Mar
26
Blog Post # 10 Nicholas Lee
March 26, 2015 | Leave a Comment
After reading the Forbes article criticizing Nick Hanauer’s TED Talk, I thought that the writer was extremely critical of his talk, dismissing all of Nick Hanauer’s points and calling Nick’s talk plain ignorant on the issues at hand. Looking back at the talk we watched a few days ago, I too was skeptical at the points Nick was making in his talks that “taxing the rich will decrease job creation” and on his humbling and almost condescending attitude of his wealth compared with the vast majority of America. In the article, Tim Warstall criticizes Hanauer on the basis that Nick’s conclusions are wrong and taxing the rich will have no effect on job creation. Rather, “marginal tax rates have an effect on labour supply: raise those marginal rates too high and people will decide to do something else rather than go to work.”
In the other articles we read pertaining to the Starbucks and McDonalds articles, it was yet another outcry on the issue of the exploitation of low wage workers here in the United States. Referencing the McDonalds article, about the fluctuation of hours, and the required attire, I felt somewhere in between disgusted and disappointed that for a multibillion dollar company and for all the revenue they generate, they would be so stingy to be “nickel and diming” their already lowest paid employees by having their workers wash and maintain their own uniform that is pretty much free advertising for McDonalds, not to mention, necessary to remain employed.
Along with that, the fact that they are forcing their employees to not clock in until it is busy, while still requiring them to come in on time, is purely just taking advantage of their workers that can’t do anything to fight back. What I don’t understand is if all of this is happening on an individual basis on the instruction of the individual managers of each McDonalds or if this is part of McDonald’s corporate culture all together and this is happening everywhere. I can only hope for the sake of these workers that there are some genuinely good managers who respect their employees and give them fair hours without taking advantage of them.
In regard to the Washington Post article about Amazon not paying it’s workers for time spent in the security lines, the same viewpoint stands for me that I found it disappointing that for the amount of revenue Amazon generates, that they would not pay their employees more. Although, in this case, I can understand the other side of the argument that they should not have to pay their employees for the time spent going through security despite the fact that it is “necessary” to work there. Yes it is necessary, but looking at it that way, so is taking the bus. For me, so is swiping my ID when I go to Baruch. All of this is “necessary” to fulfill our duties but do we really have to be compensated for this time?
In these readings, I learned a lot about the struggle of lower wage workers by hearing personal stories about how they are being taken advantage of and exploited by managers. Not even the fact that these jobs pay almost nothing, but from fluctuating work hours to distrust in their companies, it almost makes me angry to hear about this and know that these workers can do almost nothing to fight back without fear of losing their job.
