Any Lawyers Here?

supersonicyears

I don't know if this is the right board to ask this question so sorry if it needs to be moved.

Can an employer hire you for a certain wage then a cut everyones wages down to minimum wage legally?

sweet adeline

i'm not a lawyer, but if they can fire you, it would stand to reason that they can also give you a pay cut.

tybird

TheBeach wrote:

I don't know if this is the right board to ask this question so sorry if it needs to be moved.

Can an employer hire you for a certain wage then a cut everyones wages down to minimum wage legally?

I suspect that will vary from state to state.

soulsinging

TheBeach wrote:

I don't know if this is the right board to ask this question so sorry if it needs to be moved.

Can an employer hire you for a certain wage then a cut everyones wages down to minimum wage legally?

Probably. State law might vary, but unless you have a contract specifying your salary they can probably do whatever they want to your pay.

Commy

organize. if this pay cut is company wide there has to be enough employees willing to get involved. to organize, and demand equal pay. if the company is unwilling to cooperate -strike.


the power is in the hands of the employees. in almost every case.

cornnifer

Commy wrote:

organize. if this pay cut is company wide there has to be enough employees willing to get involved. to organize, and demand equal pay. if the company is unwilling to cooperate -strike.


the power is in the hands of the employees. in almost every case.

Not a bad idea depending on the job. No one cares about striking workers that are easily replaced. Right now there are plenty of people looking for work.

soulsinging

Commy wrote:

organize. if this pay cut is company wide there has to be enough employees willing to get involved. to organize, and demand equal pay. if the company is unwilling to cooperate -strike.


the power is in the hands of the employees. in almost every case.

Bullshit. If the power was in the hands of employees, they wouldn't NEED to strike. The power is entirely in the hands of employers. Especially in economic times like this, the employees need the jobs more.

SPEEDY MCCREADY

soulsinging wrote:

Commy wrote:

organize. if this pay cut is company wide there has to be enough employees willing to get involved. to organize, and demand equal pay. if the company is unwilling to cooperate -strike.


the power is in the hands of the employees. in almost every case.

Bullshit. If the power was in the hands of employees, they wouldn't NEED to strike. The power is entirely in the hands of employers. Especially in economic times like this, the employees need the jobs more.

agreed...

so new years eve......i am picking up some freight from Samsung....the employees working the second shift are all pissed off because management tells them they have to stay until 11:00pm or until all the freight is off the dock.......the employees are angry beyond belief(they were supposed to only work until 10:00pm.)

so 13 employees of samsung get together and say "if we all just leave at 10:00 like we are supposed to....what can the company do???? they cant fire us all"

so i watch these 13 knuckleheads walk out the door just so they can go out to the bars and get drunk on new years eve.....

and 2 days later all 13 showed up back to work as if nothing happened......

and all 13 were immediatley FIRED!!!!!!

inmytree

SPEEDY MCCREADY wrote:

soulsinging wrote:

Commy wrote:

organize. if this pay cut is company wide there has to be enough employees willing to get involved. to organize, and demand equal pay. if the company is unwilling to cooperate -strike.


the power is in the hands of the employees. in almost every case.

Bullshit. If the power was in the hands of employees, they wouldn't NEED to strike. The power is entirely in the hands of employers. Especially in economic times like this, the employees need the jobs more.

agreed...

so new years eve......i am picking up some freight from Samsung....the employees working the second shift are all pissed off because management tells them they have to stay until 11:00pm or until all the freight is off the dock.......the employees are angry beyond belief(they were supposed to only work until 10:00pm.)

so 13 employees of samsung get together and say "if we all just leave at 10:00 like we are supposed to....what can the company do???? they cant fire us all"

so i watch these 13 knuckleheads walk out the door just so they can go out to the bars and get drunk on new years eve.....

and 2 days later all 13 showed up back to work as if nothing happened......

and all 13 were immediatley FIRED!!!!!!

ha ha ha....

that's funny...good story, thanks for sharing that one...

SPEEDY MCCREADY

i have always gotten a good chuckle when people have that type of attitude...

"my company NEEDS me"
"my company would NEVER think of firing me"
"my company is LUCKY they have me"
"my company will go out of business if they ever got rid of me"

because its not too long after those silly statements are made.....that the person soon says.....

"i cant believe they fired me"

Commy

SPEEDY MCCREADY wrote:

soulsinging wrote:

Commy wrote:

organize. if this pay cut is company wide there has to be enough employees willing to get involved. to organize, and demand equal pay. if the company is unwilling to cooperate -strike.


the power is in the hands of the employees. in almost every case.

Bullshit. If the power was in the hands of employees, they wouldn't NEED to strike. The power is entirely in the hands of employers. Especially in economic times like this, the employees need the jobs more.

agreed...

so new years eve......i am picking up some freight from Samsung....the employees working the second shift are all pissed off because management tells them they have to stay until 11:00pm or until all the freight is off the dock.......the employees are angry beyond belief(they were supposed to only work until 10:00pm.)

so 13 employees of samsung get together and say "if we all just leave at 10:00 like we are supposed to....what can the company do???? they cant fire us all"

so i watch these 13 knuckleheads walk out the door just so they can go out to the bars and get drunk on new years eve.....

and 2 days later all 13 showed up back to work as if nothing happened......

and all 13 were immediatley FIRED!!!!!!

hence the need to organize. if a shift strikes its meaningless. if ALL the employees strike the company shuts down. literally, there is no company without employees. employees run this country.


how do you think minimum wage came about? or overtime? or safety in the work place? or workers comp?

They weren't given.

JOEJOEJOE

Commy wrote:

organize. if this pay cut is company wide there has to be enough employees willing to get involved. to organize, and demand equal pay. if the company is unwilling to cooperate -strike.


the power is in the hands of the employees. in almost every case.

Equal pay.... Equal to whom?

Commy

JOEJOEJOE wrote:

Commy wrote:

organize. if this pay cut is company wide there has to be enough employees willing to get involved. to organize, and demand equal pay. if the company is unwilling to cooperate -strike.


the power is in the hands of the employees. in almost every case.

Equal pay.... Equal to whom?

equal to the value of your work. seems the people doing most of the labor are the people being paid the least.

JOEJOEJOE

Commy wrote:

JOEJOEJOE wrote:

Commy wrote:

organize. if this pay cut is company wide there has to be enough employees willing to get involved. to organize, and demand equal pay. if the company is unwilling to cooperate -strike.


the power is in the hands of the employees. in almost every case.

Equal pay.... Equal to whom?

equal to the value of your work. seems the people doing most of the labor are the people being paid the least.

I believe that people should be paid a living wage, etc., but, based on market economics, if someone is earning minimum wage, the economic (as opposed to the social) value of their work is most likely equal to or less then the minimum wage.

Commy

JOEJOEJOE wrote:

I believe that people should be paid a living wage, etc., but, based on market economics, if someone is earning minimum wage, the economic (as opposed to the social) value of their work is most likely equal to or less then the minimum wage.

that's not true. take my case as an example...


I worked in a restaraunt that made $13 million a year. we did something like $30,000 a night, weekends maybe...maybe more.


there were 7 of us. we did everything in the kitchen, cooking the food to a 18-22 minute time frame, made sure it was top of the line, and did it for 600 people at a time. every night we fucking rocked.


now, from an owner standpoint, they did nothing. the GM did nothing. it was all about the chef and the cooks, the servers fell in line. we made that restaraunt...if it wasn't for us the company would collapse. and we made them 13 million that year.

so I would say the people doing the most work for that company were us, the cooks and the chef. I was getting $12/hour and was fine with that...but the owners were getting millions, literally, and doing nothing. that's 1 example of how the CEO's benefit from the labor of the working class. but there are thousands.,

JOEJOEJOE

Commy wrote:

JOEJOEJOE wrote:

I believe that people should be paid a living wage, etc., but, based on market economics, if someone is earning minimum wage, the economic (as opposed to the social) value of their work is most likely equal to or less then the minimum wage.

that's not true. take my case as an example...


I worked in a restaraunt that made $13 million a year. we did something like $30,000 a night, weekends maybe...maybe more.


there were 7 of us. we did everything in the kitchen, cooking the food to a 18-22 minute time frame, made sure it was top of the line, and did it for 600 people at a time. every night we fucking rocked.


now, from an owner standpoint, they did nothing. the GM did nothing. it was all about the chef and the cooks, the servers fell in line. we made that restaraunt...if it wasn't for us the company would collapse. and we made them 13 million that year.

so I would say the people doing the most work for that company were us, the cooks and the chef. I was getting $12/hour and was fine with that...but the owners were getting millions, literally, and doing nothing. that's 1 example of how the CEO's benefit from the labor of the working class. but there are thousands.,

I know our views are very different, so there is no need to rehash the basic communism vs capitalism debate,

However!

The owners are the one's taking the risk, so of course they will receive the vast majority of the riches, just as they would be the one's on the hook if the restaurant was losing money. Their credit, time and assets are all at stake. Are we talking a gross or a net of $13million?

I agree that employees are important, but if they feel as if they are worth more, they are free to go elsewhere, no?

Commy

JOEJOEJOE wrote:

I know our views are very different, so there is no need to rehash the basic communism vs capitalism debate,

However!

The owners are the one's taking the risk, so of course they will receive the vast majority of the riches, just as they would be the one's on the hook if the restaurant was losing money. Their credit, time and assets are all at stake. Are we talking a gross or a net of $13million?

I agree that employees are important, but if they feel as if they are worth more, they are free to go elsewhere, no?

no, they/we are not free to go elsewhere. we can but for less pay. we made that company. when we left they were shit-the head chef left, the cooks under him left, the replacements were a joke-and as a result they failed. or to be more accurate, they didn't make as much as they had when WE were working.


it took a team to run that restaurant, and we all left. as a result they lost millions-literally.


if we would have striked, while working there, they would have had no choice but to give into our demands.

JOEJOEJOE

Commy wrote:

JOEJOEJOE wrote:

I know our views are very different, so there is no need to rehash the basic communism vs capitalism debate,

However!

The owners are the one's taking the risk, so of course they will receive the vast majority of the riches, just as they would be the one's on the hook if the restaurant was losing money. Their credit, time and assets are all at stake. Are we talking a gross or a net of $13million?

I agree that employees are important, but if they feel as if they are worth more, they are free to go elsewhere, no?

no, they/we are not free to go elsewhere. we can but for less pay. we made that company. when we left they were shit-the head chef left, the cooks under him left, the replacements were a joke-and as a result they failed. or to be more accurate, they didn't make as much as they had when WE were working.


it took a team to run that restaurant, and we all left. as a result they lost millions-literally.


if we would have striked, while working there, they would have had no choice but to give into our demands.

Then why didn't you strike?

Even though you were making far less then the owners, you recieved a share of the success by virtue of your higher-than-average wage.

sweet adeline

Commy wrote:

JOEJOEJOE wrote:

I know our views are very different, so there is no need to rehash the basic communism vs capitalism debate,

However!

The owners are the one's taking the risk, so of course they will receive the vast majority of the riches, just as they would be the one's on the hook if the restaurant was losing money. Their credit, time and assets are all at stake. Are we talking a gross or a net of $13million?

I agree that employees are important, but if they feel as if they are worth more, they are free to go elsewhere, no?

no, they/we are not free to go elsewhere. we can but for less pay. we made that company. when we left they were shit-the head chef left, the cooks under him left, the replacements were a joke-and as a result they failed. or to be more accurate, they didn't make as much as they had when WE were working.


it took a team to run that restaurant, and we all left. as a result they lost millions-literally.


if we would have striked, while working there, they would have had no choice but to give into our demands.

why didn't you and those 13 dudes pool your money, get SBA loans and start your own restaurant?

soulsinging

sweet adeline wrote:

Commy wrote:

no, they/we are not free to go elsewhere. we can but for less pay. we made that company. when we left they were shit-the head chef left, the cooks under him left, the replacements were a joke-and as a result they failed. or to be more accurate, they didn't make as much as they had when WE were working.

it took a team to run that restaurant, and we all left. as a result they lost millions-literally.

if we would have striked, while working there, they would have had no choice but to give into our demands.

why didn't you and those 13 dudes pool your money, get SBA loans and start your own restaurant?

I feel like I've heard this story from him before and when somebody asked this question, he suddenly got very quiet.

I'm not a big fan of wealth disparity (as you can see from my posts in the Obama-salary cal thread), but let's face it: workers are, in the large part, fungible. I was one of the better servers at my restaurant, but they didn't take any hits when I left. There were hundreds of people in that town that could do my job.

If workers were so powerful, we wouldn't NEED minimum wage and hours laws. They would just make employers bend over without need of federal legislation. All unions did was build a PAC to get federal safeguards, now they're just a joke... they get locked in and blackmail employers... they're as bad as the banks.

Commy

sweet adeline wrote:

why didn't you and those 13 dudes pool your money, get SBA loans and start your own restaurant?

the restaurant business is hit or miss.


I'm talking about labor, not ideas. as employees we are notoriously strapped for cash. we spend what we make, and we enjoy our free time, more so than other industries, I'm sure. what could we have done? even if we pooled our money... if we decided, that for the sake of a business venture, we were going to take out a loan and start a restaurant...we wouldn't have had the advantages of the owners of the restaurant we were literally running. they were on elliot bay, in the same building as the marina. prime location. they were a step ahead before we began. they had the funds going in to set up an environment that very few people could compete with.

the owners got by on the hard work of others, and that's the backbone of capitalism. they had the means to start that restaurant, through exploiting labor, and are probably going to continue that in the future. for us to compete with them we would need more than the 13-20 of us could come up with, its unrealistic.

what I know is how to run a restaurant. and we ran that place, like no one since. not to be pissy or nostalgic, that restaurant has gone to shit since we left, the owners have been set back, and it came down to not respecting their employees-the people that literally ran the business. all i am saying is that we should have been given a cut of the profit, since we did all the work. and I think that's a realistic demand. I'm sure in hindsight the owners would agree. they've literally lost millions.