DeathscytheX

The problem with $15 an hour is all this bullshit fight against evil big corporations not paying the little man enough. You can't champion the middle class by doing this shit because all it does is fuck small and medium size businesses. They cant afford to pay people $15 an hour. Thus you're actually just helping big business by maintaining a monopoly over everything becasue no one will ever be able to become an innovative start up company. Industry will never change unless it's cost effective for the status quo. I've argued with people about this before "You want people to stay poor!" No you fucking moron, no one deserves to live in a 150k sq ft house and drive a new Jeep when all the do is drop a basket of fries in oil... otherwise no one would want to aspire to be anything else.

Yes the overtime law had a lot to do with the first restructure even though my company denies it. A lot of companies did this and its not like they can go "Oh, well.. everyone can have their job back now that we don't have to pay you OT". And this latest move was their "fix". I'll admit there were a lot of people in the positions that were cut, that didn't need to be there. A lot has changed in the company over the last 10 years, and some people just had a leadership title but didn't lead anyone, and didn't pull their weight either because they felt some of the work was below them. I've always made it a point to make myself indispensable. I've always busted my ass and dealt with any unfair bullshit situations, by accepting it and still working hard. Thats why I've made it through 3 of these things. What irritates me are those that always seem to be safe from these by luck or by getting the right promotion or being at the right place at the right time. There is that certain echelon I've been trying to get to, but it always evades me because this happens when I'm so close. To get in, someone has to quit or get fired, which is rare. Of course the last 3 times its happened was after the last restructure and they ended up no cutting enough jobs, so those extras got to fill the new vacancies to level off stores to the right amount. But with how it is now, it will probably be years before anyone retires.

As a guy stuck in these low level positions (mostly by choice, I've worked my way up only to have it bite me in the ass so I'm happy being down here with the grunts) it's nice to see the incentive of raising the minimum wage however they're doing it the wrong way. Raising wages to a flat $15 an hour isn't the answer, it's their way of making themselves look like they care when they don't (and a way to make it so jobs don't leave the country which sadly isn't going to stop). I've said it more than once that minimum wage needs to be based on the currently standard of living in each city/state (more so city but that's due to where I live more then anything) as, like DX pointed out, most smaller to medium sized businesses can't afford to pay wages not centered on their areas SoL (businesses that are small mom and pop shops or state chains, not businesses like Walmart who could afford to pay all their employees $15 and up an hour but choose not to (don't be fooled by them raising their wages, just a publicity stunt. More wages means less people to work now so it gets harder on those employees still there (they actually eliminated a lot of positions in the company to do this))). Sadly the people leading our country don't see this (and Trump for one doesn't give two shits about us little guys trying to make a living) and just do things without fully thinking it through and businesses don't care outside of what it will cost them (hence the lay offs and what have you). Just because $14 an hour is the bare minimum needed to be able to survive where I live (due to the Bakken/Oil Industry) doesn't mean you should be paying your employees that in a small town where $9 an hour will let them live a comfortable life (not many places I know of where $9 an hour will suffice but I'm sure they're out there).

Sadly though it'll continue to happen. Eventually minimum wage will get so high we won't have any jobs to go after as they're all shifted overseas to people willing to work for less than a dollar an hour. I don't bitch because I make enough money to cover my bills, make sure I have food, and pay for those few luxuries I enjoy (even though I'm making less money an hour then I was before I got fired, man OT really makes up that difference though) but I know of plenty of people who don't (close friends as well who can't aspire to be more because they can't afford to get the schooling or training to do so) so yeah. Like I said I don't bitch, no reason to because no matter how loud we bitch very little gets heard or changed for the better.

Sadly DX it's those people who will never give up those positions and when they eventually do they'll probably restructure again to deny you the position (don't know the situation or what its like to work for you're company but I know plenty of companies that will do shit like that saying the position is no longer needed and they were getting rid of it). No matter how indispensable you make yourself it rarely ever pays off because after awhile those people just keep using you to better themselves (me being fired is one of those instances, busted my ass for 10 months to make the store look better only to get fired due to allegations that I was stealing only because the person who deserved to get fired was trying to take everyone who helped her out with her (yea she got fired but took nearly the whole management team with her). The Store Manager didn't even try to defend us in the fallout, just let us take the fall so he wouldn't look bad (again a reason why I never want to be in a position of power again)).

I've known 2 people that made upwards to 6 figures for their jobs and 1 that was making easily 200k a year. Over the last 20 years, when they retired at different times from their respective jobs, each one of them found out that the person that ended up with their jobs or the equivilant of their jobs were all making roughly 40-60k instead. All these old people know they got into their jobs at the right time with guaranteed raises when they were hired. All they had to do was stick with a company for decades to reap in all the rewards. Way back when job loyalty and retention was more important so all the companies gave out pensions, guaranteed raises, company matched retirement plans, etc. No jobs nowadays offer pensions except maybe being a teacher. The US companies have taken everything they can get from the employees over the years to increase their bottom lines and over time we all got used to it... except for those old people in their comfy jobs now. The old baby boomers are a reason we have the low wages we face today as well as all the jobs shipped overseas. All the companies are paying the old baby boomers such high wages and benefits that the money has to come from somewhere other than their profits, so all new employees get paid the minimum with no benefits. Even if all those baby boomers retired now, our culture is already used to these shit wages and they wont go back up. I had a coworker that was forced into retirement about 5 years ago. He literally died the year after that. I swear all these old people want to keep working until the day they die.