I managed a major brand fast food restaurants, oversaw three locations for moderate size owner/operator, by moderate I mean that when I left he had 9 locations. In the twenty three years I worked for him we did not increase wages for the other employees, the operator did increase prices as much as reasonable without pushing customers away, the balance of the wage increase was made up by cutting hours, forcing fewer people to do more work and thereby eliminating positions of the least productive. I worked in construction, non union, for fourteen years after that and never once had my wages increased when the minimum went up.
I agree but I would also think that if someone was working a retail job and currently making $10 per hour - because they’ve been there for several years, have received merit increases and a promotion, perhaps to being a “Team Leader”, not a manager per se but having additional responsibilities, that if the minimum wage is increased to $10 per hour and now someone coming in with no experience and with much less in responsibilities comes in making $10 per hour to start, someone that the $10 per hour Team Leader is training and supervising to some extent, that the person who is Team Leader at $10 per hour is going to feel shafted without some sort of increase or isn’t going to want to perform the additional duties and have the additional responsibilities. That’s not to say that they are going to get an increase but they could certainly make the case as to why they should.
What i find patently ridiculous is the idea that unskilled workers doing unskilled work are demanding and being told that they(here in CA and other states)deserve $15 an hour, a wage that is higher than journeymen in skilled trades earn.
I know that a short time ago at my last job at a non-union manufacturing company, were among other duties I was the Salary Administrator, we utilized salary bands and every job was assigned to one. When we increased the base rate and range for say a Lathe Operator I (often because of area market rates or having difficulty staffing positions), that meant an increase of the salary bands for Lathe Operator II and Lathe Operator III. That didn’t mean all the Lathe Operators II and III automatically got raises unless they were now below the new minimum for that job, but it was reflected in their annual merit increases – bringing them “to market”.
A minimum wage increase to $15 per hour for unskilled and entry level jobs will IMO certainly push up wages for skilled labor. Perhaps not right away but it will happen. The labor market will demand it. Of course unless the additional labor costs can be offset by price increases, the costs will be absorbed elsewhere – in decreased benefits, finding cheaper suppliers and unfortunately sometimes of lessor quality, cutting positions or hours or eliminating OT, less spent in R&D for new products or for expansion, i.e. the creation of new jobs.
