my apology for my recent post on brownstoner
you know, it would be great if the community would counter me on here if they think things I may be saying or suggesting are wrong. I am thinking, I can take this and turn it into a real article for publication someplace and if I had some people counter me – both progressives and more conservative or business minded types, I can address the points they raise in the article. I think this has to be written about on a larger scale then just here. I think people have to know the truth.
stevecym
in General Discussion 6 years ago
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29 replies
stevecym | 6 years ago
Brucef: thank you for the opportunity and thank you for reading this, all of you. i know people are reading and thinking.
stevecym | 6 years ago
i can also point something out about hiring americans at this level. it is harder for us (americans who can get hurt with a machine) to take jobs with no worker’s comp protection or disability and in general we want other things, the minimum required by law. if you offer say 25 an hour and provide the minimum protection, you will find plenty of dedicated americans (i have). the problem is, if you offer 25 an hour with nothing else (or say less than 40 an hour and expect him to provide his own insurance and pay into social security), the American might as well sit the couch because if he gets hurt, this will cost him a lot more (i have a house; the hospital will take that from me or i should say us). what you get when you hire americans below the legally required protections are people who have other issues and may be working for a day here or a day there to support a habit and you are correct that we would rather hire someone new to the country than deal with those issues but that does not mean we are not underpaying them, especially when we do not give them mini mum protections required by law. in a way we are discriminating; we would give those protections to an American but we are not giving those protections to someone else. it is wrong. and we can sugar coat it and talk about how nice we are as we do it and we can buy them lunch (which to me seems paternalistic anyway) but it does not change or hide the bare facts.
stevecym | 6 years ago
FYI: tally the cost of workmen’s comp, disability, unemployment, (not to mention health insurance) and a few paid sick days, two weeks paid vacation and payment into social security, divide it down to the hour and add it to $25 an hour and pay someone that hourly rate and you are helping them. the numbers don’t lie.
stevecym | 6 years ago
so back to what BruceF said, about the hard work and loyalty and wanting to help these folks, can I get a like for suggesting that if all that is true we should be paying these people either $25 an hour with the basic protections that we would be required by law to provide a US Citizen (which I do not know how we can give them since they do not have social security numbers) or $35 an hour so they can save a little and “self-insure” should they get hurt and can’t work or fund themselves unemployed for any period of time? Every human deserves the basic minimums required by law. Am I not correct in this? Let me point out what a union mason makes including benefits which are above and beyond the what is legally required by law: $92 an hour. Has anyone here considered that rate when they claim to have “no regrets” about what they pay someone to work? in all honesty, I have paid people $25 an hour and I felt there was something wrong with it. We can si t around and talk about how hard people work and how loyal they are, but we have a saying in America “money talks…”
stevecym | 6 years ago
I myself did not realize that we are taking advantage of people by paying them 25 an hour until I began working in it. with the more exposure I had and the more I saw and the more I learned about how much it costs to give myself the minimal protections required by law (never mind health insurance), I realized there is something seriously wrong here. when I first hired people at 25 an hour, like BruceF, I thought this was great; i am getting work done and I’m helping them. and i can justify it; in the 1990’s i worked on the side doing handyman and light construction work for 20/hr – but i had protection from another job and was paying into retirement and social security and unemployment through that other job. so like others reading this on here, at first i thought 25 an hour was great and i was doing people a favor. and the hard work and loyalty 25 an hour buys is not a sign of a good thing; it is a sign of how vulnerable these people are and how competitive the environment has become that they have to suffer that wage and work like animals (some of these peop le don’t take lunch; any American would demand his lunch and a 15 minute morning and afternoon break as he should). let’s not kid ourselves here folks, we are doing no one but ourselves (i will include myself in this as i might hire a painter for my own house soon) favors if we pay MEN $25 an hour.
stevecym | 6 years ago
this is something I believe I have learned about loyalty with workers at this level, even on a small job that lasts a day or two; that is how they maintain the network. their jobs end all the time and they have no unemployment insurance and the environment is very competitive so they must show us their best side at every turn, including loyalty, so we will remember them and call them when something else comes along. they have to behave this way even if they are being underpaid or find something other aspect of the job intolerable. in the absence of unemployment insurance, this helps guarantee them work where as with an American, if he/she has unemployment insurance and does not want to go back to some crappy job, he not only refuses to show loyalty but he stays on the couch. the loyalty is not necessarily coming from a good place; it is coming from a place of need.
again thank you all. I wish I would get some likes for these posts from the socially conscience among us. I can be wrong about some of this, but be aware I have been in it for over 20 years now, s eeking help and hiring, firing, and working right alongside people with my hands (and there are other things I know too, with respect to discrimination, but I will not mention it as it gets too specific).
Thank you BruceF. If you have read my earlier posts on this matter, this is all something I have wanted to say for a long, long time but it had never occurred to me to make the comparison to when our ancestors arrived 100 years ago until you referenced just that. and when I made the comparison, I realized things were worse than they really are today and worse than they were back then. and the loyalty part, I knew why they were so loyal, but again, until you mentioned it and until you had, I never thought of pointing it out as showing how bad thing are for these people. thank you for allowing me the opportunity.
stevecym | 6 years ago
BruceF or Dibs or anyone else on here or specifically anyone who has done contract work (even contract white collar work such as IT or writing) and knows what benefits cost: can anyone offer up a suggestion as to what a fare wage might be for a self employed person (someone not covered by unemployment insurance, has no paid sick days, has no one paying 1/2 of the social security tax for them, and is not covered by workmen’s comp) who labors in NYC? what about someone who is a bit more skilled and has to supply his or her own tools? I was saying minimum of about $40 per hour at the low end. Does anyone have any ideas? honestly, I really do not know myself and I work. I am wondering if there are others who have ideas. BruceF, you said you paid people a “good wage”. what is a “good wage”?
stevecym | 6 years ago
see, I am not getting a reply when I ask the question. in all honesty, I have spent years working in different communities around New York City. as I have said, I get push back when I begin this conversation with certain folks in more conservative areas (my “capitalist” friends) but on this site focused in Brooklyn people are quiet. My suspicion is that people were not aware how bad this was, hiring people at this wage with no legally required protections. I also suspect that now that I have said something they know it is wrong (again, my trump supporting friend on long island will argue to the death with me and say “its capitalism”) but people in Brooklyn are not of his “ilk”; this I know because the areas where I work in Brooklyn had very different bumper stickers on their cars during the last presidential election than my friend had on his. my suspicion is that people did not know. it is not that I had to change anyone’s minds as jhcovert implied I was trying to do, but it was more of informing “like” minds.
thank you all for reading all of this. I hav e wanted to write something like this for a long time and also wanted to run it by sociologists and an economist, but that would never happen; just like the folks who I am writing about, who are out busy working hanging drywall, I have to work as well and taking the time to do something like this eats into something else. that is another thing: I am an anomaly; I work with my hands but have a degree in English which allows me the unique position of knowing what it is like to be a worker in the city but also post on here. I am sure if some of those folks hanging drywall could write, they would have a lot more to say on this subject. Perhaps we are all better off that it is only me.
stevecym | 6 years ago
you know, we can talk about this as an “immigrant issue” or simply as an “issue”. if we keep it as an “immigrant issue” it is very easy to think it is “something else” that does not pertain to us. it does not represent us or our families. but once i stop thinking of this as an immigrant issue and include myself in it as a “labor issue”, it becomes an issue for all people who toil with their hands. So for people like Dibs who suggest that young people take up a trade, and that can be any parent reading this now (i have a son), as soon as you consider that your child may not be suited for college, this issue as i just laid it out is something we all have to consider. think of it as a labor issue and ask, do i want my child working in an environment where the lowest worker makes $10 an hour after providing himself with social security tax, unemployment insurance and worker’s comp and vacation and a few sick days, paid federal holidays (25 an hour minus t he cost of those) and the top worker makes $20 an hour after subtracting the cost of those? for me, as a worker, thinking of it as a labor issue and not an immigrant issue has pushed this right into my face.