[observationist]

Them being paid better wouldn't resolve the issue. Updating American culture such that individuals respected themselves, had a sense of shame, operated from a baseline of respect and gratitude for the opportunity to be working in the first place, these things fix the issue. Concurrently, the CEO respecting the workers, the institution, themselves, would result in wages commensurate to their value.

Expecting excellence, putting care and craft into your work, is something that is taught, it doesn't just magically happen.

Paying these same workers more would not noticeably improve outcomes, people would still lose luggage, steal shit, and then have even more money to spend.

The workers and the CEO are products of their culture, and without some sort of specific intervention against the outcomes wrought by those cultural influences, things would continue as before. Serious institutions indoctrinate their members and build a culture oriented around expectations of excellence and care and craft.

Such institutions can't compete in the marketplace we've set up, because it's cheaper to offer shitty service and low product quality, to keep employees expendable, low skill, low paid cogs, and to reward CEOs and management willing to screw over their fellow employees at every opportunity to ensure the number goes up.

That doesn't change unless the culture changes, which would change the regulatory environment, which would allow for things like excellent service and quality to be valued accordingly. America doesn't value excellence, it values "number go up."

[gmd63]

I'm interested to hear why you think that better pay wouldn't help the issue. Being comfortable with your living situation and feeling like you're respected in excess of your boss's federal or state legal obligations plays a big role in having the wherewithal to put serious effort into whatever you're doing day to day, and it helps to mitigate the divide between the richest and the poorest among us / bad jokes or insults that originate out of fear of being poor.

> Such institutions can't compete in the marketplace we've set up, because it's cheaper to offer shitty service and low product quality, to keep employees expendable, low skill, low paid cogs, and to reward CEOs and management willing to screw over their fellow employees at every opportunity to ensure the number goes up.

The federal minimum wage has been the same since 2009, but In-N-Out is an example of a company that chooses to avoid blaming the worker or the market or the regulatory environment for all of their business difficulties. They choose to pay well over the California minimum wage, and I don't find it coincidental that I've had better experiences with employees there vs some other fast food locations. Costco has made similar choices with how they treat their employees and they're doing great. No regulation needed, just better leadership.

The CEOs that blame "inevitable" market forces on why they have to treat employees poorly while refusing to look inward will ironically lose out in the market. And at a larger scale, probably the countries too.

[mnw21cam]

It's certainly possible to find people who care about doing a job properly in a western society. Paying a bit more has been suggested on another post as a method of trying to achieve that, but I'd argue that that is necessary but not sufficient. You need to not only pay people a bit more, but also screen them very carefully for the attitude of doing the job properly.

It is a cultural problem. Just paying a bit more won't fix it. By paying a bit more, you might be able to get a larger share of the limited portion of people in the society that care, but you're not changing the people fundamentally, just being more selective.