Sonoma County already ahead of curve, but labor advocates push for higher pay
January 1, 2002

By PAUL PAYNE
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Californians making minimum wage will get a 50-cent raise today.

The increase, the second part of a two-part hike approved in 2000, brings the minimum wage to $6.75 an hour, a dollar increase from the $5.75 state minimum two years ago. The wage went up 50 cents in January 2001.

(We pay our staff between $6.75 - $7.50 per hour. We pay our assistants between $9 - $10.75 per hour.)

"I think it's kind of pathetic," said Alex Mallonee of the North Bay Labor Council, who estimates workers need at least $15 an hour to be self-sufficient. "Nobody can live on it." (About what Ky and I pay ourselves!)

California is now among 10 states with a higher minimum wage than the $5.15-an-hour federal minimum. Only Washington state now has higher minimum pay, entering 2002 at $6.90 an hour.

Additional increases could come again in 2003 under petitions and bills awaiting lawmakers.

Tom Rankin of the California Labor Federation said he will push for a higher wage, possibly as much as $9 an hour.

(Can you run your theatre while paying the staff $9 per hour? I'm not sure we can.)

(I guess $9 per hour staff meens $10 adult tickets, $7 Senior & Children tickets. I hope the public doesn't mind.)

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I belive that that there should be a "dependent" wage. So that a person who actually supports him/herself or a family can earn a minimum of $9.00 per hour while the teenager (dependent) who is still on their parent's tax return can earn a lower wage. Kind of like the "training wage" or the waitress/er "wage".

I know there are a lot of problems with this method but there has to be a way person can make a decent "living" and yet not have to work two jobs and seven days a week.

Just my opinion...

I have 9 years experience full time as a projectionist. What happens now is someone of my age (27) can walk in, get a cashier job at £4.10 an hour. I have been in the industry 9 years, and my pay has only been bumped up to £4.25!!! That means my 9 years of experience working full time is only worth an extra 15pence an hour

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As for minimum wage, It does suck. But us theaters would be SOL if they really upped it.

UNLESS congress steps in and forces the studios to go back to the 53/47 deal we had for so very long. What the hell is this 90/10 crap?

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There is, it's called developing a marketable skill (through college or an apprenticeship or whatever) and increasing your personal value. Minimum wage increases, among other things, is a way for people that have no real motivation to increase their own value to get a raise anyway, only to have to turn around and pay more for their next hamburger to pay someone else's wage hike.

By the way, Aaron. You're on the right track with your ideas, just be careful not to be insulting when you slam the libs, or it will only take away from your arguement.

Not always. The fellows riding the garbage trucks here get big bucks and a short work week. Doctors tied to HMOs get to work long hours and get screwed by the HMOs. I'd be willing to bet that on a per hour basis, the trashmen earn more. Career opportunities might be a little limited though.

FWIW, increases in minimum wage usually follow inflation rather than leading it. If we didn't have inflation, the whole issue of increasing minimum wage would be moot. I notice than inflation has occurred both under liberal and conservative administrations, so a pox on both their houses.

I guess I see the minimum wage job as either the place people are trained to work for jobs to come, a part-time job to hold while they go to school to "develop a marketable skill," or the place where people go when there isn't anything else. In all the years I've worked around those who made minimum wage I can only remember one person who was just working a minimum wage job without any expectation or motivation to do better. But then again, he was a high school student who's father was rich and I guess just wanted him out of the house. The kid drove a sports car, knew he was college bound, and his father matched the "minimum wage" he was paid dollar for dollar.

I still believe that the two tier minimum wage might help. The kid at his first job and still at home being supported by the parents should have lower pay. However, those that are working their way through college or a tech school, laid off because the dot com job just released them along with 4000 of his/her co-workers or the factory employee who was laid off because it is cheaper to move the factory to a country with no minimum wage, should have the opportunity to work at a good paying "temporary" job while they get back on their feet. Give them a reason to not just accept the unemployment insurance and get out there and fill those low paying jobs. I couldn't help but notice that even today as I was out shopping with my wife there were several places that had "now hiring" signs in a city where there have been thousands of layoffs in the last six months. (My dot com friend chose the unemployment pay and took some time off, when the money stopped he got a temporary "lower" paying job until another "high" pay full time job came along.)

Maybe I agree with you in a way though, I have many friends who work union jobs. Everything from grocery store baggers, dock workers, police officers and some teachers that all seem to get good pay with built in "cost of living" raises, on top of constatnt negotiations for more pay. Now there I have seen examples of the "no real motivation to increase their own value" that you spoke of in your post. It is possible that I just happen to know a lot of union employees with a poor attitude and low work ethics but I think that those that I do know with this attitude have it because they know how difficult it is for them to get fired.

So, are those that earn minimum wage just another form of union worker? Do some have an attitude because they're not going to loose any status in pay when they get fired and find another minimum wage job? Maybe, and in that way I do agree that we can't have a minimum paying job where people do not feel the need to advance.

Joel

:::Stepping down from my soap box, picking it up and taking it with me to the long-winded annonymous meeting. :::

P.S. Union guys and gals I don't mean to offend all of you, just the ones with the the establishment attitude. Both my mother and father were union employees and they (along with 95% of their friends) were two of the hardest working people I knew. However, I believe they were grateful for the opportunity to work in such a good paying job. See they had worked in the fields and packing sheds before that and knew what a real minimum jobs was. I know that my one day of picking cucumbers (on a dare) gave me the motivation not to loose my first minimum wage job. (I never even went back to pick up my check.)

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