Raise Minimum Wage? Progressive Taxes? Let the Rich Decide!

No, I'd say that taking a cut in pay is partaking in the risk. Especially when that cut takes you into the negative. A worker can just clock out and go home but an investor can not just take their money and leave. Yup, and since the floor sweeper is hardly providing a value he doesn't get much pay.

Maybe you need to replace the people who are doing the hiring. Ever hear of the Peter Principle?

We have a manufacturing plant. The kinds of jobs I'm talking about are things like stacking boxes.KPI's are pretty lacking in that field.And if people won't show up for work, I'm not sure what the hiring manager can do about it other than just hire someone else.

I'm just saying, maybe the hiring manager is careful to hire people who don't threaten his job. Hire the incompetent and the lazy and you have no upwardly-mobile competition.

Yeah, its nothing like that here. But your point is not lost.

You forgot the second half of the question: now you switch the people doing the jobs -- who gets paid more and why?If the floor sweeper is fired because the company cannot afford the expense does the salesman sweep the floor at reduced wages?A buyer comes to visit the company, sees that the floor is unswept, dirty, trash is lying around and the whole place is shabby ... he decides not to buy.A buyer comes to visit the company, sees that the floor is neatly swept, polished, trash cans are empty with fresh liners and the whole place is neat and tidy ... he decides to buy.Is not the floor sweeper, responsible for the appearance of the company, a necessary part of getting that business?The salesman just happens to be there and take the order: what did he do to get that business? The worker leaves behind his investment in time, the investor leaves behind his investment in money -- I don't see any significant difference. By "cutting their losses" each is giving up on the potential future profits. So the worker that continues to work for reduced or negative pay is taking a risk on the company turning around and showing a future profit -- no different than the investor that puts more money into the company to help it turn around. Having shared the risk should they not share in that future profit?

The salesjob is based on performance, so as long as the guy is making sales then he will get the same pay.And the pay for floor sweeping is set, so it doesn't matter who does it - they all get the same pay. The salesman doesn't even live in this state. He's regional.And their pay is based on commission, so it doesn't matter how much money the company has at the moment. Customers aren't allowed in the plant.The office is cleaned by a third party contractor - our hourly employees weren't doing a good enough job so we had to farm it out. They don't even see what the floor sweeper does, and what they do see is not done by the floor sweeper. He acquired the business by convincing the distributor to go with our products.This required not only extensive knowledge of our product line, but they have to be aware of potential distributors that can take on our products.The floor sweeper simply lacks that knowledge and awareness - of course they could be trained, but we hire salesmen that can already do their job. And we pay them based on performance. Well for one: money is tangible and time is not.I can hand you a dollar but I cannot hand you an hour.That's one of the reasons people use their hours to earn dollars. But the investor's money is already spent - the potential is had.The worker still needs to show up and work for the potential to be had. Sure, but there's no way we can fill the plant with workers that aren't getting paid. They have bills to pay.And what would you say to workers who reject your option, and just want to get paid for the work they've done and go home?What if I can find more workers who want to do it my way than who want to do it your way? I don't have a problem with sharing the profit.But you have to share the risk as well. And people just aren't willing to do that by working for free.

Actually he did squat to get the job and just wrote down the order. That's the way it was presented to you, it seems to me that you are reading a different post than what I wrote. You're not getting it, and from the way you have responded in a general non-sequitur way by making up your own scenario to answer, I don't think you will get it.Enjoy.

Oh, yeah, I wasn't describing a hypothetical situation. I'm wondering how your proposal might work in a real world scenario.I don't doubt that you can create fantasies where it works. I prefer my reality to your fantasy. If your proposal only works in your own fantasies, then yeah, I don't see the point in wasting time discussing it.

At the moment, I'm a floor sweeper in two retail stores. I make more than the sales "associates". (In my book, you're an "associate" if your office is near the boardroom; if your locker is in the lunchroom, you're an employee. Instead of a cutsie title, I'd rather have the money and just be loosely affiliated with the associates.)

Curiously what I see in your responses is your fantasy, and none of it has anything to do with the reality I have seen and know.So I see what the problem is with your responses now. Thanks for wasting my time on your nonsense.And I still have not seen any real reason for one hour of one persons life to be worth more than one hour of another persons life.If you are going to take an hour of some persons life and then say one hour of your life is worth less than one hour of mine because your job is of less value to me than mine, then you are being greedy and not appreciating\recognizing\respecting the value of not having to spend the hour yourself on the task you hire them for.The hour that the floor sweeper spends cleaning enables the salesman to spend that hour in making sales rather than sweeping the floor.It appears that you've been brainscrubbed by the standard capitalist teaching that rich people somehow deserve to be rich because of the value of their work ... and it's okay because you somehow deserve to be better off than someone working at a lower level, or the unemployed etc etc etc.Enjoy.

The only part that might have been off is that the salesman worked for just an hour. But its hard to nail down sales time, isn't it?I mean, 3 20-minute phone calls is an hour, but what about that time I spent at home in bed thinking about the best strategy for the next calls?Or what about when I'm buying the potential customer drinks at the bar after work (on the company dime of course)? Does that even count as work? Hell, I got a free meal out of it.The floor sweeper doesn't even get a cracker. How's that for not fair? From a business perspective, the difference is in how much they contribute to the bottom line. Everybody contributes a different amount. No person's hour is worth exactly the same as another. Sometimes its pretty hard to figure out a good wage for a position.How do you go about doing it?And what do you do with gross performance differences between individuals when you see everyone as being worth the same? Is that really your only point? That people who make more money are greedy? I don't agree at all. He can still go sell even when the floors aren't swept. One of my good friends in high school stayed home and partied while I went away to college. I worked my ass off and it was expensive, but I learned a hell of a lot and emerged a better person. I've got a good job with a decent salary and he is delivering pizzas. I make way more money than he does. Its not because of greed, its because I chose a different path.You still gotta play the hand you're dealt, but you have a direct impact on how much money that hand can make you. Its not always greed that drives people to improve their lives. Why are you trying to make it out that way?