This morning striking Wendy's workers were interviewed on the picket line outside a New York restaurant. One worker said she could not afford to buy her child's school uniform on the $7.50 hourly wage she earned at Wendy's.
They interviewed another woman who said, "Wendy's jobs are not for people who need to support a family or even to support themselves. My teen aged son. who can read and write and play computer games can earn money for college and for spending working at Wendy's but these jobs shouldn't be for people who need to earn a living. You can't blame Wendy's because a worker has to work three jobs at $7.50 an hour. You can't blame Wendy's because the worker has so little education he is unmarketable."
As our capitalist system works, the arugment goes, Wendy's has no interest or obligation to provide its workers anything more than it needs to produce profits for its stockholders. Only if Wendy's cannot find workers for $7.50, in order to sustain itself and its profits, will it have to pay more. That is the way the game is played, they say. Free market for labor. The invisible hand of the free market. Survival of the fittest.
Unless, that is, Wendy's has other motivations for being in business.
Unless, that is, Wendy's has other motivations for being in business.
Henry Ford, a nasty human being, a rabid Anti-Semite and founding member of the capitalists' hall of fame, famously decided to pay his assembly line workers $5 a day, which at the turn of the 20th century was double what they could make elsewhere because, he said, he wanted them to be able to afford to buy the cars they made. A great suction occurred as workers from the South flowed in torrents to Michigan, to latch on to those jobs.
During World War II, with full employment, there was competition for workers. General Motors decided to lure and retain workers by offering health insurance as a benefit. (The nation, spared the necessity of providing healthcare through government, has been paying for that decision, ever since.)
One might argue the people who say Wendy's should have to pay $15 an hour so their workers can support families are placing an unfair burden on that inexpensive, fast food restaurant. Nobody is forcing anyone to take that $7.50 an hour. If you don't want a job at Wendy's go find a job where they pay $15 an hour.
The worker will reply, "Love to, but nobody's offering me $15 an hour."
The employer replies, "Our job does not require much of the employee, so we don't pay much. If you are worth more, go sell your skills to someone who will pay you more." Wendy's HR people smile smugly, believing they are hiring the dregs of the workforce, and anyone who has to take a Wendy's job is not good for much else and should be grateful to have any job.
So the Wendy's employee quits her $7.50 an hour job and goes on welfare and gets food stamps and public housing assistance and becomes a burden on the state. Had she stayed on the job, she may have made just enough to disqualify her for all these payments. At least this way, she can stay at home and not have to pay for child care. Financially, she comes out ahead.
But the government and the taxpayers, do not come out ahead. If Wendy's employees can earn enough to stay off welfare, the government and the taxpayers are spared that burden.
The government might say, "Look if we raise the minimum wage to a 'living wage,' to $15, then the burden of taking care of these low skilled people will fall on business and we can balance our own budgets."
In whose account ledger should the burden of low skill workers fall?
What does a business owe its workers?
What does a business owe society?
It is difficult to think about these questions in a dispassionate way, but we ought to try.
Arguments about the deprivation and hardship which befall the $7.50 an hour worker are designed to appeal to emotion, but are completely irrelevant. If $7.50 is a trap and a misfortune, you cannot blame the man who makes the offer. Every deal requires a willing buyer and willing seller. If you are unwilling to sell your labor for $7.50, do no take the deal. That is the way the game is played.
It is curious, however, that those who are unsympathetic to the unskilled workers are curiously most sympathetic to the farmers who live on the government dole with each year's farm bill. "Free market" forces are not allowed to diminish the standard of living of the rich men who own the huge agribusiness farms which the Federal government has been supporting with huge taxpayer doles every year. Nobody cries foul when the government sets prices for the farmer; but great howls go up when government considers setting the prices for a laborer's work. The same people who argue for unfettered free market forces, for allowing the "invisible hand" of the market, are only too happy to drag the government into intervening when it means the government is giving money away, rather than asking for it.
We might decide to change the rules in favor of labor, just as we changed the rules to enrich agribusiness titans. We might say, "Business pays taxes to the local government which builds the roads which brings Wendy's its customers. Wendy's gets water, sewers, electricity and it has to pay the government and the utilities for providing that. We do not actually see Wendy's negotiating this cost of doing business."
If the government can demand a tax payment for the essential infrastructure Wendy's needs to do business why can it not say, "The workers are infrastructure, too. If you are going to do business in this community, you need to give back to the community for those reviled hamburger flippers?"
It's possible the franchise owner of the Wendy's may try to reduce the number of hamburger flippers, but once the lines start getting too long and angry customers stomp out of the store because the fast food was too slow in coming, the Wendy's owner will realize he cannot run his store without employees, and he'll have to pay the going rate. He will feel the slap of the invisible hand of market forces as his customers desert him for the fast food joint across the street which has enough workers to deliver his food lickety split.
The "market" can determine the going rate for the hamburger flipper. That great invisible hand. Or the union can, if the government insists Wendy's deals with a union. Or the government, speaking for the community, can set the rate. None of these choices is more fair than the others. It's all just the cost of doing business in an economy which is far from being an free market, a pure capitalist society. If we can control markets for American agriculture, we ought to be able to control a little bit of the way in which the products of those farms are delivered to customers.
It is curious, however, that those who are unsympathetic to the unskilled workers are curiously most sympathetic to the farmers who live on the government dole with each year's farm bill. "Free market" forces are not allowed to diminish the standard of living of the rich men who own the huge agribusiness farms which the Federal government has been supporting with huge taxpayer doles every year. Nobody cries foul when the government sets prices for the farmer; but great howls go up when government considers setting the prices for a laborer's work. The same people who argue for unfettered free market forces, for allowing the "invisible hand" of the market, are only too happy to drag the government into intervening when it means the government is giving money away, rather than asking for it.
We might decide to change the rules in favor of labor, just as we changed the rules to enrich agribusiness titans. We might say, "Business pays taxes to the local government which builds the roads which brings Wendy's its customers. Wendy's gets water, sewers, electricity and it has to pay the government and the utilities for providing that. We do not actually see Wendy's negotiating this cost of doing business."
If the government can demand a tax payment for the essential infrastructure Wendy's needs to do business why can it not say, "The workers are infrastructure, too. If you are going to do business in this community, you need to give back to the community for those reviled hamburger flippers?"
It's possible the franchise owner of the Wendy's may try to reduce the number of hamburger flippers, but once the lines start getting too long and angry customers stomp out of the store because the fast food was too slow in coming, the Wendy's owner will realize he cannot run his store without employees, and he'll have to pay the going rate. He will feel the slap of the invisible hand of market forces as his customers desert him for the fast food joint across the street which has enough workers to deliver his food lickety split.
The "market" can determine the going rate for the hamburger flipper. That great invisible hand. Or the union can, if the government insists Wendy's deals with a union. Or the government, speaking for the community, can set the rate. None of these choices is more fair than the others. It's all just the cost of doing business in an economy which is far from being an free market, a pure capitalist society. If we can control markets for American agriculture, we ought to be able to control a little bit of the way in which the products of those farms are delivered to customers.
No comments:
Post a Comment