Upward Pressure On Wages

Zardnaar

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As the title says.


With borders closed for the first time since the 19790s business is strugglinto find labour.

Wages are going up even in unskilled and semi skilled jobs. The minimum wage is around $15 usd, average wage close to $20 usd with some jobs having to offer $6 (approx $4.50 usd) more per hour. $30+ an hour to do things like warehouse work.

Highly skilled workers in it are creaming it from the sounds of it. I've heard of 30% payrises.

House market is still borked bit not bad of you own one already. Who would have thunk it? There's a backlog of visas to process as well personally I would just rubber-stamp all the IT, health professionals, tradespeople type ones.
 
Just because the system is maybe going in a good direction for once, does not make it a good system. Those paying wages did not suddenly become good and nice.

The only reason to think immigration is the problem, instead of exploitation is the problem, is pretty much RACISM.

Thank you for your time.
 
I got told to clean my room once. The scars have never healed.

;)

Mostly playing. Mostly.

But yes, it is utterly predictable that anything that raises the baseline wage instead of middle class wage is, dun dun dun, filthy and racist. It's almost like everyone has been indoctrinated to hell and back or something.
 
Highly skilled workers getting 30% pay rises are not middle class? I thought the whole "desk job = middle class" had gone out the window with call centres?
 
We're in boofoo. I'm sure they'll wreck us eventually.

I do have to admit, I kind of hope working from home becomes permanent for skilled workers, so they can get outsourced en masse too. Oh well, so long as they have some teenager to deliver them their fast food and some 30 year old to drop all their shopping at their door.

I like Mark Roper on Youtube, but I'm sort of always rooting for the package thieves. F that glitterbomb ahole. A hero for 21st century Americans, for sure.
 
But yes, it is utterly predictable that anything that raises the baseline wage instead of middle class wage is, dun dun dun, filthy and racist. It's almost like everyone has been indoctrinated to hell and back or something.

Tell me your negative opinion of labor unions and I'll show you indoctrination
 
Which ones? Would I have to quit mine? The one I signed on to start?
 
Highly skilled workers getting 30% pay rises are not middle class? I thought the whole "desk job = middle class" had gone out the window with call centres?

IT workers. Businesses are struggling to retain and recruit staff.

Hospitality is struggling due to shortage of skilled chiefs.

Translation they can't import a foreign chief and pay them minimum wage give or take a dollar per hour.
 
Nah man. Immigration is Good and Moral and saying anything else is RACIST. Didn't you get the memo ?

Don't forget that other lie which goes with it: wages are not lowered by immigration!


IT workers. Businesses are struggling to retain and recruit staff.

Hospitality is struggling due to shortage of skilled chiefs.

Translation they can't import a foreign chief and pay them minimum wage give or take a dollar per hour.

You know, I think that one reason why our ruling elites chose not to even attempt to contain the virus was fear that if they closed borders for any reasonable amount of time people would notice wages rising and figure out how they were being screwed.

It's interesting that there in NZ even chefs are getting paid more. Because one of the arguments about the fundamental goodness of open borders is that it brings in business and thus creates employment. Open borders and globalization = more tourism = more jobs for chefs = better wages. But left out of this argument is the reserve army of the unemployed on a global scale now, always supplying the possibility of undermining wages.
Thus the hospitality jobs for the tourists brought in by open borders went for imported low-wage immigrants. And in the process the local unions were undermined by an unlimited mass of available scabs.

One would have to be blind tot to see this going on. You know what is pathetic? It's that this is the reenactment, on a global scale, of a fight that already happened on national scale in numerous countries.

But on the national scale workers could fight for political power and pass laws to shift bargaining power in their favour. They could unionize and organize politically on a national scale.
You cannot do that on a global scare. The same borders that we are "free" to cross to work as cheaper labour elsewhere stand in the away of transnational political organization, of transnational unionization. The same international institutions that forced the "free movement of labour" took care to undermine the organization of labourers on the same scale because that would be "uncompetitive". For a prefect example of that, you could look at the rulings of the European Court of Justice in the abomination known as the EU. I went about several in another thread...
 
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Don't forget that other lie which goes with it: wages are not lowered by immigration!




You know, I think that one reason why our ruling elites chose not to even attempt to contain the virus was fear that if they closed borders for any reasonable amount of time people would notice wages rising and figure out how they were being screwed.

It's interesting that there in NZ even chefs are getting paid more. Because one of the arguments about the fundamental goodness of open borders is that it brings in business and thus creates employment. Open borders and globalization = more tourism = more jobs for chefs = better wages. But left out of this argument is the reserve army of the unemployed on a global scale now, always supplying the possibility of undermining wages.
Thus the hospitality jobs for the tourists brought in by open borders went for imported low-wage immigrants. And in the process the local unions were undermined by an unlimited mass of available scabs.

One would have to be blind tot to see this going on.

Yep a lot of countries are essentially competing with poor countries for labour but rich countries for housing.
 
Yep a lot of countries are essentially competing with poor countries for labour but rich countries for housing.

The institutional field was stacked against labourers and the so-called "free movement of people" plays a central role in it. But it is a "freedom" you see, therefore must be good... :rolleyes:
Even the poor sobs who are victims of it, led to migrate because the "job market" in their countries sucks, think it's a good thing. When the "job market" in their countries is institutionally set up to repress the bargaining power of labourers in the same way it is in the countries they are migrating to. They happily play scabs on each other and are cut off by barriers cultural and legal from organizing for a common cause. It's the perfect set up for the one percenters. No wonder they keep financing a culture war to prop up a phony "left".
 
The only reason to think immigration is the problem, instead of exploitation is the problem, is pretty much RACISM.
Of course, understanding that immigration leads to exploitation by artificially inflating demand is out, because that would be RACISM ! Better to just fall back on RACISM to ignore anything that doesn't conform. Thinking hurts head.
You know, I think that one reason why our ruling elites chose not to even attempt to contain the virus was fear that if they closed borders for any reasonable amount of time people would notice wages rising and figure out how they were being screwed.
I think there is some sort of relation, but not such a "conspirationist" reasoning.
Rather, the "free trade" dogma has become the only way of considering how the world can work (TINA), on which the whole neo-liberalism movement is based, and closing borders just goes against this ideology. I don't think "leaders" have this idea of actively working to screw the people, but they just have always been in a milieu where anything going against free trade is seen as old-fashioned, reactionary and counter-productive.
 
Of course, understanding that immigration leads to exploitation by artificially inflating demand is out, because that would be RACISM ! Better to just fall back on RACISM to ignore anything that doesn't conform. Thinking hurts head.

Sure sure, but how is the exploitation of the system addressed by messing with immigrants? Are you able to explain that or are you running up against cognitive limitations of your own?

Additionally, the problem with favouring an in-group over an out-group in order to achieve better outcomes for the in-group, is that its a methodology that is limitless. You can keep making it working by adjusting the borders of the in-group to be larger or smaller as necessary. You don't have a clue and possibly even any inclination on how to address this, so you're falling back on calling people stupid who are able to identify that you're using multiple, unequal standards for peoples of different ethnicities and calling it racism.

A real world example of the joke character who says "I'm not racist, but..."
 
Sure sure, but how is the exploitation of the system addressed by messing with immigrants? Are you able to explain that or are you running up against cognitive limitations of your own?
Dunno, maybe read the sentence you answer to, it's spelled out in it.
Additionally, the problem with favouring an in-group over an out-group in order to achieve better outcomes for the in-group, is that its a methodology that is limitless. You can keep making it working by adjusting the borders of the in-group to be larger or smaller as necessary. You don't have a clue and possibly even any inclination on how to address this, so you're falling back on calling people stupid who are able to identify that you're using multiple, unequal standards for peoples of different ethnicities and calling it racism.

A real world example of the joke character who says "I'm not racist, but..."
Yes yes, everything that doesn't conform to your preconceptions is racist, I know. Buzzwords are useful to emotionally blackmail people into conformity, nothing new here.
 
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