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Florida Lawmaker's bill to halve min.wage for tipped workers

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jojobean
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17 Feb 2012, 8:59 pm

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/02/17/f ... d-workers/

This is just mean spirited, and disgusting. Those in Fla need to be calling their state reps and telling them they can be replaced if they pass this. Even if you are not a tipped worker, you should do this for those who are.

Jojo


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17 Feb 2012, 10:10 pm

I read the article. It is indeed frightening.

As the article states - it is also sexist as it predominantly affects women (who make up the majority of positions which are tipped - such as waitressing).

In addition, in our society (both Canadian and American), there is a nasty ageism which works together with sexism. Older women are not valued in our society. An older woman (anyone over the age of 30) working as a waitress may not get as much in they way of tips are her younger co-workers, even if she is as friendly and capable as they are. Many customers (esp. men) tip based on their perception of a servers physical attractiveness. We have a few dining establishments which are coined, "breastaurants" which hire their staff based primarily on their physical appearance. These ladies get good tips from their businessmen customers. However, age creeps up on the best of us and these generous tips will fade with their youthful beauty. Then they will be struggling with this substandard minimum wage as well. I don't agree with this. I dine out a lot and tip pretty well based on the quality of service received, not based on how attractive my server is - but I recognize that this bias exists among many people.

Maybe this is what the employers want - to squeeze the older workers out of the job by ensuring that their wage is unlivable...



jojobean
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17 Feb 2012, 11:11 pm

CanadianRose wrote:
I read the article. It is indeed frightening.

As the article states - it is also sexist as it predominantly affects women (who make up the majority of positions which are tipped - such as waitressing).

In addition, in our society (both Canadian and American), there is a nasty ageism which works together with sexism. Older women are not valued in our society. An older woman (anyone over the age of 30) working as a waitress may not get as much in they way of tips are her younger co-workers, even if she is as friendly and capable as they are. Many customers (esp. men) tip based on their perception of a servers physical attractiveness. We have a few dining establishments which are coined, "breastaurants" which hire their staff based primarily on their physical appearance. These ladies get good tips from their businessmen customers. However, age creeps up on the best of us and these generous tips will fade with their youthful beauty. Then they will be struggling with this substandard minimum wage as well. I don't agree with this. I dine out a lot and tip pretty well based on the quality of service received, not based on how attractive my server is - but I recognize that this bias exists among many people.

Maybe this is what the employers want - to squeeze the older workers out of the job by ensuring that their wage is unlivable...


Well it is the lodging and catering industry that pressed for this...I assume that they dont care who suffers, they just want a loophole to pay their employees less.
Your right about the ageism and apperance...I tip based on service as well, but I used to work as a tipped worker and when I was 16, my friends said I looked like a black-haired marylin monroe :oops: I got tipped 3 times as much as anyone else even though I was prone to make mistakes.
Now days age has caught up with me...I dont have my youthful figure.

But you are right about how this will squeeze out the older and the less attractive women who many of them dont have formal degrees and they have been working tipped wages for a long time and they will have to choose between getting another job in a bad economy without a huge skillset beyond service industry, or working for less than a gallon of gas cost per hour and hope to get the tips to make even.

This is so wrong, but I found out that a likewise bill has passed some years ago in other states as well.

but as for the motive, follow the the yellow brick road to the corporate god...money


Jojo


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auntblabby
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17 Feb 2012, 11:17 pm

america- land of the greed, and home of the slave. :oops:



jojobean
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18 Feb 2012, 12:27 am

auntblabby wrote:
america- land of the greed, and home of the slave. :oops:


I can always count on you to sum it up in a witty but profound statement.
You're kinda like my brother that way. When I was working on a project for art school and mom was trying to tell me that what I wanted to do was too much and I didn't really get it. My brother said, Jojo, its like wearing a Mohawk with a ball gown.
that I understood.

Basicly you have a talent for reducing a situation to the lowest common denominator...its a gift.

Jojo


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18 Feb 2012, 3:35 am

I don't see this happening. If it did, the businesses that slashed wages in half will fail. The competent will go somewhere else at the earliest opportunity, and the businesses they leave will have a hard time keeping a desirable group of customers (or any customers) if all the applicants are alien invaders with stolen social security numbers.


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18 Feb 2012, 4:16 am

jojobean wrote:
I can always count on you to sum it up in a witty but profound statement. You're kinda like my brother that way. When I was working on a project for art school and mom was trying to tell me that what I wanted to do was too much and I didn't really get it. My brother said, Jojo, its like wearing a Mohawk with a ball gown. that I understood. Basically you have a talent for reducing a situation to the lowest common denominator...its a gift

thanks beaucoup, Jojo :)
i serve in a similar capacity to my older sister. i've been told by spiritual types that i have [in a biblical sense] "the gift of discernment." i don't really know all of what that's about, but i've long had the encompassing urge to reduce things to their essense, if at all possible. it is because i had to learn how to tell when people were effing with my head [or worse], the bullies could be diabolically subtle. i had to learn how to spot danger at a distance and steer clear of it as early as possible.



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18 Feb 2012, 1:38 pm

auntblabby wrote:
jojobean wrote:
I can always count on you to sum it up in a witty but profound statement. You're kinda like my brother that way. When I was working on a project for art school and mom was trying to tell me that what I wanted to do was too much and I didn't really get it. My brother said, Jojo, its like wearing a Mohawk with a ball gown. that I understood. Basically you have a talent for reducing a situation to the lowest common denominator...its a gift

thanks beaucoup, Jojo :)
i serve in a similar capacity to my older sister. i've been told by spiritual types that i have [in a biblical sense] "the gift of discernment." i don't really know all of what that's about, but i've long had the encompassing urge to reduce things to their essense, if at all possible. it is because i had to learn how to tell when people were effing with my head [or worse], the bullies could be diabolically subtle. i had to learn how to spot danger at a distance and steer clear of it as early as possible.


Your welcome, the gift of discernment, being a former churchgoer, means that you have wisdom to see through people and situations etc as though they are transparent. People who lack discernment are very gullible, like I used to be before I entered the school of hard knocks. It is best to naturally possess discernment than to be forced to acquire it.

Jojo


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18 Feb 2012, 8:09 pm

jojobean wrote:
Your welcome, the gift of discernment, being a former churchgoer, means that you have wisdom to see through people and situations etc as though they are transparent. People who lack discernment are very gullible, like I used to be before I entered the school of hard knocks. It is best to naturally possess discernment than to be forced to acquire it.

Jojo


I'm a former church goer too. I used to define "judging" and "discerning" this way:

"Judgment is when you see an addict and think that they are a bad person. This is wrong. Discernment is respecting that a person is struggling with addiction issues and treating them with dignity, but having the good sense not give them the keys to your house or to lend them money - expecting them to pay it back. This is not only right, but it's also smart."



jojobean
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18 Feb 2012, 8:19 pm

CanadianRose wrote:
I'm a former church goer too. I used to define "judging" and "discerning" this way:

"Judgment is when you see an addict and think that they are a bad person. This is wrong. Discernment is respecting that a person is struggling with addiction issues and treating them with dignity, but having the good sense not give them the keys to your house or to lend them money - expecting them to pay it back. This is not only right, but it's also smart."


Thank you, that was an awesome description!


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jojobean
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18 Feb 2012, 8:24 pm

John_Browning wrote:
I don't see this happening. If it did, the businesses that slashed wages in half will fail. The competent will go somewhere else at the earliest opportunity, and the businesses they leave will have a hard time keeping a desirable group of customers (or any customers) if all the applicants are alien invaders with stolen social security numbers.


That would be nice to see things happen this way,
I dont know if it will though, cuz the market is in such shambles

Jojo


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18 Feb 2012, 10:29 pm

jojobean wrote:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/02/17/florida-bill-would-slash-minimum-wage-for-tipped-workers/

This is just mean spirited, and disgusting. Those in Fla need to be calling their state reps and telling them they can be replaced if they pass this. Even if you are not a tipped worker, you should do this for those who are.

Jojo


It is in cases like this that I argue that money-based positions are cleverly disguised slavery and servitude. If you aren't lucky enough to be the top wage earners, you spend the majority of your life just trying earn enough to eat food. =(

I worked at a minimum wage job and it is impossible to survive on just that. If they cut in half, PEOPLE ARE GOING TO DIE!! !



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20 Feb 2012, 2:06 pm

techn0teen wrote:
It is in cases like this that I argue that money-based positions are cleverly disguised slavery and servitude. If you aren't lucky enough to be the top wage earners, you spend the majority of your life just trying earn enough to eat food. =(

I worked at a minimum wage job and it is impossible to survive on just that. If they cut in half, PEOPLE ARE GOING TO DIE!! !


I'll go a bit farther.

Some people will die--primarily through malnutrition, or children dying through neglect while their parents are both out working three or four jobs to make ends meet.

But some people will survive--and they will survive as they always have: through crime. It is no coincidence that property crime goes up in lock step with barriers to access to a living income. Whether that is barriers to access for welfare or minimum wages that fail to meet the poverty line, when people are faced with a choice between rent and groceries, they will pay the rent and steal for groceries.

In many ways, a society will have as much property crime as it chooses.


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20 Feb 2012, 7:06 pm

visagrunt wrote:
techn0teen wrote:
It is in cases like this that I argue that money-based positions are cleverly disguised slavery and servitude. If you aren't lucky enough to be the top wage earners, you spend the majority of your life just trying earn enough to eat food. =(

I worked at a minimum wage job and it is impossible to survive on just that. If they cut in half, PEOPLE ARE GOING TO DIE!! !


I'll go a bit farther.

Some people will die--primarily through malnutrition, or children dying through neglect while their parents are both out working three or four jobs to make ends meet.

But some people will survive--and they will survive as they always have: through crime. It is no coincidence that property crime goes up in lock step with barriers to access to a living income. Whether that is barriers to access for welfare or minimum wages that fail to meet the poverty line, when people are faced with a choice between rent and groceries, they will pay the rent and steal for groceries.

In many ways, a society will have as much property crime as it chooses.


This shouldn't be happening to supposedly one of the best countries in the world. It is shameful to see the whole world go on a downward slide. That cannot be helped. There are over seven billion people on this planet that want to live the same consumerist, unsustainable life style as wealthy nations. This planet is just too small to support that.

The problem with capitalism is that it is piss-poor at resource management and an unsustainable model. By the time the market should correct itself, it is too late. To think about it, I have not seen one civilization so far work toward self-sustainability of resources. Instead, when they realize they ran out of resources, they become warmongering and invade other peoples.



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21 Feb 2012, 2:12 am

The Minimum Wage in Australia is scaled between the age of 14 (when you can first legally work) and 21 when you get the full Adult Minimum Wage. Baring in mind that the AUD and USD are more or less at parity, a person under 16 years of age cannot be paid less than $5.71 per hour, while the Minimum Wage for any worker over 21 is $15.51 per hour.

You might argue that Australia does not have a culture of tipping, and that's true, but the more relevant question is: how is it that American businesses cannot survive paying a wage of more than $2.13 per hour for an adult worker while Australian businesses are able to pay $15.51? Competition demands that if a business does not make enough money it fails.



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21 Feb 2012, 3:40 am

Sokar wrote:
The Minimum Wage in Australia is scaled between the age of 14 (when you can first legally work) and 21 when you get the full Adult Minimum Wage. Baring in mind that the AUD and USD are more or less at parity, a person under 16 years of age cannot be paid less than $5.71 per hour, while the Minimum Wage for any worker over 21 is $15.51 per hour.

You might argue that Australia does not have a culture of tipping, and that's true, but the more relevant question is: how is it that American businesses cannot survive paying a wage of more than $2.13 per hour for an adult worker while Australian businesses are able to pay $15.51? Competition demands that if a business does not make enough money it fails.

can you tell me how much a typical efficiency or one-bedroom flat goes for each month where you live? in most american cities, it ranges between $700 and $1000 per month- which, of course, is impossible to swing at anything less than roughly $10 per hour, which is about $3 more than the present $7.25 american federal minimum wage, so most folk who make federal minimum or less, must live with their parents or sponge off friends with their own places, or live in a homeless shelter or car. most apartments highly discourage multiple tenants not related to family. they get you coming and going. america is a hostile place for the working-poor who are not on public assistance [like subsidized housing] of some kind, which most working-class folk are disqualified from by dint of their having a job in the first place, even if it doesn't pay sufficient to keep a roof over one's head. :roll: