vision2020
wages in Moscow
At 10:44 AM 01/12/2000 -0800, Maree McHugh wrote:
> no matter what the wage the
>individuals "ought" to put forth their best.
....
> why is integrity and quality so tied to a price tag in our
> culture/community?
>And how can each of us instill pride and dignity in each and every role
>and job within our community?
This would be an excellent basis to defend slavery. We feed them and put a
roof over their heads, so they ought to have ethics, and work themselves to
death for us. The obligation is always on the side of the worker, while a
bare minimum from the employer suffices.
I must say that I've been instrumental in a couple of firings over the
years, and given the particulars, I have no regrets. Some people are
poorly motivated, no matter what the wage, and some people land in jobs for
which they simply don't have the skills, and couldn't develop at any cost
and time.
But business is business, and the role of the worker follows the prevailing
winds of the system. If you were constantly squeezing the prices of your
suppliers, you couldn't expect the suppliers to bend over backwards for
you. If you provided poor value to your customers, you couldn't expect
them to be loyal. Yet suddenly when the equation is
employer <--> employee,
some people want the employee to remain loyal, hard-working, devoted,
intelligent, skilled, honest, etc., no matter what the wage. I can get
that from my computer for an hourly stipend of electricity, but I wouldn't
expect it from a thinking, feeling human in exchange for a bag of peanuts.
Case in point:
In my lesser-skilled days, with a $3.35/hour minimum wage, I worked in a
factory that based much of the pay on performance (piece-rate). Some tasks
allowed me to work faster, and achieve a higher pay, than other tasks. On
one particular task, I could regularly earn $8-9 per hour. The management
didn't like that, so it dropped the reimbursement on that task so that I
would have to bust my butt to make $4.00/hour. Did I? For $9/hour, yes;
for $4/hour, no. I put forth a moderate effort (by no means slack), and my
production fell below minimum wage at the new rate. But I still made
minimum wage on the task, because they couldn't legally pay me less than
minimum wage.
Now, did this make sense to the employer? They had originally priced the
task so that they would be making a profit. We were both making good money
on the job. But they were unhappy to share too much of the profit with me,
so they cut my rate, destroyed my incentive, and cut their own throats in
the bargain.
I'm reminded of the time a co-worker was accused of disloyalty by his
manager. The employee responded simply "I'm as loyal to you as you are to
me." The result? He was fired. I guess the boss didn't like to see such
poor loyalty from his workers as he showed them.
Bob Hoffmann
229 East C St., Suite B
Moscow, ID 83843 USA
Phone: (208) 883-0642
Fax: 1-800-683-3799
http://www.alt-escape.com
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From: "Jory Shelton" <jory@uidaho.edu>
Organization: University of Idaho
To: "david sarff" <davesway@hotmail.com>
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2000 12:10:39 -0800
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Hi Dave,
The meeting that will be open to the public is supposed to be
sometime in February. Currently, they (the Idaho Transportation
Department) hold focus group meetings that are closed to the public.
The landowner representative on the focus group for the section of
highway from Moscow to Genesee is George Price. You can
contact him for information on the current alignment possibilities
over Paradise Ridge. The last time I checked, the new alignment
departed the current highway in the area of Reisenauer Hill and
roughly followed the 2800 foot elevation across the ridge, and
dropped back to the existing highway just south of the Exxon station
on the south end of Moscow. It is a four lane divided highway with a
projected speed limit of 65 MPH that will run from Moscow to the top
of the Lewiston Hill. Other than the section that is being completely
replaced from Moscow to Reisenauer Hill, the current highway will
be used for two of those lanes, and two new lanes will be built
parallel to them for traffic in the other direction. Certain sharp or
dangerous corners will be corrected. Construction is supposed to
begin this August.
I would recommend anyone who lives along the existing highway
between Moscow and Genesee OR lives on Paradise Ridge to
contact George Price and find out how you will potentially be
affected. Residents from Genesee to the top of the Lewiston Hill
have formed a landowner association and elected a spokesman to
represent us. We also have a lawyer just in case. There ARE
homes in danger from this project (mine is one of them).
I would also urge everyone to attend the public meeting in February.
There are also other projects going on at the same time: the new
couplet in south Moscow in the area of Sweet Avenue; a five lane
road (two lanes in each direction and a turn lane in the middle,
much like the Pullman Highway in Moscow) from the south couplet to
the end of the highway project by the Exxon station; and a
*possible* truck bypass from the end of the highway project by the
Exxon station around the west end of Moscow and tying into the
Pullman Highway at Warbonnet Drive (below Wal-Mart) to get the
trucks out of downtown Moscow. There was also discussion at one
of the focus group meetings that the UI has been asked by the state
not to develop the land it owns west of campus because if/when a
true highway bypass is ever built around Moscow, it will also run in
that direction.
-Jory
> My psychological disposition can not be adequately described.
> I have just talked to a survey person who indicates that test holes will
> soon be drilled up in back of my home at the foot of Paradise Ridge for the
> purpose of building the new four-lane highway.
> If this is the spot they chose then where was the public comment
> announcement?
> We all know how the west was won...or rather.... taken.
> Some things never change.
> The public will love the view...I promise.
> Except for maybe the run down farmyard down below.
> The wild life will be cut off and more will be lost than gained.... So much
> more…..only a few will really know.
> What pain the original inhabitants felt at the loss of a beauty we merely
> glimpse...what fools these people who divide the earth.
> When our Governor stood shaking in a high building in Asia.
> He thought it was an earthquake.
> Perhaps it was the Heart of the Earth sending him a message.
>
> Dave
Jory Shelton
PC Network Specialist
College of Forestry, Wildlife, and Range Sciences
University of Idaho
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From: "Lois Melina" <lmelina@moscow.com>
To: <JJSwanberg@aol.com>, <vision2020@moscow.com>
Subject: Re: wages/Federal Poverty
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2000 14:47:03 -0800
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Jennifer and all,
I keep coming back to the thought that locally owned businesses not only do
not have the economies of scale that chain stores have, they do not
necessarily have a good business sense. Whether you are a physician in
private practice, a restaurant owner, or a beautician, chances are you
entered that field because you are knowledgeable about medicine, food, or
hair styling, and not because you are knowledgeable about business. This can
impact everything from what decisions you make to be competitive with chains
to how you treat your employees.
If I have little background in business, and I see that my biggest expense
is employee wages, it is logical (although I do not think it necessarily
makes good business sense) to try to economize on wages. In truth, it might
be more cost effective in the long run to pay higher wages and attract
employees who are more efficient, more knowledgeable, and can consequently
generate higher sales.
If I have little background in business and I see that my income comes from
sales of goods, and a chain store comes in and undercuts my prices, I may
not know how to compete without going under. The chain store has someone at
headquarters crunching numbers who can say, "Tuesdays and Thursdays are our
slow days, so if we offer $1 videos on those days, we'll increase income
enough to cover our expenses while getting customers used to coming into our
store instead of someone else's." The locally owned store may may not have
the confidence (or the income) to try enough different things to arrive at
the combination that works for that kind of business in a town with
particular demographics.
Just today, while browsing in a downtown store, the store owner was
complaining about the hassles of doing year-end books because she hadn't
been keeping up on them all year. She doesn't keep her books on a computer
because she likes the "hands-on" approach of keeping accounts in a ledger.
Well, that's very warm and fuzzy, but my guess is that without a more
sophisticated bookkeeping system (which does not have to mean computerized
books, but could ) this business owner has little information about
why she is or is not successful. It never occurred to her that by keeping
her books on a computer she not only could get her numbers added and
subtracted quickly, but she could get real information about sales.
When locally owned businesses go under, we immediately blame the competition
when sometimes (as someone suggested recently with regard to a particular
business) the locally owned business has been poorly managed--probably
because the owner knew more about the content side of the business than the
business side.
Jennifer asks what we can do as a community. We have enormous resources with
the universities. Perhaps some sort of business partnership can be developed
in which a business can get good start-up advice, consultation on marketing,
help developing ad campaigns, year-end profit/loss analysis. Perhaps the EDC
can put on seminars for different types of businesses. Perhaps graduate
students in business could serve as consultants, learning from the hands-on
experience while business owners get information is available that could
help them.
Perhaps this is already happening, but as someone who has been self-employed
with a self-employed spouse for the past 20 years, if there are such
programs, they need to be more broadly advertised. Sometimes I think about
calling the universities, but I don't really know what professors have
students who need projects or whether what I am asking for is an imposition.
Lois Melina
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