Quote:Right now Walmart operates at roughly a 3% profit margin.  That's hardly a profiteering glutton.  I have a close family friend that used to be involved as as a human resource manager for walmart.  one of interesting things about their business model is that they have one of the most liberal promotion policies around.  They are very clear about the fact that you can come in as a cashier making 7.25 and as you learn and grow in your knowledge and performance you can become the manager of a profit center or greater. 

The Walmart near us has recently raised their entry-level wage to $10.25/hr., over $2/hr more than the state's minimum wage. Interestingly enough, when I ran by Wally World last night to pick up some packing supplies, I bumped into a sales floor supervisor I know while he was outside on a smoke break, so I stopped and had a chat with him to let him know about our move. The topic of the entry-level wage bump came up, and he mentioned that several of the front-line supervisors were actively looking for new jobs because of it. Apparently, their pay was not raised as well, and they're only making $10.50-11.50/hr. This means that the cart jockey who was making $9/hr. is now making very close to what they do, only his job duties are extremely simple compared to theirs and have not been increased at all to compensate for the huge bump in pay. This, understandably, greatly irritates them (the supervisor's language was more colorful than mine). The justification that he was given when he and a couple other supervisors asked the store manager if they'd see raises as well was that the store has to "protect its prices", and thus could not afford to increase the pay of those already making $10.25/hr. or more.

 

Anecdotal, I know, but still an interesting conversation to have. I suspect the raise was to attract potential employees to that store, which has always had staffing problems because it, like everything else here, is on the fringes of nowhere.

 

Quote:The pizza joint increased their minimum wage to $15.  If they'd started out at $12.25, a 20% increase is $2.45.

 

$12.25 + $2.45 = $14.70

 

So in reality, these guys increased their employees wages by 30 cents an hour and eliminated the tips, which in Berkley/Emeryville are near 20%.

I don't follow your math. Not trying to be difficult, I just genuinely don't see where $0.30/hr. is coming from. Are you assuming that $2.45/hr. is what they were making in tips?

---