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With the Seattle City Council meeting today to discuss (and possibly vote on) the proposed $15 minimum wage ordinance, I thought it useful to take a moment to drill down to the heart of the problem with a training wage: It disempowers workers by imposing a monetary penalty on those who choose to change jobs.

Think about it. Most fast food employees work multiple part-time jobs, so it might take four to six months (or even longer) to work through their training wage hours at each employer. But let’s say they are unhappy with their manager, or find another minimum wage job closer to home—switching jobs would restart their training wage clock to zero. That means another four to six months (or longer) of sub-minimum wage.

Employers know that. They know that after putting in their training wage time, employees will be loath to take a 25 percent pay cut for the privilege of working someplace else. This would shift the already lopsided balance of power in the employment relationship even more in favor of the employer. And if there wasn’t already such a large balance of power disparity, a minimum wage wouldn’t be necessary in the first place.

The fact is, it’s not really a training wage. Most minimum wage hires aren’t like apprentice plumbers or electricians, learning a new and complicated craft. They are service workers, largely in the restaurant, hospitality, and retail industry, who have prior experience doing the same work. It’s not like manning a drive-thru window at McDonald’s is all that much different from manning a drive-thru window at Burger King. Yet every new hire could be paid a “training wage” regardless of their real-world work experience.

A training wage serves as an artificial disincentive to labor mobility, and as such distorts the labor market in favor of the employer.

If you could effectively target a training wage to those few new hires with no relevant work experience, then that might be a different story. But you can’t. So in an industry with up to 200 percent annual turnover, it just makes no sense to financially penalize workers every time they change jobs.

 

– I’m not sure at what point we should just fire everyone in SPD who can’t follow the use of force policies.

– I didn’t even realize Tacoma Link not being free was on the table, but it’s nice to see businesses stepping up.

– Saying that women have put you in the friend zone implies that even a little non-sexytime time spent around women is tortuous. It implies that spending time around women, just talking to them or listening to them is time wasted. It implies that women are not women–not potentially interesting friends or colleagues, but sex robots who’ve granted or denied you permission to insert your girder.

– Today in Sally Clark is such a problem, Sally Clark is such a problem.

– Missing your bus stop is the worst.

The cheap labor capitalists on the Seattle Times editorial board are at it again:

THE comedian Louis C.K. has a brilliant rant about an airline passenger who bemoans problems with in-flight Internet. As Louis C.K. said, grumping about the airline Wi-Fi ignores the miracle of flight itself. “Everyone on every plane should just constantly be going, ‘Oh my God! Wow!’ You’re flying! You’re sitting in a chair, in the sky!”

We should all be impressed that the new generation of editors at this genteel family newspaper are young and hip enough to enjoy foul-mouthed Louis C.K.. Good for them. Though to be fair, from a consumer perspective, the airlines do suck way more than they have to, and as a technology, flying is no more magical than, say, electricity. So this is far from one of the comedian’s more brilliant rants.

Advocates pushing for a $15 minimum-wage are at a similar moment. The Seattle City Council, with backing from Mayor Ed Murray, is racing toward a radical economic policy that would have been unthinkable even a year ago.

Um, it was very thinkable even a year ago. In fact, a year ago, Kshama Sawant was running on a $15 minimum wage as the centerpiece of her insurgent Seattle City Council race at the same time organized labor was running a $15 minimum wage initiative in nearby SeaTac. And both of them won! That’s the very definition of “thinkable.” So I’m not sure why we should use the editors’ year-old paucity of imagination as an argument for watering down the measure now.

Yet Councilmember Kshama Sawant, and some of her allies in labor, are grumping about proposals to make this radical policy slightly more palatable for the business community.

“Grumping?” Really? Are they really equating defending the interests of working people with being grumpy? Maybe if Sawant just took a nap or something she’d stop sulking over efforts to pay teens and immigrants a sub-minimum wage… is that what the editors are implying? Remember: pro-worker = grumpy, pro-business = well rested! Way to infantilize the colored woman on the council, Seattle Times!

At the City Council’s first hearing on Murray’s $15 proposal last week, other council members pondered allowing a sub-minimum wage for 16- and 17-year-olds, as well as allowing a lower wage for a month or two of training.

Huh. How curiously nonspecific. A few paragraphs later the editors claim the sub-minimum wage is “usually defined as 85 percent of the standard wage,” but that’s not what state senate Republicans proposed last session. Their business-backed bill would have paid a training wage of 75 percent of the standard wage for the first 680 hours of work. That’s about four months of full time work. But as I explained at the time, it would pretty much mean that a college student working a part-time job would never earn the standard minimum wage.

Also screwed by a training wage would be every worker in high turnover industries like fast food and chain retail where annual turnover rates range up to 200 percent. With the typical worker getting no more than 30-hours a week, these jobs might never pay the full minimum wage. Which of course, is exactly the point.

The training wage idea is strongly backed by micro-businesses in Seattle’s ethnic minority community to facilitating training of new immigrants with limited English.

Except, the fact is, these ethnic minority owned “micro-businesses” (again, intentionally vague and nonspecific) are almost exclusively hiring immigrants from the same ethnic minority community. They speak the same language. So how exactly does paying them less money “facilitate” anything but poverty?

The teen wage idea acknowledges that employment rates for workers aged 16 to 19 in the Puget Sound have fallen by half since 2000, according to the Brookings Institution.

First, there is no correlation between teen employment and the minimum wage. None. Second, teen employment has fallen dramatically everywhere in the US since 2000, as our ever crappier economy has forced more and more adults into minimum wage jobs. What would the editors prefer—that a 26-year-old single mother lose her job so that her employer can pay a 16-year-old 25 percent less?

In response, Sawant said a lower minimum wage for teens means “condemning those low-wage workers to not having the best start in life.”

Sawant said, “The whole idea of $15 is to go forward. A training wage takes it backward.”

What’s missing from that analysis is this fact: Those earning a training wage would make slightly less than what would be the highest minimum wage of any city in the country.

And what’s missing from the Seattle Times analysis is the fact that the precedent of a training wage in Seattle would be seized upon by Republicans in Olympia (and some cheap-labor Democratic collaborators) as an opportunity to create a training wage statewide, cutting the already stagnant wages of tens of thousands of Washingtonians.

It may be an unwelcome burden to some, but Seattle’s $15 minimum wage ordinance is setting an example for the state and the nation. What we do here will surely influence what lawmakers do elsewhere. And that is what Sawant is talking about when she astutely warns that “a training wage takes it backward.”

Under Murray’s proposal, Seattle’s minimum wage would be more than $18 an hour by 2025 — $6 more than what the state minimum wage, which automatically rises with inflation, would be. Even with a subminimum wage — usually defined as 85 percent of the standard wage — teens and trainees would be making more than $15 an hour.

Okay, now the editors are just pulling numbers out of their collective ass, guessing at the training wage discount, mixing 2025 dollars with 2014 dollars in the same paragraph, and willfully inflating the inflation rate for maximum effect. By the same logic, we could just argue for leaving Seattle’s minimum wage law unchanged, because the status quo would have all workers making at least $15 an hour by 2034! Hooray!

The Seattle City Council should allow both. That would not make the council sellouts to business. It would acknowledge that Seattle is about to take off on a flight unfathomable just a year ago.

Again, it’s only “unfathomable” if you are totally out of touch with the will of Seattle voters.

Furthermore, sub-minimum teen and training wages are unacceptable to Sawant and organized labor not because they are “grumpy,” but because it would create a wage-stealing loophole big enough to drive a Walmart delivery truck through. Study after study finds that low-wage workers are routinely cheated, and these sub-minimum wage loopholes are nothing if not a recipe for cheating workers.

And finally, let’s be clear about what this teen and training wage proposal is really about. It’s not about accommodating immigrant-owned micro-businesses. It’s about destroying the delicate compromise worked out by the mayor’s Income Inequality Advisory Committee—a compromise that already takes 11 years to phase all workers in to what would be the equivalent of only $14.50 an hour in today’s dollars. Tack on a subminimum teen and training wage, and that whole deal falls apart.

Which I’m guessing is what the Seattle Times editorial board wants. Because I suppose it’s unthinkable to them that the far less business friendly $15 Now initiative could possibly pass.

– Public Internet is the fight of the future.

– Maybe it has something to do with the Memorial Day weekend or a rainy day after a long spell of nice weather, but there have been an outrageous number of serious traffic collisions in Seattle and around Washington State in the past day. Here’s just a sample:

– Shorter Commissioner Tom Mielke: We have to keep arresting people for marijuana related crimes because we don’t want additional policing. (h/t on the article)

– Mars Hill is such a problem (h/t)

– Solar Tax Quacks

– Here’s Some Real Talk: ‘If Gay Guys Said the Shit Straight People Say’

Well, duh…

Again, I applaud Seattle City Council member Tim Burgess for the admirable work he’s done pushing this issue forward. But I still find it a little stunning that it took this long for our local electeds to realize what a winning political issue this is.

No doubt support wouldn’t quite be this strong statewide, as the “why should I pay to educate your kids?” crowd is a bit stronger in the red counties (not to mention the “universal preschool is a government plot to indoctrinate our kids” loonies). But dollars to donuts support would be north of 65 percent, and by statewide standards that’s a landslide. So if I were Jay Inslee I’d seriously think about running on universal preschool in 2016.

How many more people have to die before Washington Post critic Anne Hornaday strikes again?

How many students watch outsized frat-boy fantasies like “Neighbors” and feel, as Rodger did, unjustly shut out of college life that should be full of “sex and fun and pleasure”? How many men, raised on a steady diet of Judd Apatow comedies in which the shlubby arrested adolescent always gets the girl, find that those happy endings constantly elude them and conclude, “It’s not fair”?

Movies may not reflect reality, but they powerfully condition what we desire, expect and feel we deserve from it. The myths that movies have been selling us become even more palpable at a time when spectators become their own auteurs and stars on YouTube, Instagram and Vine. If our cinematic grammar is one of violence, sexual conquest and macho swagger — thanks to male studio executives who green-light projects according to their own pathetic predilections — no one should be surprised when those impulses take luridly literal form in the culture at large.

I mean, if Hornaday can make an argument for blaming Elliot Rodger’s tragic murder spree on “the toxic double helix of insecurity and entitlement that comprises Hollywood’s DNA,” then I can certainly make a go at blaming such tragedies on dangerously complicit commentary that totally ignores the role of, you know, the gun.

Rodger reportedly stabbed to death his two roommates and a guest at his apartment, and then shot to death two women and a man before turning the gun on himself.

I’m not saying that Hornaday doesn’t have any valid points about sexism in Hollywood, and she does at least make a nod to the role of mental illness in this tragedy. But she doesn’t even mention the role of the gun, or the role of our nation’s stupidly dangerous gun culture. And in that sense she helps contribute to the enabling of future such tragedies.

The Seattle Times has a feature on 82-year-old Al Ramey, who’s been driving Metro buses for 61 years, making him the longest tenured transit driver in the nation. Which is great, and all. But this particular section jumped out at me:

At age 82, he continues to drive one daily round-trip on the popular Route 150, connecting Kent, Southcenter, Sodo and downtown Seattle.

The longtime Burien resident officially retired in 2000, and currently receives a $2,795 monthly pension, records say. Ramey says his extra income from part-time driving pays for vacation cruises with his wife.

“And I’m not a sit-at-home guy,” he says.

So, if he’s been driving for 61 years, and he officially retired in 2000, that means he’s getting only $2,795 a month in pension benefits after 47 years of full-time service? That seems curiously out of line with the allegedly sky-high pay and extravagant benefits on which the paper’s editorial board disingenuously pins all of Metro’s financial problems.

Surely, $2,795 a month isn’t too much to ask in return for a half-century of driving a bus. Doesn’t sound extravagant to me.

(And as to the inevitable comments in the thread about double-dipping or something, Metro couldn’t operate its peak service without part-time drivers. If it’s not Ramey behind the wheel, it’ll be somebody else.)

 

It’s happening again. The Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally is holding its weekly gathering for an evening of politics over a pint.

Please join us tonight and every Tuesday at the Roanoke Park Place Tavern, 2409 10th Ave E, Seattle. The starting time is 8:00 pm, but some folks show up before that for dinner.

Can’t make it to Seattle? Check out another Washington state DL over the next week. They’re everywhere! The Tri-Cities chapter also meets this and every Tuesday night. On Wednesday, the Bellingham and Burien chapters meet. And next Monday, the Yakima, South Bellevue and Olympia chapters meet.

With 207 chapters of Living Liberally, including nineteen in Washington state, four in Oregon, and three more in Idaho, chances are excellent there’s a chapter meeting somewhere near you.

It is an irony that a nation that makes such a show of celebrating its war dead does such a crappy job of taking care of our war living. The real scandal is not that the Veterans Administration has failed to do better with the limited resources it has, but that we spent so lavishly sending armed forces to fight wars in Afghanistan and Iraq with so little thought to how we would take care of these veterans upon their return.

Remember all those hundreds of billions of dollars in additional appropriations that were routinely passed during the Iraq war with very little congressional debate (because to question it would have appeared unpatriotic and anti-troops)? That’s the sort of attitude our lawmakers need toward VA funding if we’re going to adequately take care of our veterans over the next several decades.

Last week’s contest was won by zzippy. It was Kahului, HI.

This week’s is triple the fun, three locations that were in the news in May, good luck!

Yes, yes, and double yes:

IF public policy were based just on what we know works, universal pre-kindergarten education would already be the law of the land. The public duty to educate children would not, magically, kick in at age 5 for kindergarten. High-quality preschool would be a foundation for school readiness, leveling academic disparities across race and income lines.

But such a utopia is not to be found. The Washington Legislature is moving, slowly, in that direction; Congress, less so. Cities have begun to redefine the public duty to the tiniest of students. That is why the City of Seattle’s proposal for a universal, high-quality preschool experiment seems promising.

At the risk of sounding ungracious, my own complaint with the Seattle Times editorial board on universal preschool is that they didn’t take the lead on it sooner. For all their strong words in favor of charter schools, increased testing, and other so called “reforms,” high quality early learning is the only educational reform absolutely proven to work. If the editorial board had focused more on improving education and less on busting the teachers unions, perhaps Seattle might have moved toward universal preschool a couple years sooner.

Genesis 6:6-7
The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. So the LORD said, “I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth—men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air—for I am grieved that I have made them.”

Discuss.

Jonathan Mann: The Arctic is melting.

ONN: The Onion Week in Review.

Chris Hayes: Fox’s “ace” “criminal-reporter” James O’Keefe’s BUSTED on latest bogus claim:

Sam Seder and Cliff Schecter: Is Mitch McConnell about to lose reelection?.

David Pakman: Right-winger, Dinesh D’Souza, pleads guilty to felony.

Mental Floss: 47 charming facts about children’s books.

Refining Marriage:

• Sam Seder: Judge strikes down same sex marriage ban in Oregon.
• Richard Fowler: Gay marriage backers win out in Pennsylvania.
• Ann Telnaes: The evolution of marriage.
• WaPo: Philly celebrates ruling against same-sex marriage ban.

Adam Carolla for President.

Thom: The birth of the Kochtopus.

FCC responds to net neutrality ruling.

David Pakman: Ex-Christie aide says Christie was told about Bridgegate plans.

Thom: If the fast food industry can’t pay its workers a living wage, then it has no business doing business in America.

Young Turks: Rush Limbaugh deaf, dumb, and colorblind?

Macklemore than Meets the Eye?

• Newsy: Anti-Semitic stereotype or harmless fun?
• David Pakman: Macklemore dresses up as offensive Jewish caricature.
• Young Turks: Macklemore “Jewish” costume, is he stupid, racist or both?

Jon on the NRA’s opposition to smart guns.

Sam Seder: (Wheel of Fortune’s) Pat Sajak is a climate change denying nutburger.

WaPo: The music of the civil rights movement.

Mark Fiore: AntiTrust Us!

Dept. of Veterans Affairs Cover-up:

• Jon slams GOP for VA scandal hypocrisy.
• Young Turks: Rush Limbaugh deaf, dumb, and colorblind?
  ‘>Bill-O challenges Rove on VA care
• Young Turks: VA Scandal explained

Chris Hayes: “Repeal The World”, the Teabagger’s Kamikaze platform.

David Pakman: The most sickening political stunt of the year.

Ed: Pat Sajak’s “wheel of climate denial”.

White House: West Wing Week.

Sharpton: A ‘kinder’ GOP unveils new mean manifesto to roll back America 50 years.

Sam Seder and Cliff Schecter: Is PA about to elect their most Progressive governor ever?

Jake Tapper’s political cartoons.

Kimmel: This week in unnecessary censorship.

Some Yahoo Named Yoho:

• Sam Seder: Wingnutburger Ted Yoho (R-FL), “Only property owners should be able to vote.”
• Sharpton: Republican Ted Yoho suggests only ‘property owners’ should vote!.

Jorge Ramos: Latinos will remember GOP racism on immigration in 2014 & 2016.

Ed: The GOP’s lies and misinformation about the U.S. Postal Service.

Thom: Sarah Palin’s death panels:

Jon: The Tea Party’s new host.

Maddow: Majority leader Eric Cantor abandons immigration reform. I.
Maddow: Majority leader Eric Cantor abandons immigration reform. II.

Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.

In the last week I was on the same bus as an old co-blogger from an earlier blog, I saw a writer of a blog I used to read back in the day and who was a Drinking Liberally regular at the Columbia City Farmer’s Market, and randomly bumped into another friend — who isn’t associated with politics or blogging — while out walking. That’s more than most weeks, sure, but it’s hardly uncommon. And I wonder what it is about Seattle (and me) that makes that sort of thing happen.

Part of it is simply that I’ve lived in the area for a long time so the number of people to accidentally run into is higher. But part of it is Seattle. I ran into those people on transit or on foot, and the city and county have invested a lot of money in those things. Of course, the primary reason for those investments is to get people around, but it’s a nice side effect to run into people you know.

I don’t really think of it as a suburban thing.* When I lived in suburbia (both growing up without a car and as an adult with one) there were a few places where you would see people. So at a coffee shop, a restaurant, a bar, or even the Post Office, you would run into a bunch of other people also there for the coffee shop, restaurant, bar or post office. But not as much out and about or commuting.

[Read more…]

Seattle City Council members are being lobbied hard by a group of immigrant and minority small business owners—mostly Asian—fighting to weaken the city’s proposed $15 minimum wage ordinance. So I just thought I’d take a moment to drill down to the core of their argument and remind council members that there is nothing particularly noble nor rational about defending the rights of immigrant business owners to pay poverty wages to immigrant workers.

And that’s basically what these immigrant business owners are demanding.

I suppose somewhere in the ID there might be a white suburban teenager busing tables or washing dishes or stocking shelves, but we all know that’s not the workforce we’re talking about here. Whereas minimum wage workers in general are disproportionately people of color, minimum wage workers at immigrant owned small businesses are almost entirely so. Thus any concession we make to immigrant business owners largely comes at the expense of their immigrant workers.

Yes, I know, this is a nation that was largely built on the backs of cheap immigrant (and slave) labor. And many of these immigrant business owners worked crappy, poverty-wage jobs themselves when they first came to this country. They were exploited when they first arrived, and now it’s their turn to do the exploiting. It’s the American way. Hooray!

But that doesn’t make it right.

Besides, the same economic arguments that apply to other businesses apply to immigrant owned ones as well. The personal stories of the owners may be more compelling than that of the guys my ex-colleagues at The Stranger have pimped for, but the economics are no different. Some immigrant owned businesses might struggle to pay their workers $15 an hour. Some might lay off workers. Some might move out of the city. Some might close up shop. But most will figure out a way to adjust and to thrive. Because that’s the American way too.