Ralphs, Food 4 Less to close 25% of Long Beach stores over extra $4 per hour

Given that the average age of grocery store baggers is 40, I’d say that your assertion that it’s a high school job is inaccurate.

 

See what I mean by "blinded by ideology"?

I said nothing of the sort, implied nothing of the sort. I said I find it hilarious when "Union Members" will scream at CEO pay, and ignore that their union bosses bring home even more money.

I did not say I agreed with it. In fact, I was actually mocking it. Yet, somehow because of your ideology you proceed to twist what I said into what you wanted to read.

Yes, we will never see anything in common, because you are so blinded and do not even realize it.

 

To me, my only real support for "Permanent Unions" is when the job in inherently dangerous, and careful supervision of safety is needed.

Law Enforcement and Police, Mine Workers, Oil Workers, things like that. Because then the Unions actually do their damned jobs. Overseeing to help ensure that safety standards are maintained. And in the event of a serious injury or loss of life, they do take care of the family.

But grocery workers? Fast food? People that do laundry in a hotel? No, I see that as lining the pocket. Especially ones like professional sports. Yes, I am really supposed to feel bad for some dude who will make more in a single season playing a game than I will see in my entire lifetime (and that is only direct pay, not including endorsements).

And yes, as I said I do believe in the right of collectivization if conditions are intolerable. But a "Permanent Union" where the employee has to pay hundreds of dollars a month just to work, and they really do almost nothing for it? I see that as pure extortion and nothing else. At least if they could still be trusted to run their own pension plans and insurance plans, I might still see a use for them. But those have largely been stripped away, because of their greed and corruption.

And in many areas, you now have "Job Deserts". Where kids find it almost impossible to find employment because all of the local jobs that traditionally are done by them are held by adults.

 

Your SNIP left out some crucial details, which result in your OP misrepresenting the situation. From your linked article:
<SNIP>

The city council unanimously approved the wage increase on Jan. 19 to compensate grocery store workers for the dangers they face in serving the public during the coronavirus pandemic. The ordinance was tentatively approved, and a final vote is scheduled for Feb. 2.

The ordinance would be in place for at least 120 DAYS, after which the ordinance would come back to the city council for a possible extension.
<END SNIP>

If you had a real, legitimate argument against some policy, there would be no need to misrepresent it. Therefore, your doing just that, in your OP, is a poor portent for an honest debate.

 

There have been others that gone out pasture

 

You mean like most of the manufacturing jobs in the country?

Tell me, how many televisions are made in the US? How many electronics in general? Clothing? Shoes? Not damned many, all the jobs left decades ago because the companies could not make enough of a profit to justify keeping them open. So rather than compromise, you would rather see the company gone, and then no jobs at all for anybody.

Sounds just like the morons that cheered when Interstate Bakeries went bankrupt during their strike. Even their Union bosses at the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers' International Union were shaking their head at their stupidity, as they agreed with the contract changes (which were actually forced onto IB by the Bankruptcy Court). They cheered as the company had no choice but to close, and over 18,000 lost their jobs.

 

There are many jobs, that need to be done, that are worth very little to any business.

 

Why not? Why should a person with zero skills and zero experience make the wage of a skilled and experienced worker?

If you want living wage, how about encouraging them to actually do something themselves, like learn a skill?

And of course, this is why it is getting harder and harder to even find 40 hour jobs anymore.

 

That was a jokey jab. I’ll try to remember in the future that “Ultimate Pragmatism” leaves in capable of subscribing to any form of ideology and there for not likely to be able to interact with my partisan buffoonery. (That was a jokey joke.)

 

It was a High School job for decades. Hell, I remember doing it myself, along with many of my classmates. Most stores had a legion of High School and College age kids who came in after school to stock shelves for minimum wage. And were happy as hell to do it.

Today, they are most commonly Union Jobs, with Union Pay. And as you have to be 18 to even work in a union, they can no longer do them. What you are blind to is that those jobs were taken away by Union Members, because the pay is way more than is justified. If I could have made as much and gotten free insurance knowing all I had to do was continue stocking shelves instead of bothering to learn computers, I might well have done the exact same thing.

Hell, I remember actually working against the attempted "Union Leader" when they tried to Unionize the Six Flags Magic Mountain Park in the 1990's. A large chunk of that workforce is actually High School kids. And the starting pay was $6.50 an hour (decently above the $4.75 minimum wage). And I would listen to the Organizers as they would go to the kids and encourage them to attend the meetings, and when it came time to push a vote to endorse the Union.

I then went right behind their backs, and told them that if that was done, they would be fired. One even indignantly started to scream at me and say I was a liar. I just grinned, and calmly asked the girl how old she was, as I knew already she was 16. I then asked if at 16 she could join the Union, and of course after trying to avoid the question he admitted that no, she could not join the Union at 16.

In other words, she would be fired.

And almost 30 years later, Magic Mountain is still the only Amusement Park in the LA area that is non-union, and has High School kids working there. And they still pay above minimum wage. Even almost a "Living Wage", if not for where they are located, and that they are largely seasonal parks.


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Final comment, look at the stockers and baggers in most non-union stores. They make good wages, and are considerably younger. As in literally just out of High School. And a store like Walmart typically has a stocking crew many times larger, because they can afford to hire more people to do the job.

I did do that at Walmart for a few years, and the pay was good enough that I drove 100 miles each way to and from work. And our crew was huge, 30 people on most nights. How many grocery stores have 40 full time stockers on a single shift? Let alone 3 shifts of stockers?

I have worked in Grocery for many years, not damned many I can tell you.

And most do it for a few years, then move on to something better or up into a better position. You find very few there for more than a few years before they move up or to something else.

Other than the ones that simply like doing that. I do know some 10+ stockers, who simply like the job.

 

Manufacturing moved over seas because transportation got cheap. When it’s inexpensive to ship materials and goods and you can pay workers 50 cents an hour, of course that’s going to happen. That’s Capitalism, Baby! Should American workers be expected to compete with South East Asian labor costs? Increasing wages didn’t kill American manufacturing. Corporate greed did.

 

If they are not worth a living wage to a business then they should do without the service. The US of A is a pretty top notch nation all things considered. It shouldn’t be dependent on the existence of a class of people who work and live in poverty. That’s some third-world nonsense if you ask me.

 

Life and the world are a bit more complicated than that.

 

Sorry, I’m not interested in personal anecdotes. The data doesn’t support the idea that grocery store jobs are staffed exclusively by high schools living with mom & dad looking to make some extra scratch. These are adults who are living in poverty.

 

Who has suggested that unskilled labor should be paid the same as skilled labor? Certainly not me. If someone provides their labor to you for 40 hours a week and their labor meets your standards; they should be paid a wage that can meet their basic needs and leave room to save towards their future.

If someone brings skills and training to the table, they should earn more than that.

It is getting harder to find 40 hour jobs because employers don’t want to pay for any of the benefits associated with being a full time employee. Why pay benefits when you can fill your schedule with a bunch of part timers and not pay benefits?

 

Only because we allow it to be.

 

Here is the real irony. I remember when Food 4 Less first moved to the LA area.

Ralph's in the mid-1980's tried an experiment in running huge "wholesale" type stores, along the lines of Costco but without membership. They called them "The Giant", and they were easily 2-3 times the size of a Ralph's store. The interiors were more like a Ralph's, but larger. But ultimately the concept failed, and they closed them all in around 1989. Most of them were sold to the company that had just bought Food 4 Less, and they stripped out the "nice shelves and interior" and turned it into what people know of today. Basic appearance, industrial shelving, cheap prices. A decade later Ralph's bought the chain, and ironically gained back most of the old "The Giant" stores they once ran, but under a new name and concept.

The store my wife and I shopped at regularly in Linwood is F4L, but we still remember when it was "The Giant".

https://webcache.googleusercontent....fi-10343-story.html+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

 

So fine, many people will only work 20 hours a week. So instead of having a single job, they will need 2-4 jobs in order to get enough hours to get by on.

Welcome to working in California.

 

"Transportation got cheap"?

Uhhh, no. It had always been cheap. Hell, the US was originally created as a British Colony to make things like glass. Because it was cheaper to make it in the US and ship it to England than to make it themselves, or pay other countries for it. But at least the Colonies were part of the UK. The problem is that the American consumer got cheap, and instead of supporting US companies that sold quality products, they jumped to cheaper imports. "Yea, who cares of the Sanyo VCR dies after 3 years, it is half as much so I will just buy another one when it dies." Go to the department store, and get cheaper clothing and shoes made in Indonesia, so of course the US companies are going to close their factories and move all the jobs to Indonesia.

Capitalism also means that the consumer should consider not just raw price, but also things like quality and workmanship, not to mention where it was made. When the only consideration is price, that is just greed. And the same thing is continuing today, which is why every year (even before COVID) more and more chains and stores were closing every year. Why bother buying from the store down the street that employs your neighbor, when you can save $1 by getting it online?

 

The end result. A commie grocery store.

 

I said "were". Because as adults, they moved to other jobs, like manufacturing.

Of course, when you pay $18+ an hour for those jobs, they will happily stay in them for years. The issue of lack of jobs and poverty is the because of the almost entire loss of the manufacturing sector. That means there is little else to do but stock shelves.

I see you can not really make a logical extension of "cause and effect". You are talking about today, I am comparing it to 30 years ago.

And in many places, even a few years ago minimum wage was a "living wage". But then you had entire states dictating a "state wage" at the level that was affordable to the big cities. Which then crushed jobs and caused massive inflation in small communities.

 

Orlando Ramirez: My father was called Orlando. He rolled the finest cigars in Havana. "Orlando el Rey", they called him... "Orlando the King". Then Castro came along and my father was on his ass.
Vladimir Ivanoff: Castro is a great man.
Orlando Ramirez: Castro is a Cuban bullshit artist who has been taken in by Russian bullshit artists!

Vladimir Ivanoff: I read about slavery.
Lionel Witherspoon, Bloomingdales Security Officer: Yeah, with slavery at least the work was steady.
Vladimir Ivanoff: Sounds like Russia.

Ivanoff sees a line going around the block in Moscow, walks up to the person at the end of the line to ask what the line is for.
Vladimir Ivanoff: Toilet paper?
Man at end of line: Shoes, I think.
Pulls out bag and joins the end of the line
Vladimir Ivanoff: They must be Czech or Polish

 

As I pointed out there are many jobs need to be done for the collective good even though they would provide very little of immediate value to any business. The minimum wage for unskilled labor idles many potentially very productive workers.

Many parts of America are very far from top notch. That fact is hard to overlook.

 

A person working long term for minimum wages is not a very productive worker.

 

On my such drama! LOL! Yes Long Beach is now Cuba.

Right wing logic at its finest...