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The 'Real' Minimum Wage Exposed: Urban Outfitters Asks Staff To Work Weekends For Free
It appears there is a minimum wage threshold below President Obama's mandated thresholds that are "fair" and "livable." As NYPost reports, Urban Outfitters has asked workers at the company’s home office to "volunteer" for extra weekend shifts at a new fulfillment center in the town of Gap, Pennsylvania. In other words, the true minimum wage is $0 per hour.
In an email, the company asked for weekend workers to “pick, pack and prepare packages for shipment.” The three brands beneath the Urban umbrella are Anthropologie, Urban Outfitters and Free People.
Volunteers would work six-hour shifts in exchange for lunch and transportation, if required. The email advises participants to wear “sneakers and comfortable clothing” to prepare for this “team building activity.”
The picking, packing and preparing that’s required are jobs that normally pay wages. But this sort of request is a common occurrence in the industry when there’s a new fulfillment center, according to a spokesperson. The company sought help for next weekend, the one after, and Oct. 31.
Hourly-wage workers were excluded from the email, though the company said some of them responded.
“Many hourly employees also offered to pitch in — an offer which we appreciated, but declined in order to ensure full compliance with all applicable labor laws and regulations,” the company said in a statement.
Just as Alhambra Investment Partners' Jeffrey Snider previously noted, The True Minimum Wage is $0 per hour.
The minimum wage is not what is commonly referred, as is being proven again as parts of the US experiment directly with this boundary. In New York, fast food workers have been given a $15 per hour minimum wage which is being celebrated by the same fast food workers who will bear the brunt of the experimentation. Some of them will be happy with the results, but there will be clear losers – the full wrath of redistribution is usually unseen which is why it persists.
Twitter had been having fun on the other side of the country with a similar minimum wage diktat, as the University of California system mandates also a $15 per hour rate. Professors, who overwhelmingly lean in a favorable direction, are being shown this mathematical reductionism up close. One physics professor who in one tweet reiterated his support took the next to realize the logic of it.
Napolitano raises University of California minimum hourly wage to $15. It's a good thing but I cannot pay $15 to my undergrad researchers!
— Asantha Cooray (@acooray) July 22, 2015
I now pay six undergrads/year starting at $9-$10/hour with raises maxing out around $13 as seniors. At $15 it'll be 3-4 students.
— Asantha Cooray (@acooray) July 22, 2015
He currently pays $9-$10 per hour for six undergrad assistants now, but in order to conform to the new “minimum wage” command he will only be able to afford four, maybe three. In other words, the true minimum wage is $0 per hour.
To think it is any different for a fastfood restaurant is naïve. Business owners paying their workers more by arbitrary government setting will not bring in offsetting revenue (a very close microcosm of all that belies “aggregate demand”). The cost of the law will be felt by fewer hours being worked, leading to rationing of the business operations (checkouts and those cooking in the back, meaning longer wait times and worse service) and, where possible, rising prices. None of this is surprising or especially insightful.
And yet in 2015, six years into recovery, there is still a huge and heavy undercurrent of discontent that breaks out into this kind of nonsensical “solution.” There has been a resurgent trend toward Marxism already (dating back to Occupy Wall Street that survived in sentiment beyond that pitiful outbreak) that flares up here and there with the next great Marx replica (Picketty being the last, global vestige). In a real recovery, none of this counterproductive meandering would stand a chance. If the labor market were growing as it should, in sharp contrast to how it has been presented over the past year, minimum wage laws would be the furthest from the mainstream.
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The inflation is everywhere, it's just hidden.
How about asking our elected officials to work for free, at least one day a week?
They are selfless public servants, aren’t they? ;-)
Looney
Oh, sure, leave them to make decisions based on their ever-changing ideals instead of their monied masters. It sounds nice, until you realize that most elected people are empty shell sociopaths.
Just another manifestation of Obozo's trickle-up poverty.
Poor Asantha. He can only have 4 slave laborers making him bank in a cushy job where he gets to see hot young coeds instead of 6. His studends' pay doesn't amount to income but tuition reduction to the lord's fief, the university. He can go fuck himself along with all the other university plantation masters.
I'm not bitter. :D
The whole issue with minumum wage is that it screws with the open market for labour just as central banks do to the financial markets and the politicians will continue until it kills them (throughout history sometimes litterally). They still can never see how this will also accelerate the inevitable collapse as well.
The answer to the minimum wage conundrum is this:
Mandated maximum wage/income level. I think $250k/annum, /wage-earner is more than generous. (By "income" I mean income from all sources.)
Think: "Economy" of Cuba.
Their maximum limit would seem to be a lot lower, except for those for whom it isn't in effect at all--a situation enhanced by organized crime influences. I mean, there isn't all that much wealth to go around, so the remaining greedy are more desperate for it, and for getting it safely stashed 'elsewhere'.
At best, their income limits, upper and lower, are arbitrary, as their focus is elsewhere, on a general sense of cooperative survival--a situation created by a poverty brought on by organized directed from their close, police-state neighbor.
It ain't such a bad place, just a lot poorer than Wall Street et al.
"team building exercise" Fuck that! I'd rather stay home, fap a little and eat some frozen burritos.
Don't forget the Cheetoes and the bean bag.
Yeah what groveling muppets , trying to get into masters good books , dont they have lives of their own to live at weekends ? (corporate) Slaves will be slaves I guess
"He currently pays $9-$10 per hour for six undergrad assistants now, but in order to conform to the new “minimum wage” command he will only be able to afford four, maybe three. In other words, the true minimum wage is $0 per hour."
Thank you leftist gubmint regulation!!! So now the gubmint grows ever larger in order to more heavily patrol businesses wanting to not go under from having to comply with ever increasing, ever more burdensome, gubmint regulations.
Praise be to Dear Leader...
I'd prefer to double their pay on condition that they stay out of the office 24/7.
OT---tarabel------- You mentioned the "age of reason" in one of your comments a while back---I wanted to recommend a book by Saul, Voltarie's Bastards. I think you'll enjoy it. Thank you.
Every time I hear that some politician 'dedicated his/her life to "Public Service" ' it makes me want to vomit.
'Self Service' would be a helluva lot more honest...
Good thing we have a depression to hide the rampant inflation...beef up 300%, college up 200%
Notice how gubmint "services" and organizations (schools, et al) are exempt from keeping prices under control. Can't wait for the day when 50% (or more) of the potentially college bound population realize that owing $100,000 after four years of indoctrination, and a piece of paper that says that one is proficient in Womyn's Studies, is worth less than nothing. College enrollment plummets. A real economy starts to form once again.
Beef up 300% from what?
Locally, "Certified Angus Beef Loin T-Bone or Porterhouse Steak” is $8.99 a lb. Top Sirloin, $5.99 a lb.
Page 4 -
https://meijer.shoplocal.com/Meijer/BrowseByPage/Index/?StoreID=2465902&...
And let's be honest: How was the cow raised and what is the meat quality? One way that they have hidden the rising cost of real things has been to adulterate and contaminate.
I think a better indicator of prices is to compare yearly prices of locally raised and slaughtered meat.
And 6 years ago I could get top sirloin for $1.99/lb
I balance my increased cost of beef with the decreased cost of prostitutes.
Sometimes I even take advantage of 2 for 1.
You really think thats quality beef your eating?
So, Urban Outfitters has gone over to the Dark Side and become a Marxist operation. Next, they will be telling employees that, if you don't come to work Saturday, don't bother coming in Sunday. In the movie "The Treasure of Sierra Madre," someone tells Curtin and Fred C. Dobbs that "only half-baked Americans and foreigners" would work for their former employer, McCormick, who has a reputation for stiffing employees. In America, there are labor rip-off artists like McCormick everywhere, helped by the total unwillingness of most government agency employees to do more than play freecell, lie to the public and, for supervisors, hide in their offices.
Nearly all Japanese employees (but only a few foreigners) regularly perform 'service overwork' for their company, which is working for free. Doesn't appear to me to be 'Marxist' or have any other political tag you want to put on it. The Japanese excel at 'team building' activities and no employee would think about leaving the office before the boss does. It is ingrained in the culture here.
One big difference between US and Japan work cultures is that workers in Japan take great pride in doing the very best at their job, no matter what occupation they have. Doing anything less would be a great loss of face. Japanese do play games on their lunch 'hour' which may only be 30 minutes.
Japan, Inc.. Yeah, how has that worked out?
Hidden?
Holy shit.
I just hit the hard for re-supply after spending approx 4 months dicking around on my sailboat.
Talk about sticker shock.. $6+ for a pound of cheese... ground entrails & pink slime: $5+/lb.
The only thing that's cheaper than when I left is diesel.. a rather piss-poor consolation considering that, thanks to the wonderful natural phenomenon known as El Nino, I only had to refill two 5 gal jerry cans in order to replenish my fuel stores.
Maybe this is why students are shooting people....
This is what happens when liberals are in charge. Enjoy your wefare state and your further dependence on the central planners. There's no more to say here.
Who cares? The market is up, we've all move passed that crazy August panic and all's well again. Who cares if a few burger flippers lose their jobs? Plenty of EBT money for everybody, and they probably don't want to work anyway (that's what the word on the street is, as I recall from reading here...)
Once again, I fail to find any fault in your logic.
This is probably good on another level
$15 per hour might actually push them into a taxable income tax bracket.
Maybe... I hope
"$15 per hour might actually push them into a taxable income tax bracket. Maybe... I hope"
.............
Please pardon my personal ignorance / autism...but:
The idea of gleefully anticipating an act of armed robbery just does not compute.
Hope & Change... be wary of what you wish for.
Isn't not paying for labor what libertarians want though? I don't get the complaining in this post.
BTW, this is really bullish for markets.
Libertarians want a labor market. That is that labor is bought and sold as a commodity. We are light years away from any kind of real labor market in the same way all markets are light years away from being free markets.
Labor isn't exactly a commodity though as all laborers are not indistinguishable from eachother.
'We're 'asking' if you'd like to work for free'....I heard that once from a foreman, it means be my slave or else you're fuckin fired.
the first time that would happen I would know instinctively that the company/corp that I was working for was my sworn enemy and would take immediate steps to destroy as much of the infrastucture and management cohesivness as I could---take no prisioners---just saying----
Good thing I'm no longer in the work force I guess--
30 yrs blue collar union organizing, working, promoting and voting on the street level--- it's hard to change your point of view----
Do a pipeline report on the employer’s database and sell it to the competition.
'We're 'asking' if you'd like to work for free'....
I see that each time I get my paycheck. The gubmint takes 40% of my paycheck, insisting that I work for free two out of every five days. And some want the gubmint to become larger, forcing me to work even more free hours to pay for their "help."
"While Gawker interpreted the communication as evidence of the chain’s cruelty in expecting employees to work for free, the reality is far less exploitative."
"There are a few key aspects to consider. First, the email asked for volunteers. Nobody was cornered, and nobody was coerced or otherwise forced to perform free labor. "
"It’s also a completely legal request. "
"offering employees lunch and transportation -- and they were more than fair in doing so."
"But the biggest miss of all is that there’s a real team-building value in events like these. Granted, filling orders isn’t as exciting as doing a Tough Mudder, but the truth is that any exercise that brings employees together"
Welcome to Neocorporatism. This is the new reality.
http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/251538
I chose you comment because when I read this, it reminded me of my very first, "entry level" job in Electronics in the Silicon Valley, and this was pre-Apple! I was deemed a "non-OT" employee. I worked an Admin job supporting the Washington DC "desk" where I was under the orders of the Regional Sales manager. Typical to my work day was at LEAST 2 hours of unpaid overtime. IF I HAD BELLY ACHED, they had someone right behind me, willing to do the same job for likely LESS money than my pay at the time. YES, indeed, I worked 70 hour work weeks for 40 hours of pay. GUESS WHAT? I got promoted. Finally, in the end, I RAN THE REGIONAL OFFICE and was making over $200K with bonuses. YES, hard work pays. I retired at 38 years old, with Millions in the Bank because I knew how to fucking hustle. To read this belly-aching bullshit here is quite nauseating. Millenials will likely call me a Codger or Baby Boomer or whatever the fucking else they can come up with, but this is NOTHING new for exempt employment.
I work in a technical field as well. I worked at a consultancy where I worked on projects for multiple clients per day and billed them seperately- 1 hour of work = 1 hour of pay with no limit (OT had to be approved by a manager but always was because the work was very fast paced with hard deadlines). I now work salary with no overtime pay, Ill work late, work through lunch, work weekends and nights if necessary.
This is an insult to my time as a professional. Not only that but for the company this is inefficient. My company has a refined process for product development but extra hours are not counted. This leads to a disconnect between execution teams and management teams. That leads to poor planning and raises the risk for error and sometimes even missed deadlines, poor-quality or missed margins. There is no sense in this, it is not beneficial for the brand, the consumer, the worker or the health of the american economy.
I too worked as consultant and now work for a consulting company as a full time employee.
Sometimes I put in 60 hour weeks and every one of my hours is billed to the client.
I get nothing for it. The owners get to keep everything.
The owners by the ways are fucking left wing democrats.
LOL.
Even if some semblance of your old job exists, it's either paying a fraction of what you got, or it's in India.
The first job I had where I could do max OT, I did. I ended up doubling my experience in half the normal amount of time. 80 hour weeks for a few years. As I started to apply for the next job most companies said a typical work week is 50 hours if you are on salary. Hard to complain when I knew what I was getting myself into.
So far the craziest thing I have heard was, now that I own my own business, we got a call for a school project. I said sure we can donate our time to design the plans. But the real kicker ended up being that they also wanted us to pay them at least $50k while working for free. Um what?
Either way if these employees don't like it, leave and find a new job. Better yet start your own company to compete with Urban Outfitters. Its not like this particular clothing store has been around for hundreds of years.
architect or engineer?
You either got lucky or know how to give really good head.
For every one of you there are lots of other people that work hard, probably even harder and have better skill that do not get moved into management.
I have been in the tech business for a very long time and have seen very few managers that are worth anything.
Most are stupid fucks that make the Dilbert boss appear desirable.
You either got lucky or know how to give really good head.
For every one of you there are lots of other people that work hard, probably even harder and have better skill that do not get moved into management.
I have been in the tech business for a very long time and have seen very few managers that are worth anything.
Most are stupid fucks that make the Dilbert boss appear desirable.
That Asantha Cooray tweet is priceless.
Nothing like watching clueless liberals finally, when it's WAY too fucking late, realize that some animals truly are more equal than others.
Thanks for being a useful idiot for "the cause", Asantha. You're a fucking moron.
I love the fact that people who complain about these wages continue to not understand that you need to build real skills to produce value and make themselves valuable to employers.
Real skills - such as learning how to flim-flam people as an investment banker. Or to program HFT machines to BTFD, no matter what. Or to make a bomb, or a bullet, or some other weapon of mass destruction. Or to become an economist, or lobbyist.
Real skills.
Very well played, Mark.
Thank you for pointing this out. It is insane to me. In this society we gain respect by working- yet the work you do doesnt matter. Actually it does.
Be a hardworking drug dealer and make alot of money but you are a criminal.
Be a hardworking pharmaceutical rep and make alot of money and you are law-abiding, contributor to society.
Have you seen the rise in deaths in america due to overdoses/bad reactions to pharmaceutical drugs? Im not saying a drug dealer is a reputable profession but then why is a pharmaceutical rep different?
You could apply this double standard across many professions.
Maybe the difference between your two choices, is that the drug dealer really couldn't give a shit aboout the customer base - no QC, no safety oversight, no uniformity of product, and certainly no consumer information / ADR surveillance / defect or out-of standard recall capability.
All the above are mandatory for ALL licenced pharmaceuticals, and this adds to the cost, 'cause "Everyone" expects "Safe" Drugs (except that there are no such things as "Safe" drugs - even lowly Aspirin can easily kill in the wrong dosages).
As to the on-going meme here and elsewhere that "All Killers are on Antipsychotics" - I cannot comment on the US overuse of ALL agents, but I can certainly note that more than a few of my "customers" have been on MAJOR antipsychotics (Clozapine, Risperidone, Mirtazepine, Olanzapine (high dose), Aripiprazole, etc) and they have all been employed, and therefore net contributors to Society.
It may be of interest (single sample though) that one of my current (long-term management, osteomyelitis) customers has manifest Cluster B / Borderline Personality Disorder traits (VERY well controlled though via a varied pharmacotherapy, and regular support from Community Mental Health), yet seems to be able to cope with manging the local Red Rooster fast food outlet . . . . .
I always looked at it like this. When you possess real skills, then why would I need you to give me a job and why would I need to drag around your dead ass weight.
"many hourly employees offered to pitch in"
It amazes me how corporate America is always able to brainwash their wage slaves into doing moar for less. "Team buiding exercise", what a load of shit.
My boss does that to me all the time. I'm self-employed so I usually refuse.
Your boss sounds like a real asshole. ;->
Fucking slave driver. Even when he finally lets me leave for the day I get home to deal with my OTHER boss who's mean as a snake, too.
Wonder not why I cherish my ZH "alone time".
When I am on ZH and my wife asks what I am doing I apologize to her for having a few moments of enjoyment.
tell your boss to go fuck himself
if you don't volunteer you'll get escorted out the door. "subtle" and effective methodology
It amazes me when interns are surprised that after a year they haven't received a paid offer yet. Why would they give you a paid offer? Because you have worked hard, made money for your company and proven your worth?
look...the Dollar is a worthless peice of fucking green paper...
it is an instrument of debt mother fuckers have been brainwashed to believe is real money....
the point?????
SINCE 1971 U HAVE BEEN WORKING FOR FREE!!!!!
look...the Dollar is a worthless peice of fucking green paper...
I just traded one of mine for a cup of coffee. So coffee is worthless?
no the person that sold you coffee is also confused about what constitutes money
no the person that sold you coffee is also confused about what constitutes money
And I'm sure you were "confused" yourself in many many simple barter exchanges (with money being one of the exchanged items) this very day ... were you not?The fact of the matter is, money works for allowing simple barter exchange over time and space.
The fact of the matter is, our MOE management process is flawed. It allows governments and banks to skim a piece of every transaction.
The governments skim through counterfeiting. The banks skim through leverage privilege, arbitrary interest collections, and throttling the creation of money by traders (resulting in the enormously profitable farming operation they call "the business cycle").
But the statement that money is worthless paper is false on its face. As I've illustrated and as you yourself have experienced several times this very day, it clearly has value in simple barter exchange.
This is complete horseshit. Salary employees are not working for free. Anyone who has ever worked a salary position in a project based environment knows that more than just 40 hours is required to keep projects on schedule. This includes weekends without a free lunch.
Yeah, but stories like this make for great 'meme fodder' -- expect this to be quoted under The Most Interesting Man In The World and passed around on FB.
Thank you Charlie, I was about to point out the same thing myself but you got there first.
FUCK YOU, URBAN OUTSHITTERS!!!!! BASTARDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
HIGH RENT TZATCHKE PEDDLER FUCKERS!!!!
Obama should see if he can find some USSR or chinese central planners....they have been out of jobs for decades.
Fuck you, pay me
y'all enjoying that trickle down eCONoME?
from wiki: Richard Hayne is the president and CEO of Urban Outfitters... At a net worth of $1.8 billion, Hayne is the 262 richest person in the U.S. according to the 2008 Forbes 400...
...the little maggot got his own jet airplane. the little maggot is a billionaire.
I always heard it as "faggot" rather than "maggot"?
As much as I am an advocate for worker rights, - this is a non story.
The author makes it clear that hourly paid workers were not accepted for this non paid work assignment. This was strictly "salaried employees." Under current Labor laws, salaried employees can be assigned or volunteer for work for any amount of hours over the standard 40 hours per week threshold.
This happens every day in almost all US Corporations as millions of salaried workers work on average 50+ hours per week with no pay beyond the standard 40 hours. I wish it were not so, but that is reality of a salaried worker. They work until the job is done.
and the reward for their sacrifice? Having their department eliminated with the "opportunity" to apply for another position--which, of course, is not guaranteed.
fuck em
You are correct. Computer workers in the 1970s and 1980s had numerous opportunities to Unionize, but they declined, as they saw themselves as "professionals" salaried and not hourly.
Ten years later a great many of them were replaced by H1b workers from India and China. Now they are crying in their soup.
So basically, your boss is going to be watching who is more of a "team player" - if Jim shows up and you don't, Jim will be more favored (at least that is what they want you to believe).
Zero isn't the lower boundary for labor. You have the potential to have to pay for trade internships too.
'
'
'
The trade unions are going the way of crapitalism, too.
Ask some friends in the construction unions, if they've ever heard of 'PRE' apprenticeship programs.
Yup.
They had'em for years in some unions. What's next? Pre-pre-apprenticeship programs?
And more and more, Journeymen aren't being hired, as the companies have cosied up to the halls, and pushed them to bring on more members. The Unions get paid with govy handouts to train new members, get new dues paying members, and then can supply the companies with cheap labour, as the companies don't call for journies anymore and the halls ain't enforcing any journey/apprenticeship ratio.
The whole internship thing was a scam from the beginning. The only people that could make it to the end, the last ones standing, were the ones with families with deep pockets to pay for their little darlings to work for free. And those that were left standing?
Only the most elitest, richest, entitled, silver-spooned turds out there.
Why do you think most organizations that employ this deceitful mechanism, are filled with assholes. See politics.
It kills industry. The film industry is just rife with it. So is the magazine biz.
One place I know of, went from a couple of interns on a popular women's mag, to over a dozen a few years later.
Free slave labour.
And now with robotics and automation coming?
We're screwed.
Better learn animal husbandry and how to plant a garden.
•?•
V-V
Everything is a scam.
Keurig puts microchips into their K-Cups. If your knock-off K-Cup doesn’t have the chip, the Keurig machine won’t work.
It’s in this link –
Don't panic. Your Keurig® brewer
isn't broken or malfunctioning.
The message you're seeing on your LCD screen is there to let you know
that the pod you're trying to use is not compatible with your
Keurig® brewer.
Newer Keurig® 2.0 brewers feature the Keurig 2.0 Brewing Technology™ which
reads each lid to deliver on the promise of excellent quality beverages.
http://www.keurig.com/content/oops
... and trivially bypassed with the smallest modicum of intellect.
Response to the title of this article - WHAT???????????
Tell me one thing ...did the CEO of Urban Outfitters take a voluntary pay cut?????
As the easy to use touch screen puts it... "boop boop beboop. WOULD YOU LIKE beep FRIES WITH THAT boop beep"
These idiots are going to make some smarter umployees un-firable.
Ummmm.... NO.
If you look with binoculars you may be able to see Elysium being built now.
American politicians sold out their citizens to foreign governments that use slave labour.Communist dictatorships are American politicians best buddies.The Chinese buy American debt so the corrupt politicians can keep bombing countries overseas.Make sense?What it works out to is that Washington doesn't give a flying F**k about ordinary people.
I had a boss pitch this kind of "volunteering" once. Although I was a salaried employee, I went to his whiteboard and mapped out how the extra free hours reduced my effective hourly wage by 20%. He got up and erased the board stating like you can't look at it like that. I responded to him by saying, I'll work it because I have a wife and kids but I just want you to know how I really feel about it.
"Ummm, I'm gonna need you to go ahead come in Saturday. So if you could be here around 9 that would be great, mmmk... oh oh! and I almost forgot ahh, I'm also gonna need you to go ahead and come in on Sunday too, kay. We, ahh, sorta need to play catch up."
- Bill Lumbergh, Manager, Initech
Let’s redirect our attention to the other side of the transaction – U-Scan.
If the workers aren’t getting paid, and the manufactures are making $3.00 a month… isn’t it our right and duty to comp ourselves treats from these Big Box stores?
What’s wrong with sliding out with free toothpaste, Bounty paper towels and miscellaneous sundries?
This is what happens when you export most of your production to slave wage county's. After all,,, since having no production was the cause of their low wages, why would anyone think the ussa would be any different. These 15 dollars per hour silly shenanigans are just blips on the radar heading towards a much lower wage average... much lower.
When your skill sets go from making useful tools, machinery, computers, auto's etc. to mowing each others yards, cleaning each others houses, serving/cooking/waiting tables,,, collecting EBT and Section 8 housing,,, one can't really expect too much in the way of compensation and benefits,,, no matter how valuable we each 'think' we are.
Just wait until that CEO who had every one else do his work for him while he went around swinging martini deals has his company go bust and he needs to get a real job
Here's a tip for you employees that are not paid for overtime: read up on wage laws and and compose a letter to the hr department of your former employer. Bill them for the overtime they didn't pay you. Remind them that they are responsible for treble damages if they lose in court. If you do your research and compose a good letter you may be surprised how quickly you are reimbursed. ($19,000 and $5,000,-thank you) "Fuck you, pay me"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJVXg1AHQTY
Its all about our labour.
Think about that stall.
The big corporate gig I had until 7 years ago this week ground me down in much the same way. 70 hour weeks for 45 hours/week pay. Mandatory Sundays, with no rational reason given as to why I had to be there on a Sunday.
I told the plant manager, my fuck wit of a boss (who ended up getting fired in 2013 after having been there since '78), the guy who hired me, and the HR cunt to gp fuck themselves.
Most of corporate America is all about grinding the productive into dust. They look for any excuse to get rid of good people who question their methods and the status-quo.
I may or may not have heard of Urban Outfitters, sounds like something the Fergusonites might wear.
Consulting and accounting firms have been doing this for years. In fact, it's part of their business model and culture.
Pressure is immense to work whatever hours are required but not record it on one's timesheet. People regularly work 80 hour weeks but only document 45-50.
When I worked in the Big (at the time) 8 you certainly documented all your hours because the customers were charged for those hours! If you didn't *bill* at least 60 hours a week you probably weren't promoted. Lawyers in big firms typically bill 60, 80, 200, 500 hours a week, honest as the day is long.
My experience was similar until the Sarbanes Oxley bubble burst and Big 4 firms had to compete for contracts. They would often under-bid to win and exceeding contracted hours would create tremendous client consternation, which would translate into pissed partners berating the audit team to squeeze more hours out of them.
If working a profitable audit engagement, everyone was expected to bill all hours ONLY if hours were partner-approved. If hours weren't available, everyone was expected to do whatever it took (nights and weekends) while posting only the hours available in the contract.
Consulting and internal audit engagements would often be fixed-price. Underbidding (or more accurately, clusterfuck estimating) was common, executive commitments unrealistic, and staffing insufficient, so there were never enough hours. Team members were expected to work whatever hours necessary and never post more than 40.
Of course, I was always working the 'challenging engagements', which meant the ones that were fucked up. They were always under-estimated/over-committed, had low team morale, and pissed clients and partners. Sucks being a problem-solver because your always working someone else's problem.
We fettered some folks.
Negative wages, huh?
The upside is that the employers appreciate it, will remember those who 'pitched in' and reward them handsomely when things improve. Anyone interested in buying this splendid bridge I'm selling in London?
Oh - what a shocker ! Poor unfortunate sales clerks with their tough stressful jobs and long hours - almost made me cry.
During my entire career in the silicon valley industry, software and hardware engineers were required to work EVERY DAY, ALL DAY, including ALL holidays, or get terminated and replaced.
Yes, but that's very Dilbert, what a competent person could get done well in 30 hours some dufus will work 90 hours to accomplish badly, and the dufus gets promoted.
See that little speck between my finger and thumb? That's the world's tiniest violin playing "My Heart Bleeds For You."
Perhaps it missed your split-second attention span, but while you were working 7-day weeks in Silicon Valley, you were getting paid between seven and seventeen times as much PER HOUR as those retail clerks. Some jobs actually do compensate workers for the extra time. On the other hand, let's not talk about effort, since code-monkeys don't have to lift and carry all the items from dock to shelves, refold and straighten them after every customer walks through, and spend their entire shift smiling dizzily at people taking advantage of their "customer" status to indulge in behavior unfit for civilized company.
I'm sure there's more, but since I've never actually worked retail, I have a limited number of stories. I do, however, know the difference between the lifestyles of computer programmers and store clerks, and I can tell you without hesitation that you wouldn't know how to survive on their income.
Obviously you are one of those pussy cry babies.
Don't have time to waste explaining the computer industry job situation to you, suffice to say that you don't know shit about what the working conditions and effective compensation per hour are, much less career duration, obsolescence, demand for constant education and self-improvement etc.
I adopted a dog from rescue that has more than enough intelligence to be a sales clerk.
I am sure that you are one of the obomination clinton followers, always creating fantasy justifications of why you should get MORE THAN YOU ARE WORTH AND EARN.
what fucking idiot would work for free (ie, slavery) when they can receive shitloads of free money from govt ?
A big FUCK YOU! to the mgmt of Urban Outfitters
Apparently the work is so important that he only needs four people to do what it took six people to do before
What were those other two people doing before?
Isn't it ironic that the boomers would never treat their own precious child this way but they are more than willing to treat some other boomer's precious child this way?
So they are coddling their own children long enough to feed them to their fellow boomers
Justice just doesn't work out any sweeter
Nah that's not ironic, just human nature. My kids are geniuses, awesome little creations that I would willingly die an unspeakable death for.
Everyone else's kids, on the other hand, are disgusting.
ROFL stupid fucking progtards.
Absolutely nothing new. Salaried workers have been putting in extra hours and working on weekend for free for decades. Wake up and smell the coffee Tyler!
Union masonry wages here in Jacksonville florida 18 hr. to pick um up and put em down. Everyday you can break your back 70lbs at a time for $18 hour. McDonalds is look good at 15
That's the beauty of two and three tier wages. The older guy next to you get seniority benies and makes $9-$12 more an hour than you.
Urban Outfitters
A relative worked at an Urban Outfitters Retail Store. She started on the floor and was quickly made assistant manager. The Manger title meant no more hourly wages, but a salary. Once on salary, she worked unlimited hours and days. 7 days a week was common. Hours varied, but were never less that 9-10. In short, once called a manger, you are forced to work for almost nothing. Salary is just another name for slavery.
That's been the trick at Macdonalds for fifty years. IIRC there was a lawsuit about it umpty years ago, I forget the details.
OK, if they're salary workers I can see the request as being somewhat legitimate. (The proper place for this should've been some clause in their initial job description.) I would think there would be some who could see their choice of not participating as a culling process destroying any "team building" the activity could produce though. I could see one workplace injury by a salaried person working in a strange environment as destroying any possible savings one may imagine as the real reason for the request.
Used to be company picnics and softball provided a better atmosphere to build team, but attorneys certainly destroyed that too with lawsuits arising from everything from non-kosher food to sports injuries while engaged in company sponsored events.
Jmo.
US DOL rule making during the past sever years, will put this idea into a legal quicksand.
You notice this was at the home office. They do this, figure it into the productivity/labor cost algo, then go out and beat district managers over the head with these false numbers. I worked for a company that did something similar. In peak season, a few chosen stores would "cross train" employees from other depts. This "training" did not show up as labor hours used. They then came to other stores and said " Hey they can do X sales with only Y hours, Why can"t you?" " If you can't get it done we will get someone in here that can"
That's why there is no help when you need it, the schedules are spit out by a computer based on rigged numbers
I can't wait for this entire goddamn society and world to die.
I totally don't get the disdainful tone of the article.
A) These people are salaried which means guaranteed steady pay, stock options, fat benefits, and chances for sr. mgmt promotion in exchange for full career comittment including whatever hours are needed doing whatever work. That's what that deal entails. Higher return for higher investment. Those who wanted that deal chose it with full awareness upfront.
B) If these people had been hourly, then what a great way to end-run around government labor price controls dictated by central planners. This is something I thought ZHers didn't need to be taught is fucked up and destructive of value.
Giving employers and employees a means to have more freedom to mutually negotiate de-facto lower hourly wages, means more people could be employed in more productive fashion with more opportunities to build their own skills and capital thus more rapidly escalating their productivity and ability to command higher wages on that basis. That's how the labor market should be allowed to operate in the first place. It's called free markets folks.
Giving employers and employees a means to have more freedom to mutually negotiate de-facto lower hourly wages, means more people could be employed in more productive fashion with more opportunities to build their own skills and capital thus more rapidly escalating their productivity and ability to command higher wages on that basis. That's how the labor market should be allowed to operate in the first place. It's called free markets folks.
Wow, is there going to be a /sarc tag somewhere there? It just seems such a naive view of markets, as if they function outside the bounds of human psychology. What you've just stated is a theory.
do the readers of this website really believe there is no class conflict inherent in capitalism? do they really believe that labor is not generally exploited, where it is not protected? I've always thought the view here was pretty doomy and gloomy, but on that last point, it sounds like polyanna-sh optimism. Labor hasn't received a wage increase in 30+ years, and you give us "the invisible hand"? Coming at us with a 200-300 year old theory of markets, in 2015? Ricardo and Smith? Did the last 40 years just not take place for you, or something? oh man..
Hey ho there Karl Marx, are you serious? "Class conflict" exists only between power and subjects of power. Where power is defined as use of force via government. Mutually voluntary trade sans force by definition cannot be exploitative. That's real capitalism. That's a free market. 100% different than crony capitalism which is leverage of government force. Understand the difference.
I'll join you in reviling cronyists and fighting tooth and nail to disempower them by stripping them of their government advantages. Just don't confuse cronyism with actual free markets involving only voluntary trade. Don't come along with your own scheme of "class equalization" you would forcibly impose upon people despite their voluntary, un-coerced choices of how they choose to peacefully exchange their own labor with the labor of others in various roles.
ACHTUNG: have YOUR schedule prepared and ready to show and PROVE to THEM that you are BUSY and already COMMITTED to other projects.... when the COME FOR YOU and tell you -- you have been selected for MANDATORY TEAM BUILDING PROJECTS. or be enslaved