WMT workers unhappy with new hire wages

[Value Buy]

Long time associates are now complaining they are not making enough money because new hires are hired in just under their hourly wage.
Some are saying they will go elsewhere.
Yeh, like they will do that.
Of course we are hearing from a member who is trying to Unionize the workers so take it with a ton of salt.

www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/fallout-from-wal-marts-pay-raise-unhappy-workers/ar-BBlrpW9

[Value Buy]

When this was first proposed we all talked about how the other workers would accept this.

[TheHaitian]

Yeah dealing with that now in Vermont Stores.

Minimum wage went from $8.75 to $9.15 this year
$9.60 next year
$10.00 in 2017
$10.50 in 2018

I have a cashier that complained that she has been here 2 years and only making $9.30 while the new hires are making $9.15.... How she feels she is being treated as their equal while she is not and feels she is more valuable then them.

She will be really pissed when next year it moves to $9.60 and she makes exactly the same as them!

[Value Buy]

Aug 6, 2015 10:57:41 GMT -5 @sroo4 said:

Did anyone post this article... I heard about it earlier this week on the radio. 



Source: Forbes Article

But the most damaging blow to the company is internal, as some of the most valuable employees at Gravity Payments have started to leave the company. The Times reported that two employees have left directly because of the policy. One told the paper she was initially excited about the new policy, but as she thought about the details she began to get dismayed. “He gave raises to people who have the least skills and are the least equipped to do the job, and the ones who were taking on the most didn’t get much of a bump.”

She said she presented the issue to Price along with an alternative way to raise salaries, but was met with an accusation of selfishness. So she decided to quit. Another employee, on the lower-end of the former pay range, also decided to quit after thinking through the policy. “Now the people who were just clocking in and out were making the same as me,” he told the Times. “It shackles high performers to less motivated team members.”

The company also lost a couple of fairly big clients recently, but No one is saying if it was due to this policy or just for business reasons.

[zibazinski]

I remember a guy I dated who was at a BIG 8 accounting firm back in the Stone Age when there was 8 telling me that new hires were paid $500 a year less than people who had been there a year. When the company was called on it because someone found out, remember salaries are hush hush so you can screw people over, the company said they had to pay the new hires more to get them! 

[Artemis Windsong]

In my town, they would be across the street getting hired in about as long as it took to realize they were getting shafted. 

The company is saying that all of your training and loyalty to us is worth nothing.  Let them pay to train a new person.  The HR probably doesn't even know what the cost of a new hire is.

Years ago where my DM worked, the company hired all of the staff form a competitor that left town at the same rate that their current employees were at.  Hard feelings were taken out on the company in a lot of innovative ways. 

[Blonde Granny]

Many years ago I was selling fine jewelry in a dept. store. I only worked part time and was originally hired @ $4.65 Hr (told you it was a long time ago). I was there about 2 years and finally made it to $5.05 per hour. I was experienced, knew my jewelry and my commission check usually exceeded my hourly check.

I think is was year 3 when they starting hiring young ladies who knew absolutely nothing of fine jewelry, and their stating salary was $6 /hr. plus commission. AND, they expected that those were experienced were going to train them. I said they can go to hell.....I chose to work the hours that were single employee only. If they wanted them trained I felt it was the job of the dept. manager, not mine.

I know precisely how these WMT employees feel.  Just another example of unintended consequences.

[Opti]

Aug 6, 2015 10:37:15 GMT -5 Value Buy said:

When this was first proposed we all talked about how the other workers would accept this.

FWIW, I never said they would all accept this. Its rare all employees accept something unless its a raise or cut in hours for the same pay. I've worked so many places that involved cutting staff, hours, and money; its hard for me to get all indignant and say everyone will walk. They usually do stuff like this when there isn't anywhere to walk to, most other employers are doing it, it is an employers market not an employees.

Still not an employees market. At least from what I can tell here, generally. Lots of people looking and applying for jobs though.

[kittensaver]

This is nothing new. Whenever you "raise the bottom" you are going to have wage compression issues. It happens at ALL levels of a salary schedule.

The problem is not with the minimum wage. The problem is with the employer who does not want (or is not smart enough) to foresee and deal proactively with wage compression inside their company. There are multiple ways of proactively dealing with this problem (the resentment and morale issues), and not all of them involve tossing money at it.

When I worked in the trenches of HR, we always understood that job #1 was to keep the employer off the front page of the newspaper (negative press). Maybe these employers feel smug because their workers have no where else to go?

[jkapp]

Aug 6, 2015 10:57:41 GMT -5 @sroo4 said:

Did anyone post this article... I heard about it earlier this week on the radio. 



Source: Forbes Article

But the most damaging blow to the company is internal, as some of the most valuable employees at Gravity Payments have started to leave the company. The Times reported that two employees have left directly because of the policy. One told the paper she was initially excited about the new policy, but as she thought about the details she began to get dismayed. “He gave raises to people who have the least skills and are the least equipped to do the job, and the ones who were taking on the most didn’t get much of a bump.”

She said she presented the issue to Price along with an alternative way to raise salaries, but was met with an accusation of selfishness. So she decided to quit. Another employee, on the lower-end of the former pay range, also decided to quit after thinking through the policy. “Now the people who were just clocking in and out were making the same as me,” he told the Times. “It shackles high performers to less motivated team members.”

Yes, but I attached it to the original thread about the $70k minimum wage...so you're good posting it here

[marvholly]

Aug 6, 2015 10:36:12 GMT -5 Value Buy said:

Long time associates are now complaining they are not making enough money because new hires are hired in just under their hourly wage.
Some are saying they will go elsewhere.
Yeh, like they will do that.
Of course we are hearing from a member who is trying to Unionize the workers so take it with a ton of salt.

www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/fallout-from-wal-marts-pay-raise-unhappy-workers/ar-BBlrpW9

Hey, if they have the skills & ability to get a better job (higher pay, better or more benefits, better working conditions, better or more hours) elsewhere more power to them. 

[Phoenix84]

Aug 6, 2015 10:50:22 GMT -5 TheHaitian said:

Yeah dealing with that now in Vermont Stores.

Minimum wage went from $8.75 to $9.15 this year
$9.60 next year
$10.00 in 2017
$10.50 in 2018

I have a cashier that complained that she has been here 2 years and only making $9.30 while the new hires are making $9.15.... How she feels she is being treated as their equal while she is not and feels she is more valuable then them.

She will be really pissed when next year it moves to $9.60 and she makes exactly the same as them!

Some people swore up and down the increase in wages wouldn't cause this, but now we know better.

I do think big wage hikes, especially up to $15 an hour are highly inflationary.  It might take a few years to "trickle down" but soon or later everyone will start to feel undervalued and businesses will have to raise their prices accordingly to pay the new wages.

[Opti]

Folks, in the end with economics, its going to be one with or the other - or a contium. Inflation is bad, Deflation is bad. High interest rates are bad, low interest rates are bad because they do x, y, and z.

No one strategy is perfect. No strategy is permanent.

[fishy999]

Businesses should raise their prices right now to pay the new wages.

[Deleted]

I used to work at RadioShack. I left the company because they wanted to pay new hires and under-performers the same as sales producing powerhouses (not to break my arm or anything... but it's a matter of corporate record that I was consistently in the top 10 of sales people for ALL stores in my region).

Over a period of the 3 years before I got fed up enough to quit, they raised the "base pay" and cut the commissions almost to the point that commissions stopped having any meaning.

Their stated reasoning for making that change? "Exit interviews of former employees show that the biggest reason for quitting was low pay."

Well... if the ones leaving are getting low pay... and pay is (well... it was... before they started screwing around with it) mostly based on commission... what do you think the reason that are getting low pay is? I say let them go and get people in that make sales, and get repeat business (creating even more sales)!

[djAdvocate]

Aug 6, 2015 10:37:15 GMT -5 Value Buy said:

When this was first proposed we all talked about how the other workers would accept this.

i never said anything of the sort.

[djAdvocate]

Aug 6, 2015 10:39:57 GMT -5 @sroo4 said:

Isn't that what happened at the company who decided to pay $70,000 to all their employees.  The higher paid ones didn't get a corresponding raise and felt undervalued?

boo hoo.

[fishy999]

Aug 6, 2015 15:54:33 GMT -5 kittensaver said:

This is nothing new. Whenever you "raise the bottom" you are going to have wage compression issues. It happens at ALL levels of a salary schedule.

The problem is not with the minimum wage. The problem is with the employer who does not want (or is not smart enough) to foresee and deal proactively with wage compression inside their company. There are multiple ways of proactively dealing with this problem (the resentment and morale issues), and not all of them involve tossing money at it.

When I worked in the trenches of HR, we always understood that job #1 was to keep the employer off the front page of the newspaper (negative press). Maybe these employers feel smug because their workers have no where else to go?

I understand and feel the resentment that will happen in some companies- but I also know that minimum wage is not the culprit in my experience.  It is nothing new for a company to pay more for new hires than their experienced workers- almost ass backwards from what the anti-union companies are doing.  I don't really understand it but I have seen the anger when it happens- when a new hire is paid more.  I guess the argument is that the company had to pay it to get someone- so why shit on the current people in that position?

I also question the union employers that have now turned their workforce into a two tiered system where no matter how you sell it- people doing the same job are being paid vastly different amounts- either someone is overpaid or underpaid.  I know I would have a hard time working as a new hire in a factory knowing the older folks had a pension and made 20K more a year.