Should companies be responsible for keeping people off...

[The Captain]

public assistance?

A few interesting threads lately have danced around this topic, from paying a "living wage" to retaining an employee once they go past the FMLA limit.

Do companies have a moral or social responsibility to keep people from going on welfare?

Is you answer different if it is a publically traded company vs. privately held and why?

[swamp]

Good question.

Companies only duty is to their shareholders, but it just seems wrong to me to increase profits by not paying enough so your employees still qualify for food stamps.

So, I don't know,

[Deleted]

no.....

companies are responsible to their shareholders only....

be it singular owner....or mega corporation with thousands of shareholders

employees are paid the market rate for their job.....if they need to earn more, they need to make adjustments so they are more valuable

people are responsible for themselves.....

[The Captain]

So companies are not responsible to the general public?

Or maybe I should ask the questions differently:

Are there areas where companies should be held to the same standard of public stewardship as a "reasonable" person would hold others?  I'm thinking environmental, social responsibility (even when not legally mandated such as offering benefits to same sex couples before it became a federal requirement).

For an example, before there were environmental laws was it acceptable for companies to be dumping toxic waste into the water supply?  After all, they were not responsible to the folks/fishes drinking it, only the shareholders.

I'm not sure I like the idea of companies only being responsible for maximizing profit.  I think all parties at the table have social responsibilities, just not sure how far that goes.

[swamp]

Companies are responsible for following the law as written.  If they want to go farther, more power to them.  That's up to the shareholders to approve.

[Deleted]

Sept 27, 2013 13:47:40 GMT -5 The Captain said:

So companies are not responsible to the general public?

Or maybe I should ask the questions differently:

Are there areas where companies should be held to the same standard of public stewardship as a "reasonable" person would hold others?  I'm thinking environmental, social responsibility (even when not legally mandated such as offering benefits to same sex couples before it became a federal requirement).

For an example, before there were environmental laws was it acceptable for companies to be dumping toxic waste into the water supply?  After all, they were not responsible to the folks/fishes drinking it, only the shareholders.

I'm not sure I like the idea of companies only being responsible for maximizing profit.  I think all parties at the table have social responsibilities, just not sure how far that goes.

what else do you want them to be responsible for

a. they provide jobs for the community
b. they expand the tax base
c. their employees then spend their paychecks in said same community
d. and every company i have ever worked for has it's own pet projects.....charities that the owner is passionate about, and his/her way to give back even more 

what else would you like to add to the list?

[busymom]

I think if you expect people in your community to do business with you, you'd better be paying salaries that allow them to spend their money at your business.

[zibazinski]

Some jobs, like McJobs and even Walmart/retail are not meant to provide living wages even at full time. They are meant to be supplemental income. If you choose to try to live on it, that is your issue and your problem. 

[sheilaincali]

ok so we have an employee that is basically homeless.

He originally came to us as a temporary laborer though a staffing agency.  We wondered after we noticed that his car was overflowing with stuff.  I actually thought he might be a hoarder.  We hired him from the staffing agency so he works for us.  When he was filling out his paperwork he was using a po box.  The payroll lady (my mom) said she needed a physical address for one of the reportings we do.  He said he didn't have one but that he was sure his soon to be ex would let him still receive mail at her house.

That's when we really started to realize that he might just be homeless or couch surfing.  He's an adult- 40's I would guess.  From what I can piece together his wife kicked him out and he couldn't afford to rent a place (this was before he started working for us through the temp agency).  He makes the same as all of our other employees at his skill level ($12/hour).  They are working 50 to 60 hours a week.  Rents in our town are inflated because we are a college town but if he is willing to drive even 15 minutes he can rent a small house for around 30% of his salary. 

Between the two companies we provide jobs for over 50 people.  The vast majority of them are married and most also have kids.  All but maybe 10 to 15 are homeowners.  One is learning disabled and lives at home with his parents (he is 35) and one rents an apartment in his sister's house (but that's because he is too lazy to cook and clean for himself).  The other 8 to 13 are young (early 20's) 3 or 4 are in college too so they rent with friends.

a.  We provide jobs for the community
b.  We buy the bulks of our raw materials locally and hire local companies for our trucking and maintenance needs.
c.  We are active in the community- we have donated materials to the Veteran's Memorial, every silent auction that goes on in our area, have been a corporate sponsor of the Relay for Life for the past decade, donated all of the block to the recent addition to the Echo Food Shelf and a dozen more things I'm sure I'm forgetting.

Is it our fault that one guy is homeless?  IDK- he was homeless before us so when he stops being homeless that will be directly thanks to the job he has with us.

[zibazinski]

You have no clue as to how expensive it is to purchase and run a McDonalds franchise. Other than the two managers, no one is full time-ever. It isn't meant to be full time jobs-ever. Why would anyone ever think that?

[Deleted]

Sept 27, 2013 14:11:00 GMT -5 @tbird said:

Sept 27, 2013 14:03:42 GMT -5 zibazinski said:

Some jobs, like McJobs and even Walmart/retail are not meant to provide living wages even at full time. They are meant to be supplemental income. If you choose to try to live on it, that is your issue and your problem. 

No - they were meant to enrich the owner while the FT employees depend on the government for half their keep.

so all the mom and pop stores in your town/city all pay $ 12-15 hour right?

the local diner pays that

the local burger joint.....

the local barber shop.....

the local hardware store pays it too

oooh...dont forget the pet shop

why dont you check with all of them

see what rates they pay their employees....what they start at, and how many are under that magic $ 12 hour rate

some of you are so intent on what mcdonalds and walmart pay....why? because they are mega conglomerates?

because they actually make a profit at corporate?

i dont get it.....

[phil5185]

I'm not sure I like the idea of companies only being responsible for maximizing profit. I think all parties at the table have social responsibilities, just not sure how far that goes.

In the longterm, having good social responsibilities is the same as maximizing profit.  A company that pollutes (to facilitate a shortterm profit) usually fails in the longterm by the forces of the Free Market - ie, people quit buying their products.

In these day of the anti-business high cynicism climate, the distrust between the public & business (altho, again, they are the same - most of the public is a part of a corporation) makes it ever harder to build an understanding of co-responsibility).

Companies that pay well retain high quality loyal workers - and ultimately their payroll costs are lower than the company that has continuous turnover (high training costs, high HR costs, high losses due to low experience levels, costs due to errors/rework, product returns). 

[Deleted]

ok

so you want companies treated differently....isnt that discrimination?

which companies should we change the rules for.....

at what % of profit do the rules for all get thrown out the window, and rules for the few get used

or is it a dollar amount of profit that you deem to be out of line?

you tell me....what rules do you want them to go by.....because apparently the federal rules arent good enough

[Miss Tequila]

Sept 27, 2013 14:04:16 GMT -5 @tbird said:

Sept 27, 2013 13:33:02 GMT -5 The Captain said:

public assistance?

A few interesting threads lately have danced around this topic, from paying a "living wage" to retaining an employee once they go past the FMLA limit.

Do companies have a moral or social responsibility to keep people from going on welfare?

Is you answer different if it is a publically traded company vs. privately held and why?

No one ever said anything about about retaining an employee past FMLA limit. The comment concerned "he was a great employee but he was terminated because his cancer treatment cost 400k" - and they would not hire back this "great employee" because the remission may not last.

He didn't have cancer....Some kind of weird ass disease that attacks his organs. I can't say I understand the specifics becuase it has been years...he had a write-up in the paper which explained what he had (ironcially, I think that was the nail in his coffin because in the article it was disclosed that he is at a fair risk of it returning)

[Miss Tequila]

Sept 27, 2013 14:11:00 GMT -5 @tbird said:

Sept 27, 2013 14:03:42 GMT -5 zibazinski said:

Some jobs, like McJobs and even Walmart/retail are not meant to provide living wages even at full time. They are meant to be supplemental income. If you choose to try to live on it, that is your issue and your problem. 

No - they were meant to enrich the owner while the FT employees depend on the government for half their keep.

If they don't like the wages they get at McJobs or Walmart here is a novel idea, don't work at McJobs or Walmart!  It really isn't that difficult of a concept.  The issue is that McjObs and Walmart are paying market rates for the positions.  If tehy weren't, they wouldn't be able to get people to work there. 

What happens if you force the profitable companies to double their hourly rates...are all of those small companies that are barely making it going to be forced to increase their rates?  Why isn't anyone hating on teh small stores?  When Dark is open and needs to hire some workers, should he pay double the minimum wage for his area?  Where do we draw teh line?

[Miss Tequila]

Sept 27, 2013 15:12:17 GMT -5 @tbird said:

Sept 27, 2013 15:07:50 GMT -5 Miss Tequila said:

If they don't like the wages they get at McJobs or Walmart here is a novel idea, don't work at McJobs or Walmart!  It really isn't that difficult of a concept.  The issue is that McjObs and Walmart are paying market rates for the positions.  If tehy weren't, they wouldn't be able to get people to work there. 

What happens if you force the profitable companies to double their hourly rates...are all of those small companies that are barely making it going to be forced to increase their rates?  Why isn't anyone hating on teh small stores?  When Dark is open and needs to hire some workers, should he pay double the minimum wage for his area?  Where do we draw teh line?

Are you a free market believer? Do you not mind 1.3B in handouts to the walmart workforce per year while the fortune amassed by the owners is 130B?

Can you not see the funneling of your and mine tax dollars into the walmart wealth via the subsidation of their workforce?

I will answer yours if you answer mine.  You are only looking at the profit of a company to determine what their employees should get paid.  If there is a WalMart around Dark's store, should Dark be held to paying the same salaries that you think WalMart should pay?  If so, you are going to tank the mom and pop stores.  Then again, who is going to want to work at the mom and pop stores if they are payinig significantly less than WalMart?

How many handouts to the employees of the mom and pop stores get? 

I will never agree that the salary paid to employees should be some calculation of the company's income.  Either we raise the minimum wage on EVERYONE or on no one. 

[Deleted]

yes...i totally believe in a free market

that is why so many people work and buy crap at walmart

they work there because they want an air conditioned job that isnt messy, nor hard.....so they earn a minimum type of pay

they then use that minimum pay to buy all the chinese crap that Walmart sells

if they want more money, they can change jobs, learn new skills, etc

same for Mcdonalds....they earn crappy wages for a crappy job

you need little if any skills to get a job at either of these companies

same with burger king, taco bell, kfc, pizza hut, and a thousand others

other than the management positions, most of those jobs were meant to be filled by high school kids, and senior citizens

high school kids to learn what work is....and to earn a few bucks along the way

senior citizens to give them something to do, and to supplement their incomes

this isnt news.....this has been this way since the chains opened

[haapai]

I thought about this a lot when the gal that trained me (a single mother of two who had been working full-time for over two years) let me know that she was still getting at least some SNAP benefits. 

I was pretty angry, and definitely not at her.  I was angry at the company.  The job was tough, definitely not something that a cognitively disabled person could pull off, and the company had never been successful at hiring enough part-time workers to get the job done or managing them well enough to get the job done.

Full-time employees were the backbone of the company but they weren't paid enough to even get off SNAP, much less pay for their own health insurance or their kids'. 

The kids might be a red herring here.  I had the same job and probably wasn't making enough to support myself and my $5K car until the third or fourth year. 

You work a little differently when you think of your company as a meat grinder that grabs ahold of people and works them until their cars stop working. 

[JustLurkin]

Sept 27, 2013 14:14:04 GMT -5 sheilaincali said:

ok so we have an employee that is basically homeless. 

The payroll lady (my mom) said she needed a physical address for one of the reportings we do.  He said he didn't have one but that he was sure his soon to be ex would let him still receive mail at her house.

What if he had left it at "I don't have one."?

I'm new to my company and we had an "important survey" they kept asking new employees to do.  When I finally did it, it was basically 2 questions, something like "Have you been on public assistance during the past 12 months?  If so, has your employment here assisted you in coming off the public assistance?"  IDK what the survey was for.

[Gardening Grandma]

Doing right by shareholders and paying decent wages are not mutually exclusive.  Costco, Starbucks, Nordstron  and Fred Meyer are good examples.

Walmart profits on the backs of the taxpayers.

[Deleted]

a lot of these jobs will not be around in 5-10 years

self checkout at stores is almost a norm now.....cashiers are going bye bye

machines will replace order takers at mcdonalds, etc where you punch in what you want, swipe your card, and then someone brings you your food

as wages go up, these menial task jobs will be replaced by machines

and then what will the high school dropouts, and the low skill employees do?

it will get worse for them.....

and the number of people that need the government to help them survive will just increase

and profits are those places will grow even more.....

i see it coming.....

[formerroomate99]

Sept 27, 2013 15:12:17 GMT -5 @tbird said:

Sept 27, 2013 15:07:50 GMT -5 Miss Tequila said:

If they don't like the wages they get at McJobs or Walmart here is a novel idea, don't work at McJobs or Walmart!  It really isn't that difficult of a concept.  The issue is that McjObs and Walmart are paying market rates for the positions.  If tehy weren't, they wouldn't be able to get people to work there. 

What happens if you force the profitable companies to double their hourly rates...are all of those small companies that are barely making it going to be forced to increase their rates?  Why isn't anyone hating on teh small stores?  When Dark is open and needs to hire some workers, should he pay double the minimum wage for his area?  Where do we draw teh line?

Are you a free market believer? Do you not mind 1.3B in handouts to the walmart workforce per year while the fortune amassed by the owners is 130B?

Can you not see the funneling of your and mine tax dollars into the walmart wealth via the subsidation of their workforce?

I'm wondering why you insist on linking these two unrelated issues.  Nobody is forcing full grown adults to try and support a household on jobs a pimply faced teenager can do.  If adults who have bills to pay choose not to do what it takes to get a self supporting job, it is their responsibility, not Walmart's.  Our modern welfare system was created long before anybody heard of Walmart.  The only reason those folks are even working at Walmart instead of sitting on their asses at home is because we did welfare reform.  So instead of bashing Walmart, you should be thanking your lucky stars that somebody is actually willing to employ these people. 

[sheilaincali]

Justlurkin- I have honestly no clue what she would have done.  Probably used the company's physical address?  IDK.  We've never had anyone not have a physical address before.

[Formerly SK]

Conversations like this sadden me.  If we didn't outsource so many of our jobs we wouldn't have to bicker so much about whether Job A should pay X amount or not.  The fact is, as long as it is cheaper to employ people oversees, companies will do so.  Govt could easily rectify this by making it more expensive to do so (for example, say wages paid overseas are not deductible or something).  Or perhaps we could say that if you institute some technological advancement that will eliminate 10% of your workforce, there will be a tax to offset that cost to society.  It's no different than taxing companies who pollute.  If we didn't, companies would their crap in the water to save a penny. 

If jobs return, bickering ends.

There's something seriously wrong when 200 people apply for a receptionist job paying $10/hr that requires a college degree.  The company offering the job isn't immoral, even if the person who gets it ends up with food stamps because it doesn't pay a living wage.  The problem is our system:  too many people want to work and too few jobs.

Business is amoral.  If we want a more "moral" system we need to design it so that "moral" decisions are financially superior.  Businesses will do what makes them money, and rightly so. 

[justme]

Third, take a look at monetary policy, QE3. This was meant to stimulate the economy by driving asset prices up. But it's the rich people who own the assets. Manhattan is a perfect example. Manhattan apartments, Hamptons houses, stock prices have all gone higher. We've all gotten richer! We need to recognize it. Maybe the Fed should expand its mandate to direct lending to small and medium-size companies as opposed to QE forever.

I need a head scratching emoticon. The purpose of all the QEs were to increase the money supply. With the thought being that if you increase the supply of money there will be more money around, so companies will hire new people, people will have all this money, and then spend the money which then the economy improves. Which all vastly underestimates what motivates companies to hire new people, that the banks (because that was their thoroughfare of getting the cash to the people) wouldn't be worried about their own solvency after the house market crash, and that inflation is just a load of crock and increasing the money supply won't effect inflation (which they teach in macro 101 that it does).

[Formerly SK]

Sept 27, 2013 16:05:12 GMT -5 @tbird said:

Sept 27, 2013 15:59:19 GMT -5 Formerly SK said:

Conversations like this sadden me.  If we didn't outsource so many of our jobs we wouldn't have to bicker so much about whether Job A should pay X amount or not.  The fact is, as long as it is cheaper to employ people oversees, companies will do so.  Govt could easily rectify this by making it more expensive to do so (for example, say wages paid overseas are not deductible or something).  Or perhaps we could say that if you institute some technological advancement that will eliminate 10% of your workforce, there will be a tax to offset that cost to society.  

no - that is a really bad idea - it would stiffle innovation and is the kind of thinking that killed the auto industry in detroit, and thus the city itself.

I see your point, but the alternative is a huge underclass supported by taxes on profits earned through that innovation.  Either way we pay. 

[Miss Tequila]

Sept 27, 2013 15:59:19 GMT -5 Formerly SK said:

Conversations like this sadden me.  If we didn't outsource so many of our jobs we wouldn't have to bicker so much about whether Job A should pay X amount or not.  The fact is, as long as it is cheaper to employ people oversees, companies will do so.  Govt could easily rectify this by making it more expensive to do so (for example, say wages paid overseas are not deductible or something).  Or perhaps we could say that if you institute some technological advancement that will eliminate 10% of your workforce, there will be a tax to offset that cost to society. 

Say what?  So companies should never strive to become more efficient?  That is crazy...I don't want to live in a world where we continue to do things the same old way because if we become more efficient the government will tax us for it! 

[justme]

Sept 27, 2013 15:59:19 GMT -5 Formerly SK said:

Conversations like this sadden me.  If we didn't outsource so many of our jobs we wouldn't have to bicker so much about whether Job A should pay X amount or not.  The fact is, as long as it is cheaper to employ people oversees, companies will do so.  Govt could easily rectify this by making it more expensive to do so (for example, say wages paid overseas are not deductible or something).  Or perhaps we could say that if you institute some technological advancement that will eliminate 10% of your workforce, there will be a tax to offset that cost to society.  It's no different than taxing companies who pollute.  If we didn't, companies would their crap in the water to save a penny. 

If jobs return, bickering ends.

There's something seriously wrong when 200 people apply for a receptionist job paying $10/hr that requires a college degree.  The company offering the job isn't immoral, even if the person who gets it ends up with food stamps because it doesn't pay a living wage.  The problem is our system:  too many people want to work and too few jobs.

Business is amoral.  If we want a more "moral" system we need to design it so that "moral" decisions are financially superior.  Businesses will do what makes them money, and rightly so. 

The first part is a damn easy way to get a whole lot of American companies to no longer be American. They already easily react to changes in taxation. That's also ignoring that there a number of foreign companies that employ Americans in America, pretty sure them and their countries won't like America tell him how to run outside things.

The second part - yea...good luck quantifying how much of the workforce is eliminated. And after you implement that, good luck having any technological advances by an American company. I see Apple setting up headquarters in China and taking it's 25+% profit with it.


The thing that I don't get is most of the companies that people attack have lower profit margins, but since their revenue is high if you look at the number and not the percent they're greedy little bastards. Yet all the hipsters and environmentalists LOVE Apple even though they're paying shit wages in China - almost amounting to slave labor if you read some articles, and raking in around 25% profit. But Walmart is the bad guy even though their profit as a percent is less than Apple's.

[Miss Tequila]

Sept 27, 2013 16:14:26 GMT -5 @tbird said:

Sept 27, 2013 16:12:56 GMT -5 Miss Tequila said:

Say what?  So companies should never strive to become more efficient?  That is crazy...I don't want to live in a world where we continue to do things the same old way because if we become more efficient the government will tax us for it! 

we'ver already resolved that idea....


do try to keep up.

Sigh...it's not easy to keep up AND try to get my work done!

[Deleted]

Sept 27, 2013 15:34:55 GMT -5 Gardening Grandma said:

Doing right by shareholders and paying decent wages are not mutually exclusive.  Costco, Starbucks, Nordstron  and Fred Meyer are good examples.

Walmart profits on the backs of the taxpayers.

you are comparing Nordstrom with Walmart?

now that is funny

i will have to look at rest....but damn

Nordstrom and Walmart in the same sentence.....my wife will never believe it.....