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Author Topic: Pay rates for hourly concession, ticket, usher staff Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 02-15-2007 12:50 AM                     quote: You guys need to move to Washington. We've been paying above $7 for years. This'll be the second year our new hires start at $8. You ought to see what the kids around here think they should be starting at! ....Yes, and I'm finding out that your neighbors below you down in Oregon where the min wage is at $7.80, have or are getting the same attitude on what they think that they should be getting for what they do .. and it's getting to be sad thinking that these kids are getting the idea that they are going to control the employers on what they think they should get paid, or go find some something else that suits their fancy. ..remember the 1973 movie "Soylent Green"? with Heston and E.G. Robinson (his last movie) and a comment was made on how much it cost for a jar of strawberry jam, which was $225.00? Hate to say this, but those days are coming .... -Monte  |  IP: Logged Jack Ondracek Film God Posts: 2348 From: Port Orchard, WA, USA Registered: Oct 2002 posted 02-15-2007 08:10 AM                        Soylent Green is people!  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 02-15-2007 08:36 AM                     Lyle...you just demonstrated how news stories quote with accurately but misreport the story. Didn't I note in my discussion that although the wage increases at the lower end of the scale...how this affects the cost of goods to offset it is not at the same rate since it is distributed across the sale. That is, a 30% increase the bottom wage does not result in a 30% increase in the cost to deliver goods. How the cost of labor factors into the cost of goods is a function of said product and is not idetical for all products. In short, you over simplified.  |  IP: Logged John T. Hendrickson, Jr Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 889 From: Freehold, NJ, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 02-16-2007 08:59 PM                     Let's set up a hypothetical. You have a new employee hired at a minimum wage of $6.15/hr. You have an experienced employee making $8/hr. There is a difference of nearly 25% between to two. Now comes an increase in the minimum wage, to $7.15/hr. The newbee has just become the benefactor of a windfall of over 16%. For doing what? Was there a 16% increase in productivity?Now the $8/hr employee looks at this and thinks: "This guy is making 85 cents an hour less than me, and for what?" If you want to go by percentages, then the $8/hr employee should be raised to $9.28/hr just to stay even. Steve Guttag said: "the truth about raising the bottom is that as a percentage it means more to those at the bottom in buying power. Give a $2/hour raise to a $6/hour employee and they are 30% wealthier and can purchase more or have a better choice of what they do purchase." Correct! So, percentage-wise, you have to increase the employees who make more. Now, you are talking about a serious rise in labor costs. So, to quote Lyle Romer: " Which then leads to inflation and the buying power eventually ends up where it was to start and then minimum wage is increased again and then.............round and round we go" And where does this leave theatre owners? Raising prices again. Sooner or later we reach the old economic tennant of the point of diminishing returns, where indeed, some customers will start to walk away.  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 02-17-2007 10:04 AM                     John, Bzzzzt wrong again...the minimum wage is there only raises the bottom to what should be the minimum. I'm not saying it is set accurately. If one is paying less when the minimum is increased, the in effect the employer was underpaying those people. The "raise" as you called it was really just put them on the bottom. An employer does not HAVE to raise anyone else. That is their choice for any reason, merit, the aforementioned good will seeing as the bottom rung people just increased their buying power...etc. Now if a company were to take your approach and raise everyone's income the same percentage right on up to the CEO/owner that may be making a million a year (nice wish for small time theatre owners)...then yes, it would beget inflation based on labor costs, which is only a portion of the cost of goods. Generally, people being paid minimum wage are paid that because one couldn't be paid anything less. Those that don't make the minimum wage are already having their value expressed to some extent in monetary forms.  |  IP: Logged John T. Hendrickson, Jr Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 889 From: Freehold, NJ, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 02-17-2007 07:09 PM                     Steve- I think we are engaged in some symantics here. My point is simply this: NJ minimum wage just went from $6.15 to $7.15 per hour this past October. Naturally, we hire kids for floor work at the minimum to start. So, a new employee starts there at that rate. As of this past October, my entry level operator who had just finished training was making $8. He looks at the newbe just beginning and thinks: "I'm in the booth with all this responsibility, and I'm making only 85 cents an hour more than the moron on the floor." If he walks, I'm out one booth operator and all that training I gave him goes up in smoke. So, what do I do? That's what I mean by a rising tide lifts all boats. If I give the bottom man another 50 cents an hour, then the guy at $9 sees that and he wants more, too. Yeh, I know- how do they know what the others guys are making? Although management tries to keep pay confidential, people talk and they find out.  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-17-2007 09:24 PM                        Our minimum wage in Montana was $5.15 and just went to $6.15. (Everything's cheaper in Montana.) We start people for 90 days at the minimum, then they used to go to $5.50 and keep escalating over time until they hit a max of $7.25. When the new wage went into effect I had 3 new people at the minimum, and three more experienced people who were at $6.50, so I just couldn't raise the minimum people to $6.15 and not raise the others too. I know how I would feel if I were the higher-paid employees. Bottom line, everyone got a dollar an hour raise and our ticket prices went up to cover it. It was about a wash, on the average. The worry here is, a yearly cost-of-living adjustment was also voted in so who knows what'll happen to the minimum as time goes on, especially if the fed minimum goes to $7.25.  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 02-17-2007 09:49 PM                     John, yes a rising tide does raise all boats but it doesn't raise them all at the same rate, percentage wise. The closer to the bottom you are, the higher a percentage it is. If say, you raise all employees by $2/hr to keep the spread (similar to Mike's example) then the bottom guy got a bigger percentage raise. The cost of living as a result of this increase did NOT raise the cost of goods by the same amount as the percentage of increase in pay and hence the people at the bottom end wind up with more buying power. In other words, a 30% increase in minimum wage does not translate into a 30% inflation in the cost of goods and entertainment. It will inflate the cost for sure but the people at the bottom will find more dough in their pocket in the end to spend, which technically helps the economy providing that the increase in the cost of goods does not deter people from buying them. However, it is way too simplistic and just plain wrong to say that increasing the minimum wage will cause the cost of goods to uniformly rise such to nullify the increase.  |  IP: Logged Mark Hajducki Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 500 From: Edinburgh, UK Registered: May 2003 posted 02-19-2007 05:03 PM                     Not increasing rates of pay by inflation would result in people working for less in real terms year on year. Assuming the minimum wage is also linked to inflation (although adjusted in stages) then an inflation linked pay scale would be linked to the minimum wage. A system where all the salaries are linked (minimum wage times a set amount) would result in fixed links between each grade of employees' wages. ----- The problem with inflation is there are many scales avaliable to measure it. Not all staff will be affected in the same way by changes in the cost of living (for example somebody living with their parents will be relatively shielded from increases in rental or mortgage rates). quote: John T. Hendrickson, Jr That simply forced us to give idiots a raise. The closer, in wage terms, entry level jobs are the more staff will have to choose between employers based on working conditions, rather just on pay. As a result there should be some better people applying. (I know this is not good from a payroll perspective)  |  IP: Logged Brandon Henry Film Handler Posts: 20 From: Stacy, Minnesota, US Registered: Jan 2007 posted 02-28-2007 10:31 AM                     When I first started out working in the theater business (usher, box, concession) we started at minimum wage (4.25 at the time) and you did not get a raise, ever. The philosophy of the management was they had a stack a mile of applications that could go to and find someone willing to work for that. The job had its perks that most other teenage jobs did not such as the free movies. Now that I moved on to another corporation we start at minimum wage and you have get a raise based on performance. We have several employees who have not received a raise and others who have worked themselves up to a nice paying job. For a while we seemed to give raises every so many months and it was the same across the board, this new method seems to have weeded out some of the bad employees.  |  IP: Logged Jack Ondracek Film God Posts: 2348 From: Port Orchard, WA, USA Registered: Oct 2002 posted 02-28-2007 07:18 PM                        quote: Steve Guttag it is way too simplistic and just plain wrong to say that increasing the minimum wage will cause the cost of goods to uniformly rise such to nullify the increase. Why is that? Is it just assumed that businesspeople profit enough to absorb what amounts to an increase on our cost of operations? That's like someone who's promoting a new tax saying it's just a nickel on a $10 purchase. Maybe that's true, but all of these increases accumulate, and at some point (sooner or later) they have to be reflected in the prices consumers pay.  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 02-28-2007 08:43 PM                     Come on Jack...you must not have read my posting(s)...I never said that increasing the minimum wage would not increase the cost of goods and services...just that it would not nullify the increase to the worker. On balance the worker will have more spending money....however if the hike is too aggressive and it pushes a business into a situation where increasing what the charge for their goods (as compared to their competition...and that is not limited to the same business but business clas...in theatre's case, entertainment)..then staff reductions may also result which hurts workers looking for jobs and thus forces more people to the bottom of the wage scale. But this comes back to don't try to think of any economical change a simple..Do "A" and there will be "B" result. You might get "B" with "C" and "D" as well. But from a rise in the minimum wage, it is almost impossible to translate that into needing to raise prices so much as to negate the rise to the worker. The net increase in prices (to completely offset the increase in payroll) is only a fraction of what the raise amounts to the individual workers in a minimum wage situation.  |  IP: Logged Jack Ondracek Film God Posts: 2348 From: Port Orchard, WA, USA Registered: Oct 2002 posted 02-28-2007 09:14 PM                        quote: Steve Guttag you must not have read my posting(s)... Ahhh.... ok. Pardon my blinders!  |  IP: Logged Joel N. Weber II Expert Film Handler Posts: 115 From: Somerville, MA, USA Registered: Dec 2005 posted 03-02-2007 01:43 AM                     Many/most of the goods sold in the US aren't manufactured in the US, so the US minimum wage shouldn't affect the manufacturing cost of those goods. However, some of those goods are sold in stores in the US that pay their employees the minimum wage, and the cost of paying those employees will go up somewhat.  |  IP: Logged Dustin Mitchell Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1865 From: Mondovi, WI, USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 03-02-2007 02:00 AM                     Someone once told me that some union contracts have their pay rates tied to the minium wage, that is the contract stipulates they'll be paid x amount (percent or straight dollar amount I don't know) over mininum wage. Anyone know if this is true?  |  IP: Logged

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