Baldimo wrote:Cycloptichorn wrote:Baldimo wrote:Walter Hinteler wrote:Baldimo wrote:Paying someone who has no skills and works at Burger King or McDonalds more then $6.00 hr makes no sense.
Those get here $8.80 - but usually don't work more than 60 hours per month.
Don't know what the cost of living is in Germany but that is way over paid to flip burgers and cook fries. There is no skill involved when it comes to most jobs that pay no better then min wage.
The level of skill involved doesn't matter, as the jobs which are unskilled are still neccessary for society.
For example, it doesn't take 'skill' to dig ditches, yet ditches still are required to be done by the society who needs to drain water. Therefore the end product of the work is valuable even if the person who perfoms that work is not highly skilled. In fact, much of the 'unskilled labor' that we rely upon can be said to be of more value to society as a whole than the skilled labor force.
Therefore it is unreasonable to say that 8.80 is too much to flip burgers, because flipping burgers is something that needs to get done, and someone has to do it...
Cycloptichorn
Hate to tell you but most ditch digging is done by skilled workers because they drive heavy equipment which does require skill. Worked construction for a while wasn't able to develope the skill to dig ditchs. In fact they only let me swing a hammer which when you start doesn't require skill but in the long run you will develope skill.
On the other hand, flipping burgers isn't a mandatory business that needs to exist. I take that back, people who never learned how to cook would still need burger flippers but if the fast food industry suddenly went under, society as we know it wouldn't starve because we can cook at home.
To say that unskilled workers need more money is almost laughable. Why don't they develope some skills so that they don't have to depend on min wage jobs. I know the company I work for will almost pick up any monkey off of the street to work here. You don't have to have certain skills to work here just the ability to learn and they can teach you just about anything you need to do the job. Fixing people's cable TV issues isn't that hard. What I do requires some skill because not everyone knows how to fix internet issues. It can be taught like most things but they hire people for their experience.
People who flip burgers, wash cars, and bag food are there for reasons and choices they have made. To pay them more then their experience or skill allow is wrong and doing nothing but shifting the burden of supporting these people from the govt to private industry. Market value should push the wages not some politicans who have never worked a real job in their lives.
Nice response. I only used Ditch digging b/c it is the classic example of unskilled labor (I was even thinking of backhoes while typing it, eheh).
You say that
Quote: To pay them more then their experience or skill allow
Well, I would say their experience and skill allow them to make as much money as employers are willing to pay in order to have them employed. We have a minimum wage, because as a society we believe that there is a minimum amount of money which is the agreed-upon equivalent for
any job performed by a member of our workforce. This acknowledges that yes, while some jobs are more important than others, and more skilled than others, even unskilled jobs are quite important to society, because we need them to be done in order to provide the infrastructure for the skilled jobs. You could not cut out the unskilled jobs without affecting the entire system (though robotics is working on it).
The manager at McD's is a 'skilled position,' but without his unskilled employees, the place wouldn't stay in business. Therefore their positions are worth a certain amount as well, even if they are pretty easy. Our society determines what the lowest legal level amount is in part to help protect the rights of workers and balance out the problems inherent in non-unionized bargaining situations....
I guarantee that, if it wasn't for minimum wage, you wouldn't be making what you make right now (which is undoubtedly far higher than that). You would be working for less money.
Cycloptichorn
