Minimum Wage: What's the Other Argument?

[Timsup2nothin]

I've got to agree with Zelig. Speaking as somebody who works in a heavily-automated checkouts department, jobs are only shifted elsewhere if the employers are willing to shift them. Our department is I'd say about 50% automated at this point, averaged across the day, but there hasn't been any noticeable shift in the staffing of other departments. At the budget end of the retail business, especially, automation is about keeping prices lower than competitors, rather than freeing up income to reinvest in the business.

Your company hasn't added additional security staff? The entire UCLP job description hardly existed a few years ago, now every store of any size in my area has at least one, and stores with a lot of automated checkout frequently have more than one.

It's a win for workers in some ways, because undercover loss prevention is a much less tedious job and generally pays better than a beginning cashier to start, but cashiers tend to last longer and wind up making more, seems like.

 

[El_Machinae]

Well, it's only partially a win. I've never contended that there will be high-paying jobs created. But if there are fewer high-paying jobs created than are lost, then it's harder for it to be a net win. We can hope for the multiplier effect from those high-paying jobs, but that's not guaranteed.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Well, it's only partially a win. I've never contended that there will be high-paying jobs created. But if there are fewer high-paying jobs created than are lost, then it's harder for it to be a net win. We can hope for the multiplier effect from those high-paying jobs, but that's not guaranteed.

They aren't "high paying" by any stretch. They are just a little better than the minimum wage entry level cashier jobs. I just don't really see the total number of jobs being decreased significantly in the long run. The few places going heavily towards self checkout now might be seeing some limited reduction in overall staffing, and I mean that "might", but when we start seeing a really significant and widespread reduction in total staffing in retail outlets I would expect shrinkage to skyrocket and drive total staffing back up to pretty close to current levels.

The win I was thinking of was that UCLP is a much less tedious job and less susceptible to the really unpleasant aspects of dealing with the public. So one less cashier and one more UCLP is a good deal for someone.

 

[El_Machinae]

Oh, def. I was thinking if you were trading four cashiers for 3 UCLPs

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Oh, def. I was thinking if you were trading four cashiers for 3 UCLPs

I'm thinking in the long run you swap four cashiers for one actual security guard, who is probably subcontracted through a security company, a couple UCLPs, who might also eventually be subcontracted (note to self, the contract UCLP business may be worth looking into), and an extra courtesy clerk who is needed to keep things orderly when customers get even sloppier about putting stuff back when they change their minds.

The courtesy clerk pays a little less, the other guys pay about the same or a touch more, and the cost of the self checkout equipment is offset by the fact that those four jobs will in fact reduce shrinkage better than the four cashiers they replaced would have. Everyone is happy. Except the professional shoplifters. And let's face it, even though some of them are friends no one cares if they aren't happy, including me.

 

[Commodore]

1) Increase it
2) I don't want to increase it because I'm a rich ass[aperture] who hates poor people.

That's seriously the only reasonable argument against it.

Not really. There is also the value of labor argument. Why does a cashier deserve $15/hour when their labor isn't worth nearly that amount and when they could just as easily be replaced by any marginally functional human being or by a machine?

 

[Borachio]

What makes you think a cashier doesn't "deserve" $15 an hour? Doesn't the average cashier have the same needs as anyone else?

Come to think of it, what's the rationale behind any normative incomes policy?

What makes one person's labour, or merely their existence in some cases, worth more than another?

 

[Mise]

I'm a pretty capitalist guy, which is why I steer well clear of saying things like "deserve" when it comes to wages. Wages are simply the point at which supply meets demand for a particular type of labour. Nothing to do with whether a person is deserving of something.

 

[Borachio]

Which would seem to neatly commodify human beings.

Aren't we against that sort of thing, then?

 

[Mise]

I don't see how that commodifies human beings but of course you can see it whatever way you want. It's a fact, though, that wages have nothing to do with desert.

 

[Borachio]

You're seeing human beings as commodities in the supply and demand market for labour aren't you?

How is that not commodifying them?

Why shouldn't human beings have their needs fulfilled by right as human beings rather than units of labour?

I've got no particular axe to grind here, btw. I'm just trying to understand your point of view.

 

[Mise]

Human labour is the thing that wages are the price of. Not human beings. But if you view human beings as nothing more than the sum of their labour value, then I can see how you would draw that conclusion.

 

[Borachio]

I don't see human beings as nothing more than the sum of their productive value, of course.

But you seem to see them as that in so far as they participate in the market place for labour, but, I'd guess, not elsewhere.

But what happens to magically transform a person from an entity with needs into a market place commodity? And when does it happen? Does it happen the moment we walk into our place of work, for instance?

I'd prefer to see human beings as integral beings who can pass seamlessly from place to place without such metaphysical transformations happening, I think.

Maybe I hope for too much.

 

[Mise]

When they want to exchange a thing that they've done for a thing that someone else has done.

Again, though, as I said, you seem to think that I'm talking about human beings, when in fact I'm talking about human labour. I've said that a few times already, haven't I? EDIT: Yes, I have. In my first post, I specifically used the word "labour", and was explicit that a wage does not apply to the person themself. In my third post, I again said that human labour is the thing that wages are valuing, not human beings. And now again, for the third time, in this post...

 

[Commodore]

What makes you think a cashier doesn't "deserve" $15 an hour? Doesn't the average cashier have the same needs as anyone else?

Come to think of it, what's the rationale behind any normative incomes policy?

What makes one person's labour, or merely their existence in some cases, worth more than another?

At its most basic form, the value of one's labor is determined by how easily they can be replaced. Since just about any human being with a pulse can be a cashier, that means they are easily replaceable and thus, not worth as much to the company. An aerospace engineer on the other hand, requires much more than just a pulse to do their job so they are not as easily replaced as a cashier at Walmart, which makes their labor much more valuable to the company.

Also, while the cashier may have the same needs as anyone else in the economy, that does not mean they should be paid according to the cost of those needs. The value of one's labor should be the only factor when determining one's wage.

And what makes one's labor worth more than another person's? Well I discussed one reason above with the 'replaceability' factor. Another reason would be the level of education one must achieve before being able to do the job. A person must invest a lot more time and effort into being a doctor or a welder than they do to be able to ring someone up at the grocery store. The amount of responsibility one must take on is another factor. Do you see where I'm going with this or should I continue? There are many factors that determine how valuable one's labor is, and contrary to popular belief, not everyone is an essential member of society.

 

[Traitorfish]

Human labour is the thing that wages are the price of. Not human beings.

That's an abstract distinction, though, there's no practical way to separate people from their labour. When you buy labour you're always buying, at the same time, a person.

 

[Mise]

No, it's the other way around. When someone buys "labour", they're buying whatever it is that they're doing or producing, or have done or produced in the past, or whatever. So if I pay someone to stack shelves in my supermarket, I'm paying for the shelves to be stacked. I'm not buying a person. It really is that simple.

 

[Traitorfish]

Labour is human beings, rendered as commodities. There's no practical way of separating a person's labour from the person themselves, we just abstract the rest of the person away and tell ourselves that's sufficient.

 

[Farm Boy]

Well, there is a way to separate the labor from the person, but I think the distinction lies in one being a timesegment of the person's life vs a segment of that person's physical body.

 

[Mise]

Labour is human beings, rendered as commodities. There's no practical way of separating a person's labour from the person themselves, we just abstract the rest of the person away and tell ourselves that's sufficient.

You can say that all you want, but if I pay someone to stack shelves, I'm paying for the shelves to be stacked. I'm not buying a human being. I don't know why you're overcomplicating this. (Well, obviously I do!)