When one learns that President Obama’s former Secretary of the Treasury is now knee deep in predatory lending, it’s difficult to defend Democrats as the party of the working class.
When our own state legislator signs a “Grand Bargain” that lifts the minimum wage but eliminates overtime pay for Sundays and holidays which will result in retail workers in many cases losing wages and having to manage with $250-$300 less each month, it’s difficult to defend Democrats as the party of the working class.
Today is one of those days.
Please share widely!
Christopher says
You do understand the concept of a bargain – right? You don’t get everything you want and sometimes have to trade away something.
johntmay says
What do retail workers get in this bargain if they are presently making $16 per hour and work every Sunday? They are giving up 9% of their wages as a result What are they getting in return? What am I missing?
Christopher says
At least eventually hopefully a raise, but this is big picture. Some individuals may benefit and some may not, but the question is does this provide the greatest good for the greatest number.
Mark L. Bail says
The cause of the Grand Bargain was politics, not Democrats: Raise Up screwed the pooch on the Fair Share Amendment, and the retail lobby had the Commonwealth over a barrel with a sales tax cut. Overtime will be reintroduced as a bill or a ballot question. We can fight another day. Politics will always have its ugly moments.
Obama was a centrist. Geithner was and is a douche bag. Old news. News flash: Democrats are/were not all leftists. Chances are they never will be.
If you’re looking to bash Democrats, you’ll never have to look far. There are always
plenty of Democrats who don’t live up to our expectations. Massachusetts is dominated by the Democrats because we have subsumed centrists, people who might be moderate Republicans elsewhere.
You might enjoy The Optimistic Leftist. The posts come out every couple of days. He believes in the importance of the white, working class voter, and he is “optimistic.”
johntmay says
Thanks. I agree with you 100%. I get a chuckle when we pat ourselves on the back as “true blue Democrats… of Massachusetts’…when sometimes that means absolutely nothing.
stomv says
I’d like to see your math. Could you show me an example where you pick a year, pick a weekly work schedule [even just 8 hours on a Sunday], and what the pay was before and after the Grand Bargain?
Keep in mind that Sunday 1.5x is phased out as the minimum wage is phased in. It doesn’t go away all at once. I think this part may be causing confusion.
Mark L. Bail says
Irony note: My son-in-law has a union job in manufacturing. He wanted to work yesterday because he would have gotten triple-time. The company decided to close for the day.
jconway says
Keep your registration to fight for your preferred candidates at the convention. Otherwise I’d strongly recommend that you join a local DSA or OR chapter. Both are groups committed to pushing social democracy and progressive economics to the center of the Democratic policy agenda. I think you would really enjoy both organizations.
OR is more narrowly political, albeit hyper local, while DSA takes on some of the best aspects of a church. It has a lot of fellowship, people meet to learn about important texts, and there are monthly community service opportunities. They also work hand in glove with unionization efforts and the fight for $15 which you would find appealing. See if there is a chapter in Franklin or start one if there is not. Happy to get you in touch with regional organizers for either group or DFA.
johntmay says
OT rate Base Rate Reg Pay Sunday Gross Annual
$24.00 2018 $16.00 $512.00 $192.00 $704.00 $36,608.00
$22.40 2019 $16.00 $512.00 $179.20 $691.20 $35,942.40
$20.80 2020 $16.00 $512.00 $166.40 $678.40 $35,276.80
$19.20 2021 $16.00 $512.00 $153.60 $665.60 $34,611.20
$17.60 2022 $16.00 $512.00 $140.80 $652.80 $33,945.60
$16.00 2033 $16.00 $512.00 $128.00 $640.00 $33,280.00
drikeo says
I get the Sunday phase out, but not holidays. The whole idea of holidays is that people aren’t supposed to work (or at least a minimal number). Those who do deserve the extra money. And I really don’t get why this was seen as something that needed to be included in this Grand Bargain. I’m sure some industry lobbying groups pushed the idea, but they should have been told to be happy they got Sundays.
johntmay says
If we had real Democrats, the kind that support the working class, they’d fight for time and a half on Saturdays.
Don’t you recall seeing the poster that you need to “Thank Unions” for the weekend?
There was a time in the USA where the six day week was the norm. The working class labored six out of seven days in service to the ownership class. Heck, even in feudal times, the peasants had to labor on the master’s land for three days, got three days on their own land, and one day off.
The other thing about weekends, and Sundays in particular is that those who work on those days miss out on so much. Weddings, parties, their kids soccer game, so many social events, all missed by those who have to work. Is it too much to ask that we pay them a little more so that we can enjoy our weekends going shopping, having parties, and all the things that this particular working class makes possible?
petr says
I do not believe this law makes any changes to holiday pay. I think it is Sunday time-and-a-half only that is phased out
petr says
The article to which you have linked has nothing whatsoever to say about “$250-$300 less each month,” for anybody. Did you even read it? Or are you confusing it with something else you read?
Sunday time and a half pay is not ‘overtime’ pay. Sunday time and a half pay is one of the last vestiges of the so called ‘Blue laws’ enacted by the Puritans (and other religious scolds) that, originally, forbid work on Sunday and religious holidays altogether. Unions and other labor activists whole-heartedly supported the ‘Blue laws’, not for religious reasons, but as a back-door limit on the work-week prior to the implementation of the 40 hour week and the adoption of real ‘overtime’ pay. When Sunday (and holiday) work became more permissible it was the unions and workers who fought for time-and-a-half, again as a way of limiting the ability of the employers to work their employees too hard… not as a bonus or ‘extra’ pay.
Sunday (and holiday) time and a half pay is not ‘overtime’ pay. Nothing happens to ‘overtime’ pay as a result of this ‘bargain’. Any given employee who works in excess of 40 hours per week will remain entitled to and receive real and actual ‘overtime’ pay.
johntmay says
I did more than read the article, I did the math. A retail worker in Massachusetts who typically works on Sundays (as most do because it is one of the busiest days of the week) will lose the time and a half pay rate they have been receiving since the day they were hired if their employer wishes to cut their payroll. The retail workers refer to Sunday wages as “OT rate” – so stop splitting hairs.
With the elimination of the OT rate on Sundays, effectively 20% of the hours that an employee will work, assuming a base wage of $15-18 per hour (which is quite common in retail) that will result in a net loss for each employee of $250-$300 per month.
Yes, they will still receive OT rate over 40 hours, at least for now. Who knows what other “grand bargains” Democrats on Beacon Hill will cobble together in the years to come.
By the way, here’s another look at things:
Over the past 12 months, piddling wage gains — combined with modest inflation — have left the vast majority of our nation’s laborers with lower real hourly earnings than they had in May 2017.
Economists have put forward a variety of explanations for the aberrant absence of wage growth in the middle of a recovery. Automation….well-paid baby-boomers are retiring, and being replaced with millennials who have enough experience to do the boomers’ jobs — but not enough to demand their salaries.
There’s likely some truth to these narratives. But a new report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) offers a more straightforward — and political — explanation: American policymakers have chosen to design an economic system that leaves workers desperate and disempowered, for the sake of directing a higher share of economic growth to bosses and shareholders.
Yup, even here in Blue Massachusetts….
petr says
You linked to the article, as though it contained the math already done… when, as you now aver, you merely think it re-inforces your math already done. Whether or no you did the math correctly, the story to which you linked has nothing to say about it..
No, you don’t know the math. It is physically impossible for ‘most’ retail workers to work on Sundays without either A) shortchanging the work schedule on the other six days of the week * ( do they work in a place that is closed — that is to say, employs no one — at the least three days of the week?), or 2) causing an actual workweek in excess of 40 hours for many workers.. In addition, retail workers have families, with whom they attend church or soccer matches or just time in company on Sundays.
Every Sunday shift gets filled, but not every retail worker fills a Sunday shift. An employee making $16/hr who gets $24/hr on Sunday, will make an extra $64 (pre-tax) per shift. They will have to work every Sunday shift to make, at least, $256 extra (and pre-tax) dollars a month.
But your analysis entirely leaves out the employer, desperate as he/she may be NOT to part with any more than they have to… and who likely hires a $10/hr worker simply to work on Sundays so that they have to pay $15/hr rather than $24. As noted, in a few years the $10/hr worker will be making $15/hr… So where’s the problem?
Yes. They do. But they are wrong. It’s not splitting hairs. It’s understanding the circumstances. The 40 hour work week which introduced the overtime concept, prevents gross exploitation of workers, which was also the aim of the joint Union-Religious support of the so-called ‘Blue laws’, first, in a outright ban on work on Sundays and then a penalty for employers working on Sunday. That penalty is now superfluous and is going away. Real overtime is not going anywhere.
And over the next few years as Massachusetts phases in the raise in the minimum wage that statement will be comprehensively mooted for the CommonWealth. The point. Duh.
This is a law that directly addresses your concerns. It will help far more people than it will hurt. And all you do is gripe about it.
johntmay says
You seem to have such a chip on your shoulder against me that it’ blinding you.
It’s not about blue laws. It’s not about me. It’s about retail workers, something you seem to know very little about, or care about.
Sunday is one of busiest days of the week and most retail workers get two days off that are typically M-F, but not Saturday or Sunday. Most all employees work on Sundays.
Yes, if they are making minimum wage, the extra dollar per year will more than offset the gradual loss of time and a half on Sundays and holidays. But I am not talking about minimum wage workers.
If you care to notice, many retail employers already pay more than minimum. My local Aldi’s has a help wanted sign for full timers starting at $13 per hour. The local McDonalds is offering about the same or more. – and that’s starting wage. In a year or two with raises, they get to $15 or more, and that’s the point.
That worker will see a very real LOSS of take home pay of anywhere from $250-$300 a month.
Please give me a good reply to them when they asked me why DEMOCRATS voted to cut their pay.
scott12mass says
So the invisible hand of the marketplace is already working and pressuring wages higher? They are starting at 13 now.
johntmay says
The invisible hand has been missing for the past four decades. This hand job is not enough.
johntmay says
I crunched the numbers on this and this is what I discovered.
If you are a retail worker who typically works Sundays and are currently making $11-13 per hour, in five years, you will see a gain in your gross yearly wage in the range of 26%-7%.
For example, someone currently grossing $32,448 per year @ $12 per hour will, in five years, gross $37,440, a net gain of $4,992. This is good as someone living on $32,448 could surely use an extra $416 a month.
However, if you are a retail worker who typically works Sundays and are currently making $14-20 per hour, in five years you will see a loss in your gross yearly wage in the range of 1%-8%.
For example, someone currently grossing $43,264 per year @ $16 per hour will, in five years, gross $39,936, a net loss of $3,328. This is not good, as someone living on $43,264 today is going to have to make serious financial cuts to be able to live on $277 less each month.
Robbing Peter to pay Paul is what Democrats in this “blue” state consider a “Grand Bargain” and something to be proud of.
We might as well be in Kansas.