[briandear]

What’s rational is that people are accepting positions at those pay rates. If you don’t want $12 per hour, go somewhere willing to pay more — even fast food pays more than that in the Bay Area. Entry level at Target pays over $15. They don’t need a union, they just need to quit and go work somewhere else. No shortages of jobs in the Bay Area— essentially everyone is hiring right now.

Why should the company be blamed when people keep lining up to work for the wages on offer?

Does anyone buying bananas at Safeway just randomly decide to pay more than the asking price? Of course not. It’s the same with companies.

[TeMPOraL]

> They don’t need a union, they just need to quit and go work somewhere else.

Not easy if you live paycheck-to-paycheck, which most such people do. Can't afford the time it takes to find a better-paying job, or more likely, retrain before searching for such a job.

[jjeaff]

Safeway is a business. Not a human being.

Just because a vulnerable person allows you to take advantage of them, doesn't make it ok.

If you can see that your employees are struggling to survive (and on $15/hr in Silicon Valley, you can about guarantee that they are) it would be in your best interest to give them a raise. But most of all, it's the human thing to do.

We don't have to live in a world where everyone is angling to squeeze every last drop from everyone else.

[DoubleCribble]

I take it you have never worked in retail because the difference would be immediately obvious.

Why work at large Bay Area tech: - Free catered breakfast, lunch and dinner - Free gourmet coffee - Free snacks - Free drinks - Free company merch: t-shirts, backpacks, jackets, tickets to events, etc. - Nice offices - Nice bathrooms

Added value per day = $75+

Why work at Target: - $3 more per hour

Added value per day = $24 (assuming 8 hour shift)

[geofft]

My question was specifically about the rationality of offering these wages, not about accepting them. Whether or not companies deserve blame for the employees taking jobs with low pay, that wasn't my question at all. My question is whether it makes sense to entrust security to people with low pay.

By your argument, it doesn't; a single well-placed argument from you can have all the security guards from Google tomorrow and someone helpful in every aisle at Target.

And I can't tell you much about bananas but in my first tech job out of college my management sat me in a room one day and said, "We think you're doing a good job so we're going to pay you more." Apparently this is called a "raise" and is not uncommon? There must be some rationality behind it, even though I've never give a so-called "raise" to a banana.

[danharaj]

Considering your comments on this point, you seem really annoyed that the bananas formed a union.

[toomuchtodo]

Wages set by the free market can be below what is necessary to survive, and it is our job as citizens to ensure public policy exists (and yes, unions) to ensure wage floors that allow people to live with dignity and without chronic stress from the fear of destitution. You don’t have to agree with this sentiment of course, that’s what votes, elections, and the ability to organize are for.

[mmirate]

> Wages set by the free market can be below what is necessary to survive

... and this conveys the fact that the work to be done, isn't considered valuable enough to support a human life.

Making these kinds of jobs illegal just puts them out-of-reach of youths and speeds up the perennially-villified yet inevitable process of automation.