Post by RPankn on Nov 20, 2005 23:35:48 GMT -5
I'm surprised the rightwing Tampa Tribune published this, but I'm glad they did.
I remember before last year's election, one of the DLC trolls posted a clearly biased article about the group that put the minimum wage amendment on the ballot to make them look bad. I replied that I don't care what some hack at a rightwing rag thinks, I'm voting for the minimum wage increase. Big flippin deal, workers get $6.15 an hour.
But just to rub it in to the troll, I said I will keep voting for any similar initiatives put up until Florida has at least a $14/hr minimum wage indexed to the rate of inflation, a 35 hr work week, with time over 7 hrs in the same day to be paid at time-and-a-half, double on holidays. And get rid of this stupid "right-to-work" law b.s. Although, in the southeastern corner of the state, I think the minimum wage would have to be around $19-25 an hour to make housing affordable to everyone there.
By MICHAEL SASSO msasso@tampatrib.com
Published: Nov 20, 2005
TAMPA -- Before last year's elections, a political action committee backed by the likes of Publix Super Markets and Outback Steakhouse had some hair-raising predictions about the effect of bumping up the minimum wage.
Thousands of jobs would be lost if voters increased the state's rock-bottom wage to $6.15 from $5.15, said one e-mail sent out by the Coalition to Save Florida Jobs.
Jobs would be outsourced overseas, the e-mail said. Even companies that paid above the minimum wage would be forced to raise pay for everyone, said retailers and restaurants that opposed the amendment. [The miracle of Florida's sub-standard schools, because a lot of people actually believe stuff like this. I can't begin to count the number of people here who only know how to keep their heads down, be a good worker bee, never ask questions, and spend, spend, spend on what the TV tells them they need. Never realizing that the economy is driven by consumer demand, which requires consumers have money to spend in the first place, as well as their labor, without which, there would be no product or service.]
Today, though, it's hard to find much wreckage in the Florida retailing and restaurant industries, the two groups that bankrolled the Coalition to Save Florida Jobs.
Seventy-one percent of Florida voters passed the increase, and since the new minimum wage was implemented in May, retail stores and restaurants have added tens of thousands of employees.
Some of the biggest contributors to the Coalition to Save Florida Jobs have had stellar financial performances since May, including Publix Super Markets of Lakeland and Darden Restaurants of Orlando (owner of Red Lobster and Olive Garden). [Typical bourgeoise.]
Opponents say it's too soon to gauge the amendment's effect, and having it repealed or altered through another amendment is a high priority.
However, they face a big challenge: how to prove that a higher minimum wage will hurt job creation, even as Florida's population booms and employers add thousands of jobs.
One independent retailer, Ronald "Mac" Walter, who owns two discount furniture stores in Tampa, doubts that the amendment will seriously hurt the job market.
"I don't think it's going to kill jobs because you need the people to do the work no matter what," said Walter, owner of Highland Park Furniture, which has a license to use the trade name Macy's Furniture & Mattress Clearance Center. "But it might hurt profits, and it sounds better to say it's going to hurt jobs than hurt profits." [The curse of neo-liberal thinking.]
So far, the facts suggest retailing and restaurant jobs are up, even during the months since the minimum wage was bumped up. [Unfortunately, these kind of jobs are all Florida has a lot of; there's not a lot of opportunity for professionals or the skilled trades. I wish the Legislature would work on expanding the State's employer base beyond the citrus industry and tourism, as both are vulnerable to nature and economic cycles. However, ensuring yuppies can fly 50'x50' American flags in obscene displays of "patriotism" seems to be the Legislature's only priority.]
Retailers employed 955,400 people in Florida in September, the last month for which information was available. That's up 2.1 percent over September 2004, when retailers employed 935,400 people, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Restaurants, meanwhile, are growing faster. Florida's restaurants employed 556,600 in September, up 5.2 percent from September 2004. At restaurants, the minimum wage for tipped employees such as waiters rose to $3.13 an hour from $2.13.
So far, it's not clear that any academic has studied the effect of Florida's minimum-wage increase. David Denslow, research economist at the University of Florida's Bureau of Economic and Business Research, opposes minimum-wage increases because he prefers a hands-off, laissez faire approach to business [Another neo-liberal jackass masquerading as a "capitalist," infecting the minds of young adults with Randian delusions of grandeur.]. Even so, he concedes that modest minimum-wage increases -- such as Florida's -- probably don't hurt employment.
Based on years of nationwide research on minimum wages, "I think it's really quite clear that the effect of the minimum wage is quite small," Denslow said.
Raising Prices
Florida Restaurant Association President Carol Dover said some restaurants cut employees' hours instead of cutting jobs. That may be why employment's not down in the industry, she said.
In fact, instead of cutting back on staff, most of the chain restaurants just bumped up prices 3 percent, said Hil Davis, a Wall Street analyst for SunTrust Robinson Humphrey in Atlanta. Outback Steakhouse, for example, raised its prices 3 percent. So did Tampa-based Beef O'Brady's, said Beef O'Brady's President Nick Vojnovic, who also is the incoming chairman of the Florida Restaurant Association.
There hasn't been much of a customer backlash to the higher restaurant bills, several restaurateurs said.
Like the chains, the popular south Tampa restaurant Bella's Italian Cafe raised prices about 3 percent and hasn't seen any falloff in customers, said Bella's owner Bill Shumate.
Shumate opposed the minimum-wage increase because he said the biggest beneficiaries, waiters and bartenders, already earn well above the rock-bottom wage with tips. However, he said, "Honestly we're so far up this year over last year, and last year over the year before, it's not funny," Shumate said. "It's amazing."
Said Nick Stephens, a customer dining at Bella's last week: "I haven't felt it [the price increase] in my wallet. I didn't even know the minimum wage went up. If my favorite dish is $1 more, I wouldn't care."
Vojnovic, the Florida Restaurant Association board member, said some restaurateurs have begun second-guessing their strategy in trying to defeat the minimum-wage increase last year. Instead of playing up the potential loss of jobs, the industry should have suggested the minimum-wage increase would cause inflation at the dinner table, one prominent restaurateur told Vojnovic.
One possible slogan: "Hey, you want a $10 burger? It's coming," Vojnovic said. [I'll have to remember to let everyone I know not to eat at "Beef O'Brady's" because it's run by a fascist idiot.]
Biggest Opponents
So far, though, it doesn't appear that the biggest opponents of the minimum-wage amendment are suffering.
Last year, the biggest corporate supporters of the Coalition to Save Florida Jobs , in order of contribution, were: Outback Steakhouse and its affiliates, Publix Super Markets, Darden Restaurants (owner of Red Lobster and Olive Garden) and Brinker International (owner of Chili's and Romano's Macaroni Grill). [Too bad, I kinda like Macaroni Grill, but won't eat there no more as long as it's run by anti-labor morons.] All appear to be doing well, and some such as Publix and Darden are doing spectacularly well since the wage went up.
Outback Steakhouse did not respond to interview requests. However, during a conference call with Wall Street analysts in October, Outback's financial adviser, Robert Merritt, said Florida and California are Outback's strongest-performing markets.
"Our sense is this is reasonably sustainable, that it's not a one-year phenomenon," said Merritt, who until recently was Outback's chief financial officer. "It's that the Florida economy is stronger than it is in other parts of the country."
Today, retail and restaurant leaders don't take issue as much with the $1 increase as with another, less-known, element of the minimum-wage amendment: annual increases that are tied to inflation.
Every year, the minimum wage will be adjusted according to the rise in the Consumer Price Index-Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, or CPI-W, one of three consumer price indexes tracked by the Department of Labor. The CPI-W rose about 4 percent through August, so Florida's minimum wage will rise to $6.40 from $6.15 an hour in January.
Wogan Badcock III, head of the Badcock furniture chain and chairman of the Florida Retail Federation, said these annual increases tied to inflation will haunt retailers and restaurants. If the minimum wage rises in a few years to $8 an hour, prices will shoot up. The retail federation would at least like to ask voters to repeal the annual inflation adjustments, Badcock said. [But then people will have more to spend. Another company for the boycott list.]
"At some point, they're [customers] going to say, 'What happened to my blue-plate meal that was costing me $7.95 and now costs me $14.95?" Badcock said.
Not so fast, said Bruce Nissen, director of research for Florida International University's Center for Labor Research and Studies. Nissen doubts that increasing the minimum wage by a small amount causes much economic damage.
Before November's election, retail and restaurant industry leaders said Amendment 5 would bankrupt small restaurants and retailers. Then as soon as it passed, retailers and restaurants said there were very few people making minimum wage anyway, so it wouldn't have much of an effect.
"I don't know how you can maintain credibility when you can make such abrupt switches," Nissen said.
In fact, the Tribune visited at least 10 stores and restaurants along Busch Boulevard last week and found only one employee making minimum wage.
Nadia Spurlock, a 33-year-old kitchen worker at Lupton's Buffet, is trying to support a 5-year-old son on $6.15 an hour. She has no other means of support, she said. [There should be an amendment for subsidized day care as well as up to 1 yr of family leave, with pay, and job guarantees.]
If the minimum wage had stayed at $5.15 an hour, could she make it?
"I don't even know if I can make it on $6.15," she said.
www.tampatrib.com/MGBXOR0P8GE.html
I remember before last year's election, one of the DLC trolls posted a clearly biased article about the group that put the minimum wage amendment on the ballot to make them look bad. I replied that I don't care what some hack at a rightwing rag thinks, I'm voting for the minimum wage increase. Big flippin deal, workers get $6.15 an hour.
But just to rub it in to the troll, I said I will keep voting for any similar initiatives put up until Florida has at least a $14/hr minimum wage indexed to the rate of inflation, a 35 hr work week, with time over 7 hrs in the same day to be paid at time-and-a-half, double on holidays. And get rid of this stupid "right-to-work" law b.s. Although, in the southeastern corner of the state, I think the minimum wage would have to be around $19-25 an hour to make housing affordable to everyone there.
By MICHAEL SASSO msasso@tampatrib.com
Published: Nov 20, 2005
TAMPA -- Before last year's elections, a political action committee backed by the likes of Publix Super Markets and Outback Steakhouse had some hair-raising predictions about the effect of bumping up the minimum wage.
Thousands of jobs would be lost if voters increased the state's rock-bottom wage to $6.15 from $5.15, said one e-mail sent out by the Coalition to Save Florida Jobs.
Jobs would be outsourced overseas, the e-mail said. Even companies that paid above the minimum wage would be forced to raise pay for everyone, said retailers and restaurants that opposed the amendment. [The miracle of Florida's sub-standard schools, because a lot of people actually believe stuff like this. I can't begin to count the number of people here who only know how to keep their heads down, be a good worker bee, never ask questions, and spend, spend, spend on what the TV tells them they need. Never realizing that the economy is driven by consumer demand, which requires consumers have money to spend in the first place, as well as their labor, without which, there would be no product or service.]
Today, though, it's hard to find much wreckage in the Florida retailing and restaurant industries, the two groups that bankrolled the Coalition to Save Florida Jobs.
Seventy-one percent of Florida voters passed the increase, and since the new minimum wage was implemented in May, retail stores and restaurants have added tens of thousands of employees.
Some of the biggest contributors to the Coalition to Save Florida Jobs have had stellar financial performances since May, including Publix Super Markets of Lakeland and Darden Restaurants of Orlando (owner of Red Lobster and Olive Garden). [Typical bourgeoise.]
Opponents say it's too soon to gauge the amendment's effect, and having it repealed or altered through another amendment is a high priority.
However, they face a big challenge: how to prove that a higher minimum wage will hurt job creation, even as Florida's population booms and employers add thousands of jobs.
One independent retailer, Ronald "Mac" Walter, who owns two discount furniture stores in Tampa, doubts that the amendment will seriously hurt the job market.
"I don't think it's going to kill jobs because you need the people to do the work no matter what," said Walter, owner of Highland Park Furniture, which has a license to use the trade name Macy's Furniture & Mattress Clearance Center. "But it might hurt profits, and it sounds better to say it's going to hurt jobs than hurt profits." [The curse of neo-liberal thinking.]
So far, the facts suggest retailing and restaurant jobs are up, even during the months since the minimum wage was bumped up. [Unfortunately, these kind of jobs are all Florida has a lot of; there's not a lot of opportunity for professionals or the skilled trades. I wish the Legislature would work on expanding the State's employer base beyond the citrus industry and tourism, as both are vulnerable to nature and economic cycles. However, ensuring yuppies can fly 50'x50' American flags in obscene displays of "patriotism" seems to be the Legislature's only priority.]
Retailers employed 955,400 people in Florida in September, the last month for which information was available. That's up 2.1 percent over September 2004, when retailers employed 935,400 people, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Restaurants, meanwhile, are growing faster. Florida's restaurants employed 556,600 in September, up 5.2 percent from September 2004. At restaurants, the minimum wage for tipped employees such as waiters rose to $3.13 an hour from $2.13.
So far, it's not clear that any academic has studied the effect of Florida's minimum-wage increase. David Denslow, research economist at the University of Florida's Bureau of Economic and Business Research, opposes minimum-wage increases because he prefers a hands-off, laissez faire approach to business [Another neo-liberal jackass masquerading as a "capitalist," infecting the minds of young adults with Randian delusions of grandeur.]. Even so, he concedes that modest minimum-wage increases -- such as Florida's -- probably don't hurt employment.
Based on years of nationwide research on minimum wages, "I think it's really quite clear that the effect of the minimum wage is quite small," Denslow said.
Raising Prices
Florida Restaurant Association President Carol Dover said some restaurants cut employees' hours instead of cutting jobs. That may be why employment's not down in the industry, she said.
In fact, instead of cutting back on staff, most of the chain restaurants just bumped up prices 3 percent, said Hil Davis, a Wall Street analyst for SunTrust Robinson Humphrey in Atlanta. Outback Steakhouse, for example, raised its prices 3 percent. So did Tampa-based Beef O'Brady's, said Beef O'Brady's President Nick Vojnovic, who also is the incoming chairman of the Florida Restaurant Association.
There hasn't been much of a customer backlash to the higher restaurant bills, several restaurateurs said.
Like the chains, the popular south Tampa restaurant Bella's Italian Cafe raised prices about 3 percent and hasn't seen any falloff in customers, said Bella's owner Bill Shumate.
Shumate opposed the minimum-wage increase because he said the biggest beneficiaries, waiters and bartenders, already earn well above the rock-bottom wage with tips. However, he said, "Honestly we're so far up this year over last year, and last year over the year before, it's not funny," Shumate said. "It's amazing."
Said Nick Stephens, a customer dining at Bella's last week: "I haven't felt it [the price increase] in my wallet. I didn't even know the minimum wage went up. If my favorite dish is $1 more, I wouldn't care."
Vojnovic, the Florida Restaurant Association board member, said some restaurateurs have begun second-guessing their strategy in trying to defeat the minimum-wage increase last year. Instead of playing up the potential loss of jobs, the industry should have suggested the minimum-wage increase would cause inflation at the dinner table, one prominent restaurateur told Vojnovic.
One possible slogan: "Hey, you want a $10 burger? It's coming," Vojnovic said. [I'll have to remember to let everyone I know not to eat at "Beef O'Brady's" because it's run by a fascist idiot.]
Biggest Opponents
So far, though, it doesn't appear that the biggest opponents of the minimum-wage amendment are suffering.
Last year, the biggest corporate supporters of the Coalition to Save Florida Jobs , in order of contribution, were: Outback Steakhouse and its affiliates, Publix Super Markets, Darden Restaurants (owner of Red Lobster and Olive Garden) and Brinker International (owner of Chili's and Romano's Macaroni Grill). [Too bad, I kinda like Macaroni Grill, but won't eat there no more as long as it's run by anti-labor morons.] All appear to be doing well, and some such as Publix and Darden are doing spectacularly well since the wage went up.
Outback Steakhouse did not respond to interview requests. However, during a conference call with Wall Street analysts in October, Outback's financial adviser, Robert Merritt, said Florida and California are Outback's strongest-performing markets.
"Our sense is this is reasonably sustainable, that it's not a one-year phenomenon," said Merritt, who until recently was Outback's chief financial officer. "It's that the Florida economy is stronger than it is in other parts of the country."
Today, retail and restaurant leaders don't take issue as much with the $1 increase as with another, less-known, element of the minimum-wage amendment: annual increases that are tied to inflation.
Every year, the minimum wage will be adjusted according to the rise in the Consumer Price Index-Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, or CPI-W, one of three consumer price indexes tracked by the Department of Labor. The CPI-W rose about 4 percent through August, so Florida's minimum wage will rise to $6.40 from $6.15 an hour in January.
Wogan Badcock III, head of the Badcock furniture chain and chairman of the Florida Retail Federation, said these annual increases tied to inflation will haunt retailers and restaurants. If the minimum wage rises in a few years to $8 an hour, prices will shoot up. The retail federation would at least like to ask voters to repeal the annual inflation adjustments, Badcock said. [But then people will have more to spend. Another company for the boycott list.]
"At some point, they're [customers] going to say, 'What happened to my blue-plate meal that was costing me $7.95 and now costs me $14.95?" Badcock said.
Not so fast, said Bruce Nissen, director of research for Florida International University's Center for Labor Research and Studies. Nissen doubts that increasing the minimum wage by a small amount causes much economic damage.
Before November's election, retail and restaurant industry leaders said Amendment 5 would bankrupt small restaurants and retailers. Then as soon as it passed, retailers and restaurants said there were very few people making minimum wage anyway, so it wouldn't have much of an effect.
"I don't know how you can maintain credibility when you can make such abrupt switches," Nissen said.
In fact, the Tribune visited at least 10 stores and restaurants along Busch Boulevard last week and found only one employee making minimum wage.
Nadia Spurlock, a 33-year-old kitchen worker at Lupton's Buffet, is trying to support a 5-year-old son on $6.15 an hour. She has no other means of support, she said. [There should be an amendment for subsidized day care as well as up to 1 yr of family leave, with pay, and job guarantees.]
If the minimum wage had stayed at $5.15 an hour, could she make it?
"I don't even know if I can make it on $6.15," she said.
www.tampatrib.com/MGBXOR0P8GE.html
