General Music Chat

My job has now cut our wages from $30/hr to $8/hr...






yay..

Sorry to hear that Shredd, I think it might be time to look for a new job. I know times are hard. One example that comes to mind. I had my own remodeling buisness for years and did a lot of shopping in Home Depot. For years when I would go to the Pro desk, there were always the same familiar faces I mean 20 years those people new me and my buisness. Well around the late 90's and ealy 2000's they were all gone. Several years ago I saw one of them and asked him whats up with H.D. and he told me he worked there for 25 years and helped build that co. but then the Corporate office decided their employee's were getting paid to much and cut their pay and started making them work weekends and all kinds of odd hours to piss them off and get them to quit. They replaced them with $10.00 an hour help that don't know sh*t from shinola. Seriously I go into those stores now and it is useless to ask those people where anything is at they don't know and don't want to know. So I hardly ever go into those places anymore and they wonder why their sales numbers are down especially in this economy.

Dang, Shredd, that sucks. What is your job?

My job has now cut our wages from $30/hr to $8/hr...

yay..

?????
what's min wage there? that's insane...

I dont know what your situation is, but I can tell you one thing for sure.
I would no longer be working for those assholes.

:shock:
I dont know what your situation is, but I can tell you one thing for sure.
I would no longer be working for those assholes.

...nuf said

Sorry to hear about that Shredd.

Pretty soon we all will be working for nothing. Dont that suck !



But its another day in Paradise !!!

Not me I work for duh govment in more ways than one. Seriuosly my wife was a C.O.O. for a furniture manufacturing Co. she was handing out paychecks to the office personel and one of the girls looks at her check and looks back up at my wife and says the "govment need to get his own job" LMFAO.

DAMN, Shredd! That's what I call one BIG ouchie!

Flook 'em & feed 'em beans if you can...if you can't...bute the bullet until you can.

Good luck with that crap.

Warning. Long post coming up.


Unfortunately, this is a trend we might start seeing more of. I'll try to explain why the best I can..

I've been on unemployment since Dec.. I've been out looking for another job for quite a while actually. But so far, no such luck.

I'm a stair-rail installer in new home construction Ratsass. I do piece work.

So under piece work guidelines, as with any company, the law only requires that an employer pays minimum wage or above.

Here's the tricky part about piece rates... Who decides the wage? In my line of work we get a piece price based on how many hours the company GUESSES it will take to do it. There are many gray areas in piece work. If someone says, "this job should take 10-hours, it pays $200, so you make $20/ hr." How long it actually takes is anyone's guess, and every aspect of it is subject to debate. If it happens to take you 5 hours, SWEET You made $40/ hour! If it happens to take you 20-hours, then you made $10/hr and tough s**t. Either way, you're getting $200.

However, we are in different times. Let's say a company only has 2-3 jobs to give you for the month. Your money will just get deducted from your unemployment. So basically, you will make only what your unemployment pays you for the whole month. If the company all of the sudden cuts the piece rate, it's perfectly within their rights and legal. Most companies nowadays will say that they have to for the company to still exist.

If they cut the piece rate to what would be considered minimum wage, then you will get less money deducted from your unemployment, and the company will get more of the profit, especially if it's a job that never was re-bid. It's a perfectly legal thing.

But there are problems here for the employee. Especially a Piece worker. First of all, your unemployment has a balance and will run out quicker under this practice. Secondly, what may get determined to be a minimum wage piece rate, may not actually be correct, and you will make less than minimum wage. You can argue it till you're blue in the face, but what real valid argument do you have when the basis of piecework is guesswork? The gray areas favor the employer.

Then there's the A-Bomb.. If the company all of the sudden has a surge in business and you're working steady for the month, guess who makes out in that scenario?

If you refuse the job, they can report you to the unemployment office and you can lose your benefits. If you decide to fight against it, you will be assigned an arbitrator, and your benefits will still be halted until a ruling has been made.

But who would be right about the piece rate?? The employer or the employee?? It's too easy for an employer to say that the employee just worked too slow. And obviously an employee would argue that the Piece rate is unreasonable. Who's professional opinion prevails?

Unfortunately, this scenario is very real. I already know quite a few construction workers who are in the $10/hr range. But how much longer before their rates get cut again? As more of these companies are starting to go under, minimum wage is starting to be more enticing to them, and it's 100% legal. That's the only law that determines "fair wage".

Our piece rates haven't dropped like that overnight, it's been very gradual. How long before they ever go back up?
At this point, I have no choice but to accept it, or move on without my unemployment benefits. At least until I find something else. I'm starting to envy the mall worker.

Well...you could do what you can top make it a union shop...