So yesterday, the Republicans unanimously defeated an amendment that Democrats attached to a jobs training program bill that would have raised the minimum wage to $10.10 by 2015 . Six Democrats joined them in defeating the effort.
I can understand why the Republicans defeated the amendment and passed the bill,only in that, the raising of the minimum wage should stand on its own and not be tacked on to another bill! But what does bother me is not one Republican voted in favor of the amendment. You can’t tell me there is not one gerrymander district where the Representatives’ constituents are not hurting because of low wages!! It is a sin that in a country where CEOs of major corporations make a gazillion dollars a year and corporate profits are soaring that the profit margins could not be shrunk a little so that the people who make those profits possible, i.e. the corporation’s employees and consumers are paid a decent wage!!
The other day I read this post about Costco at Addicting Info, I it really made me proud of their business philosophy! I’ve never shopped at Costco, but I am certainly considering it now!!
Socialism, Anyone? Profits Soar For Costco Days After CEO Endorses Minimum Wage Hike
No more than a week after the CEO of Costco endorsed raising the minimum wage, profits for the one place to buy palates of waffles dramatically shot up. Despite the fact that Republicans have decried a raised in the minimum wage as Marxism and the perennial ”it’s bad for business” soundbite even as the public (including George Bush) favors it, the big-box retailer managed to bring in record-breaking profits. And what do you know, the overwhelming earnings came just six days after CEO Craig Jelinek implored Congress to raise the minimum wage.
“At Costco, we know that paying employees good wages makes good sense for business,” Jelinik said in a statement last week. “Instead of minimizing wages, we know it’s a lot more profitable in the long term to minimize employee turnover and maximize employee productivity, commitment and loyalty. We support efforts to increase the federal minimum wage.” (Huffington Post) Read More
It’s refreshing to read about a company that gets it!!
In a post from Truthdig.com Ralph Nader suggests that Walmart may follow Costco’s and other’s lead to increase the minimum wage. He writes:
….Remember Walmart executives are all about the numbers and how they can manipulate them to their own benefit. February’s retail sales, writes Rich Karlgaard, publisher of Forbes “was a rotten month for the Bentonville Giants.” Internal emails leaked from Walmart expressed concern about the spending level of the low to middle-income shoppers who are the dollar source for the company.
“Where are all the customers? And where’s their money?” bewailed Cameron Geiger, Walmart senior vice-president. Calmer colleagues attributed the sales slump to the restoration of the social security payroll tax, delayed tax refunds and higher gasoline prices.
What Walmart’s bosses are coming to realize, however, is that a minimum wage above $10 per hour would lift the income of about 30 million workers, including Walmart employees, who would spend some of that extra cash at Walmart stores.
For the overall economy, a $10.50 per hour minimum wage would be a certain stimulus for sales, which would increase jobs and contribute more money to social security and Medicare funds. Full Post
Let’s hope that customers are leaving Walmart not only because they don’t have the money to shop, but they, like me, have stopped going to the retail giant because of the way they treat their employees!
The bottom-line is that it is well beyond time that the minimum wage is raise and the sooner that companies realize that the quicker our economy can recover!
I would hope that we as a country are better than we were in the 1880s when anarchist Albert Parsons wrote these words:
“In 1880 I withdrew from all active participation in the political Labor Party, having been convinced that the number of hours per day that the wage-workers are compelled to work, together with the low wages they received, amounted to their practical disfranchisement as voters…. My experience in the Labor Party had also taught me that bribery, intimidation, duplicity, corruption, and bulldozing grew out of the conditions which made the working people poor and the idlers rich, and that consequently the ballot-box could not be made an index to record the popular will until the existing debasing, impoverishing, and enslaving industrial conditions were first altered. Parsons turned his activity to the growing movement to establish the 8-hour day. In January 1880, the Eight-Hour League of Chicago sent Parsons to a national conference in Washington, DC, a gathering which launched a national lobbying movement aimed at coordinating efforts of labor organizations to win and enforce the 8-hour workday.
I know we as a people are better now only if the corporations, (who are not people by the way) can be better than their predecessors maybe we can move forward for the betterment of ALL!
