Comments

1
Watch for Olympia to try and gut this piece of economic justice in their ongoing efforts to "fuck Seattle".
2
Won't somebody think of the poor franchises!
3
I'm not so sure 15Now is going to accept this. Sure it;'s a victory, but these don't seem the type to accept a shitty compromise when they have good reason to think they can get something better.

There will most likely be a referendum on this as well as no way out of state business interests stay away.
4
This is great, I'll no longer need to even consider high schoolers or dropouts from Seattle to ice my cupcakes; at $15 an hour I can get college kids from Shoreline, Bellevue, and Bothell. Hell, I bet fine, young, better educated kids would even commute from Tacoma for this kind of money.
5
If franchises don't want to be included in the parent company, then why do they take on their logos, their menus and most of the rest of their policies?
6
Franchisees are paying for a more-or-less turnkey operation in contrast to developing everything themselves, but it'll be interesting to see whether the International Franchise Association also develops strategies for pressuring parent companies (franchisors) to lower licensing and marketing fees as well as franchisors' profits on any sole-source equipment and supplies. If all their efforts are directed at reducing labor costs alone, any credibility they have will be damaged. Maybe it will be exposed as more of an International Franchisor's Association.
7
@6 or just replace people with machines and self ordering kiosks.
8
@4 Congratulations!

Not only is it scientifically proven that college makes you a better cupcake icer, but it also limits employment opportunities so that you don't have to worry about them leaving your bullshit job after you've gone to the time and effort of hiring and training them.

You, sir, are clearly a businessman of the highest caliber.
9
3 things to watch for?

Small businesses having one of two choices would be first. Either skirt a stupid law written by children, or become a family business and lay other employees off. Or fail, since economic principles work whether idiot lefties think so or not.

Big corporate chains you all hate? Get used to them. You'll have run every small business out.

And look for the cost of everything to skyrocket in the Peoples Republic of Seattle. Skilled workers aren't going to work for the same wage as the lazy thriftless minimum wage jockies you twits love so much. That plumbing job or meal out or car repair. Whew, look at that bill, willya?

Idiots, the lot of you. Idiots whose hatred of others success makes you war on the middle class. Idiots without even an inkling of basic economics. Just plain bone stupid idiots, really.
10
@4 That's what the fucking training wage provisions were supposed to be for, ignorant asshat.

Now, every job is going to be training wage then fired and hire a new person for training wage.
11
The franchisees will win.
12
@9. Oh do shut the fuck up.
13
@9: Yeah, the people who fought and secured a major and history making legislative victory are acting like children, not the loser calling them names anonymously on the internet.
14
@9: But please, do not stop impotently crying about it to a bunch of people who do not even like you. We find it a real treat. It always makes me smile, anyway.
15
I lost nothing, Teddy.

I haven't (and won't) bid on a house or other property in Seattle in years. Stupid laws like this one written by overgrown toddlers forever blaming others for their problems? Doesn't affect me. I live outside the Peoples Republic of Seattle.

Know who lost, kiddo? Those hard working small business owners forced to break a profoundly stupid law or go bankrupt. See, liberal idiots always whining 'it's not faaaaaiiiiirrrrr!!!!! and good economic policy are mutually exclusive.
16
Great article, Anna! Thanks.
17
@15: If it does not even affect you, than why are you crying so much about it and calling people names like an overgrown toddler?
18
@14

Oh, fyi?

The dislike of people lacking decency, integrity, morality, work ethic and basic human intelligence is a sort of litmus test for me. Were I to find myself agreeing with most of you, and any Stranger 'writer' on anything I'd be seriously examining where the error lay.
19
@18: And yet, you just can't quit us. You can't quit calling people who disagree with you childish/bigoted names. You can't stop obsessing over what gay people do together. Where does the error lay there?
20
@9 Who's to say those working minimum wage jobs are lazy? Sometimes that's all someone with a degree can get. Not everyone who works for minimum wage doesn't want something better. When there are more people than jobs, you get what you can get. So why shouldn't it be livable? Economists can't agree on whether or not this will actually cause issues. They don't know what will happen. Because some places have found they only need to raise prices by a small amount.

Fact is, if you work, you deserve to make livable wage. Working at a fast food joint or retail, dealing with customers who like to complain to just complain day in and day out is not only difficult, it is stressful and frustrating. Not everyone can afford to go to school to get a degree. You can't always cover your cost of living with grants and loans.
21
One thing is guaranteed: there will be unexpected consequences from $15. And some negative.
22
When did the people get to vote on this?
23
So, if you're against this - if you believe that the only people who deserve to be making "at least" $15 an hour, literally the minimum to cover basic living needs in the city, are people with education and/or skilled labor experience, then my question is - when did we start undervaluing education and technical skill?
24
Subhumanblues certainly is throwing a major temper tantrum today.

I agree Theodore it is amusing to watch. Please do continue Subhumantoddlerblues.

@22 when they elected their Mayor and Council reps.
25
I recently purchased two scoops of ice cream for $8.00. The owner of this store supported $15/hr. I decided two scoops of ice cream isn't worth $8.00. I'll be taking my business elsewhere or buying ice cream in the grocery store.
26
Elected by the people and doing whatever they want despite what their people want. Interesting.
27
Engaging you honestly, how exactly is one supposed to survive, let alone try to go to school and do better on minimum wage? I make barely above it - enough where this wage hike affects me - and I do an office job. I am college educated - hell, half the people here are. I did everything "right", and I'm floundering. If I move out of the city to get a lower rent, I just won't have the time to work odd jobs to have anything resembling a savings. I can't afford a car, and the bus cuts are going to screw me.

I am telling you that this movement for more liberal business practices is fronted by people like me. We are getting screwed doing everything we were supposed to do. Wages are just too low to make do and businesses know it's an employer's market. People can be comically underpaid for skilled work - I do legal document processing and I make next to nothing! I know you have this impression that we are all a bunch of tatted and pierced dropouts getting coke money working at a burger joint who want more money for Pabst and concerts, but those people don't vote!

Disagreeing with you makes me a communist?
28
If i am not mistaken, small businesses have seven years to get up to $15/hr. If a small business owner really feels that try are unable to accomplish that in seven years then there are something they need to contemplate. The first of which is their own take home pay.
29
@26 That is how representative democracy works. Look on the bright side if you don't like their decisions you can vote against them in a few years.

Unless of course you don't vote in which case STFU.
30
" I did everything "right", and I'm floundering"

Really? Amazon and MSFT are hiring computer engineers like gangbusters. My cousin just got hired at $90K a year fresh out of college. You're floundering because your degree is probably worthless.
31
@19 - remember also that seattleblueballs (for all of its morality/decency blustering,) said that we should be able to fuck whoever we want regardless of gender or sexual orientation. (or that we should all be celibate, not sure which. . . )

seattleblueballs is either deeply confused or a not very well organised troll (oh, we all now which. . . )

>>May 20 - Seattleblues commented on Federal Judge Strikes Down Oregon's Ban On Same-Sex Marriage. "Sexual orientations and gender identity don't exist."

sexual orientations. . . don't exist. _DON'T EXIST_
32
"It's your fault that you are a low wage worker."
vs.
"If you can't pay people a living wage, then you don't deserve to be in business"

Both premises are obviously wrong.
33
@32 'Both premises are obviously wrong.'

Wrong in the sense of being overly simplistic?

There is some truth to both of them, to go along with their error, so perhaps you could explain your reasoning rather than tossing the "obvious" label on your argument and declaring victory?
34
@32 no, the second premise is not obviously wrong. If you can only succeed as a business by exploiting your employees, which is what the second premise's first clause means, then society has every right to condemn you to failure by forcing you out of business to clear the market for someone who can do better.
35
Anna forgot number 4: I lose my job. I'm basically guaranteed to have no job when this goes into effect and I'll be laid off. Hope those "progressives" are happy. At least I'll be able to move out of the state because I have no family to support. I feel bad for people in other situations. It would be nice if we would just go to work making more money, but we all know that's not going to be the case. My job was just voted away from me. I hope the fascists at 15Now feel proud of themselves.

But the good news is hopefully I can find a job elsewhere in the state, like maybe Bellevue, which is going to turn into a boom town. I, other restaurant workers and most small business owners will be singing this as our new theme song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L09qnRfZ…

I find it funny that 15Now has chapters in Chicago, NYC...but not one in Bellevue. Maybe that makes sense considering they had a Republican mayor up until last year. At least there is somewhere in the area that will still have jobs.
36
@35 Ok so let me get this straight, the duly elected representatives of the "miniarchy" that is the city of Seattle agree upon a minimum wage for employment contracts. Contract enforcement being one enforcement power you have expressly stated is a proper use of government. And you howl in pain NO NO NO. NO true Scotsman would do such a thing.

Other Cities, "miniarchies" (in your Utopia) start looking at the idea and you squirm and yell because, NO NO NO it's not what you believe a True Scotsman would do.

Watching you chase your tail and bark is getting old.
37
@35 After spending all this time establishing your character as a bonafide asshole, I don't think the story justifies you as a sympathetic character.
38
@36
How the fuck is minimum wage a "contract"? It is the GOVERNMENT ORDERING PEOPLE AND BUSINESSES TO ENGAGE IN A CERTAIN BEHAVIOR ON PAIN OF JAIL TIME/FINES. That's the opposite of a voluntary contract. Now, if a person and a business agree to work for a certain amount, and the business changes its mind, then that is a breach of contract.

Neither my employer nor myself signed any contract to work for 15/hour. This is the government ordering us around.

First, I never said a minarchist state would be a utopia. Second, a minarchy is, by definition, a state that only functions to secure freedoms, NOT to interfere in the agreements between two people. Why do you use the word "minarchism" if you don't even know what it means?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minarchism
39
@38: Minimum wage laws do NOT "[order] PEOPLE AND BUSINESSES TO ENGAGE IN A CERTAIN BEHAVIOR ON PAIN OF JAIL TIME/FINES". Rather, like most laws, they PROHIBIT certain behaviors: namely, selling labor for less than a certain price per man-hour. Nobody's forcing anyone to employ people at $15/hr!
40
@38 oh I know what it means. I also think it is stupid.

What I'm trying to get you to understand is you can't have it both ways. You can't cry at the injustice of "Big Government" lording it over small regional governments, call for it's dismantlement, then run crying to a big government when your local small government passes an ordinance you don't like.

But all that aside. Let us assume you get your left libitarian reform and we all break up into little competing semi-autonomous political units. How do you propose those little units govern themselves, govern their relations with other little semi-autonomous political units. Through what process?

Then ask yourself what are you going to do when the little semi-autonomous political unit you live in passes a law you don't like. They will you know, it is not a matter of if, it will happen. Now what do you do, your fantasy of everyone suddenly turning around and fully agreeing with you all the time on everything if only this political structure was in place has just blown up.

Are you starting to understand why I think your political views are simplistic, utopian, and stupid. You toss around labels, slice and dice political terminology you clearly don't fully understand but not once do you appear to think about the actual day to day workings of political process. Not one word about the basic framework of debate, negotiation, compromise that needs to happen within any deliberative political structure.

And no telling me that if country would just implement whatever whacked out on goof balls fringe theory of governmental structure you've latched onto this week we'll all suddenly become all altruistic and shit isn't going to cut it.

"Life in the state of nature is poor, nasty, brutish and short."

41
@40
Honestly, what the fuck are you talking about?

Let me put it this way: what if you got your dream of a one world government run by robots and the robots decided to force everyone to wear grey overalls?

Oh, your ideology has NOTHING to do with robots? And NOTHING I'm saying suggests that we should have "semi autonomous political units." Honestly, that is the biggest strawman I've ever heard of and proves you have no idea what the fuck you're talking about.

All I'm saying is that we should maximize human liberty and minimize government. ALL government, be it local, state or federal. There is NOTHING utopian about "lower taxes, let people run their lives and be free and things will work out better than they are."

And if libertarianism is a "whack ball fringe theory", then it is a pretty fucking huge "fringe":
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com…

And minarchism is the idea, but just the idea. It is NOT going to happen any time soon and we know that. So we think of that as the goal as we work towards things like deregulating homeless shelters so we aren't punished by government for having the audacity to take care of our own (it was a libertarian-lead push that Governor Gregorie signed into law...guess that was a "fringe act" too? http://votesmart.org/bill/8937/28857/lim…) or legalization of cannabis, which was a libertarian idea that liberals stole. And not raising the minimum wage but instead protecting unions is also a libertarian idea.

Honestly, stop talking. You're just embarrassing yourself with your ignorance.
42
@39
Actually, prohibiting a behavior IS ordering them to do something: pay only 15/hour or else.

What if a business can only pay me 12/hour and I say 12/hour is better than 0/hour and take it? Both the employer and maybe myself are in trouble DESPITE the fact that it was a freely entered agreement that isn't hurting anyone, anyone's property, or the environment.

A libertarian usually (most often, but not 100% of the time) believes that if there is no victim, there is no crime. So, why should a freely entered agreement between two adults be illegal? Any agreement, be it to have sex for money, buy a drug to use on one's own body or work for less than a few government officials say I should work for?

If there was an opt-out to this law, I wouldn't be against it. I would just go to city hall, get an "opt out" card and get a job anywhere easily. Instead, I have to lose the job I now have.

And considering I'm basically guaranteed to lose my job, you can understand why I'm so pissed off.
43
@42: If you are basically guaranteed to lose your job, you can't be very good at it.

Please wait...

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