Many will need to work more hours or get a second job. Do things to make sure you are the employer of choice. Get schedules completed early so they can plan their other jobs around yours. Most importantly, have the culture and environment that will attract people"
I don't think the author is a bad person. He was just caught treating a certain business expense like one treats other business expenses, except in this case it is the wages of the employees and so looks wrong. Many people are of the mind that businesses aren't charities, have no need to pay their employees anything more than the employees accept, and through free association, if you accept an offer, that means you agree with the terms of the offer.
In my mind: If you don't like the wages Applebees will pay, then don't accept a position at Applebees. Maybe there are huge structural problems with society forcing your hand, or maybe you're just a skill-less deadbeat, or maybe Applebees is shooting itself in the foot by not offering high enough wages, but regardless, that is not Applebee's responsibility to pay you more than what they view your labor as worth.
[+] [-] WestCoastJustin|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bremac|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dragontamer|4 years ago|reply
Central Applebee management puts out vague message about inflation affecting costs and revenues. That hiring managers need to work harder to retain their employees by giving potential employees more flexible schedules (which may have a benefit of cutting costs: some employees may be willing to take a lower pay if they can have a different schedule).
Some middle-manager reads that statement as having to do with gas-prices making prospective employees more desperate for a job.
And the rest is history.
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Upper-management always issues vague strategic-level statements. Its the middle-managers who have to translate the vague statements into something that connects with the lower-level employees. This middle-manager colossally failed at the job.
[+] [-] warent|4 years ago|reply