After learning via my brother’s job search how difficult it is for a full time professional baker to earn a living wage here in Austin, it made me curious how to find out what if any products/services I buy pay a living wage to the employees who create/deliver said product or service.
There are sites that let employees rate their jobs (e.g. glassdoor etc.) but those appear to all be primarily recruitment information. (The information is presumed to be useful to prospective hires, not clients). I couldn’t find any that are designed to inform potential customers of the boss’s worker friendly policies.
When I mentioned this to my husband he replied “who cares about that?”. Which may be true, but probably not entirely. After all, why would retailers like Walmart and Target be making PR noise about raising minimum wages for “associates” unless they realized it mattered to some segment of their key demographic targets (so to speak). And there are other examples, apparently In-N-Out is a good place to work, and Costco is widely recognized as being a good job that pays a living wage with good benefits.
In thinking about this as an opportunity (“It’s like Yelp, but with ratings by employees instead of customers”) I realized some obvious challenges. Verifying information and curbing obvious trolling by lousy bosses for one thing. Not to mention the difficulty of attracting advertisers to something business owners aren’t likely to be crazy about in the main.
But then I wondered if this isn’t a huge missed opportunity by the labor unions. Highlighting and promoting businesses that are “so worker friendly we don’t know how to organize them “. Which I realize is sort of contrary to most union’s mission but anyway…
If I simply didn’t know how to find a useful resource pointers welcome. If anybody else thinks they’d find this useful (and especially) has ideas on how to do it that’s probably interesting too.
I looked at Glassdoor for just that reason. Was shocked — just months ago to find out that all these people I meet in retail everyday are starving! Walgreen’s (reputed to be an excellent place to work — leaving aside pay), etc., pay $400, $500 a week at most.
Was truly saddened to discover that even organized supermarkets don’t pay any more: two-tier contracts thanks to Walmart’s race-to-the-bottom undercutting.
Minimum family needs yearly income: $11,000 silver plan (including deducts — Brill, family of four, p. 346), $4,000 payroll tax on 50k, $15,000 rent and utilities — and you haven’t even put the dried beans in the pot to soak.
* * * * * * * * * *
[cut and paste]
My idea of what to do to resolve inequality — FLASH UNIONIZATION: start prosecuting some union busting employers and consultants under RICO and the Hobbs Act — hopefully watch all of the same cease and desist until the cases reach the USSC years later — while waiting we can organize the country right out from under them.
Could work — would change the groan-and-bear-it culture of US 180 degrees.
Who would question the illegality of an employer conspiring with a mobbed up union boss to fire any workers who opposed a sweetheart contract that gave the workers’ bargaining potential away? What difference when employers fire workers to keep them from pursuing a federally prescribed process to get a contract in the first place. It is an ongoing business of (by legal definition) extortion.
Arguable is good enough to last for enough years.
* * * * * * * * * *
The 99% have 99% of the votes (surprise) and more money than the 1%. We can take it easy but take it anytime we get it all together and do it. No class war; just pick it up (flash organize?) off the ground.
It is unlikely that Wally in the latest Dilbert series on economists will say anything about unfettered inheritance and ongoing private ownership of property so the myth of economics as cover for the centuries old rich families and private instead of purely sovereign finance is still intact.
Amateur, I’ve wondered about the same thing. For example, I avoid buying from company X, and instead by from company Y, because I know that X pays and treats its people badly–but I have no idea whether Y does the same duh. It would be nice to have a website dedicated to comparing/contrasting firms regarding workers’ compensation and perhaps other worker-rights issues. It also might be nice to have inequality metrics (along the lines of a Gini coefficient?) regarding compensation levels in firms, but I’ve never heard of one.
Yeah it’s actually worse than that. E.g. Internet service providers. Like most of the country I have basically 2 and 1/4 choices for internet service. I can get cable internet, “fiber” from AT&T (branded as U-Verse) or wired DSL service carried over the traditional 2 line switched telephone network (the 1/4 choice as I will elaborate).
DSL is slow and expensive. But I am still buying my pitifully crappy “6MB elite DSL” (yeah right) service for around $60 a month because those lines are serviced and maintained by CWA represented workers. AT&T aggressively markets U-Verse in my neighborhood (5-8 expensive mailers a month along with door to door salespeople who show up at least quarterly if not more often) and also insisted on pushing it at me when I had a recent service call after my DSL modem failed.
AT&T service rep: “I can see we offer U-Verse in your area, we could significantly upgrade your service at a great rate and get you off those ancient unreliable wires…” (almost a verbatim quote)
Me: “Well I’m not sure, can you tell me if the U-Verse service is installed and maintained by CWA represented workers?”
Rep, clearly taken aback by the question not in her script: “Well I know we have some CWA workers but I can’t say for certain about U-Verse team specifically…”
Me: “AT&T will have an easier time marketing U-Verse to me when I know that my service fees go to support the union wages and benefits of CWA represented workers, I’d suggest you confirm that definitively and get back to me”.
I know from reading CWA’s site that U-Verse workers are not included in CWA bargaining units although they are allowed to join the CWA (what a deal, they get to pay union dues without getting union contract negotiated!).
So I end up paying more for slower service because it’s worth it to me knowing my fees go to pay union wages and benefits (for now). Not planning on streaming anything in HD anytime soon though. Moreover I strongly suspect AT&T usually caps the bandwidth (it’s rarely measured at over 1.5Mb using the typical internet tools) just to try to incent me to move.
This will all get even more complicated for me soon when Google Fiber probably makes it to my Austin neighborhood – I don’t expect Google to embrace the CWA or any other union anytime soon. So then I will have 3 1/4 providers to “choose” from. (funny how once you drill past the teaser “introductory rate” they all charge about the same for similar levels/tiers of services…. some competition bleah)
But other choices are easier for me. If I’m buying something online and have a choice in shipping (or as rarely happens the shipping isn’t included with my order), I always go UPS or USPS over FedEX no matter the cost. UPS is teamster organized, those FedEX guys get a piece rate that sometimes doesn’t even add up to minimum wage as “independent contractors”.
Websites I can’t find:
After learning via my brother’s job search how difficult it is for a full time professional baker to earn a living wage here in Austin, it made me curious how to find out what if any products/services I buy pay a living wage to the employees who create/deliver said product or service.
There are sites that let employees rate their jobs (e.g. glassdoor etc.) but those appear to all be primarily recruitment information. (The information is presumed to be useful to prospective hires, not clients). I couldn’t find any that are designed to inform potential customers of the boss’s worker friendly policies.
When I mentioned this to my husband he replied “who cares about that?”. Which may be true, but probably not entirely. After all, why would retailers like Walmart and Target be making PR noise about raising minimum wages for “associates” unless they realized it mattered to some segment of their key demographic targets (so to speak). And there are other examples, apparently In-N-Out is a good place to work, and Costco is widely recognized as being a good job that pays a living wage with good benefits.
In thinking about this as an opportunity (“It’s like Yelp, but with ratings by employees instead of customers”) I realized some obvious challenges. Verifying information and curbing obvious trolling by lousy bosses for one thing. Not to mention the difficulty of attracting advertisers to something business owners aren’t likely to be crazy about in the main.
But then I wondered if this isn’t a huge missed opportunity by the labor unions. Highlighting and promoting businesses that are “so worker friendly we don’t know how to organize them “. Which I realize is sort of contrary to most union’s mission but anyway…
If I simply didn’t know how to find a useful resource pointers welcome. If anybody else thinks they’d find this useful (and especially) has ideas on how to do it that’s probably interesting too.
I looked at Glassdoor for just that reason. Was shocked — just months ago to find out that all these people I meet in retail everyday are starving! Walgreen’s (reputed to be an excellent place to work — leaving aside pay), etc., pay $400, $500 a week at most.
Was truly saddened to discover that even organized supermarkets don’t pay any more: two-tier contracts thanks to Walmart’s race-to-the-bottom undercutting.
Minimum family needs yearly income: $11,000 silver plan (including deducts — Brill, family of four, p. 346), $4,000 payroll tax on 50k, $15,000 rent and utilities — and you haven’t even put the dried beans in the pot to soak.
* * * * * * * * * *
[cut and paste]
My idea of what to do to resolve inequality — FLASH UNIONIZATION: start prosecuting some union busting employers and consultants under RICO and the Hobbs Act — hopefully watch all of the same cease and desist until the cases reach the USSC years later — while waiting we can organize the country right out from under them.
Could work — would change the groan-and-bear-it culture of US 180 degrees.
Who would question the illegality of an employer conspiring with a mobbed up union boss to fire any workers who opposed a sweetheart contract that gave the workers’ bargaining potential away? What difference when employers fire workers to keep them from pursuing a federally prescribed process to get a contract in the first place. It is an ongoing business of (by legal definition) extortion.
Arguable is good enough to last for enough years.
* * * * * * * * * *
The 99% have 99% of the votes (surprise) and more money than the 1%. We can take it easy but take it anytime we get it all together and do it. No class war; just pick it up (flash organize?) off the ground.
Denis,
I suggest reading: Coming of the Third Reich, by Richard J. Evans.
It is happening here, today.
Amateur, perhaps the search should be best US employer. I believe 60 minutes did a program on this subject.
This could be used as a good argument for why a union is needed at some companies.
It is unlikely that Wally in the latest Dilbert series on economists will say anything about unfettered inheritance and ongoing private ownership of property so the myth of economics as cover for the centuries old rich families and private instead of purely sovereign finance is still intact.
Amateur, I’ve wondered about the same thing. For example, I avoid buying from company X, and instead by from company Y, because I know that X pays and treats its people badly–but I have no idea whether Y does the same duh. It would be nice to have a website dedicated to comparing/contrasting firms regarding workers’ compensation and perhaps other worker-rights issues. It also might be nice to have inequality metrics (along the lines of a Gini coefficient?) regarding compensation levels in firms, but I’ve never heard of one.
Yeah it’s actually worse than that. E.g. Internet service providers. Like most of the country I have basically 2 and 1/4 choices for internet service. I can get cable internet, “fiber” from AT&T (branded as U-Verse) or wired DSL service carried over the traditional 2 line switched telephone network (the 1/4 choice as I will elaborate).
DSL is slow and expensive. But I am still buying my pitifully crappy “6MB elite DSL” (yeah right) service for around $60 a month because those lines are serviced and maintained by CWA represented workers. AT&T aggressively markets U-Verse in my neighborhood (5-8 expensive mailers a month along with door to door salespeople who show up at least quarterly if not more often) and also insisted on pushing it at me when I had a recent service call after my DSL modem failed.
AT&T service rep: “I can see we offer U-Verse in your area, we could significantly upgrade your service at a great rate and get you off those ancient unreliable wires…” (almost a verbatim quote)
Me: “Well I’m not sure, can you tell me if the U-Verse service is installed and maintained by CWA represented workers?”
Rep, clearly taken aback by the question not in her script: “Well I know we have some CWA workers but I can’t say for certain about U-Verse team specifically…”
Me: “AT&T will have an easier time marketing U-Verse to me when I know that my service fees go to support the union wages and benefits of CWA represented workers, I’d suggest you confirm that definitively and get back to me”.
I know from reading CWA’s site that U-Verse workers are not included in CWA bargaining units although they are allowed to join the CWA (what a deal, they get to pay union dues without getting union contract negotiated!).
So I end up paying more for slower service because it’s worth it to me knowing my fees go to pay union wages and benefits (for now). Not planning on streaming anything in HD anytime soon though. Moreover I strongly suspect AT&T usually caps the bandwidth (it’s rarely measured at over 1.5Mb using the typical internet tools) just to try to incent me to move.
This will all get even more complicated for me soon when Google Fiber probably makes it to my Austin neighborhood – I don’t expect Google to embrace the CWA or any other union anytime soon. So then I will have 3 1/4 providers to “choose” from. (funny how once you drill past the teaser “introductory rate” they all charge about the same for similar levels/tiers of services…. some competition bleah)
But other choices are easier for me. If I’m buying something online and have a choice in shipping (or as rarely happens the shipping isn’t included with my order), I always go UPS or USPS over FedEX no matter the cost. UPS is teamster organized, those FedEX guys get a piece rate that sometimes doesn’t even add up to minimum wage as “independent contractors”.