7 ms·

I'm sure there's going to be some legitimate criticisms (they don't have many low paid workers; they're only doing this to win favor with the democrats; he stil

by mabbo 8y ago

I'm sure there's going to be some legitimate criticisms (they don't have many low paid workers; they're only doing this to win favor with the democrats; he still makes too much money; etc) but I don't really care. It's a good thing to do. They didn't have to do it. They did it. I'll judge people on their actions first, intentions second.

Bartweiss 8y ago
The concerns you list don't stop this from being a good thing, I agree. My bigger concern is what BoAs rate of low-wage direct employees versus contractors looks like, and will look like in the future. The overall trend seems to be that contracted service work is paid somewhat worse than direct, but also faces no benefits, high firing rates, and far nastier working conditions. I don't have numbers on BoA, and I doubt they'll publicize them. But my concern is that moves like this (without a corresponding guarantee for contractors) create an incentive to offload ever more work into conditions that might be even worse than the current state of affairs. I don't want to undersell this, though. I doubt bank tellers will become contract labor anytime soon, and this will actually represent a significant raise for them.
- mabbo 8y ago
  If they quickly move now to replace all their tellers to contractors, I will then judge BoA on that action. Until then, good on 'em.
- Ari_Ugwu 8y ago
  I wonder of 'trickle down economics' works when the money is injected more closely to where it's supposed to trickle from? While I don't think Bank of America has a large percentage of skill workers compared to knowledge workers I think this sends a very forward thinking message. The debt waters are rising for both consumer and corporate and I assume we'll see a correction soon that once again hits middle class and lower class folks _almost_ ready to make a mobility play. $20/hr during the coming lean times could be just enough to keep some folks from losing too much ground. I'm just guessing at the rationale but it does kind of make me want to switch banks in support. Next few years could get rough for +60% of the US population.
  - Dumblydorr 8y ago
    Personally I've had B of A for years, they offer a variety of products but I've found them nickel and diming me while offering practically zero interest on the savings I leave there, lest I incur 5 dollars monthly for not having 300 bucks in savings.
    - true_religion 8y ago
      BoA basically wants you to open up an investment "savings" account with them, and allow them to use your money to play in the market. It's why their interest rates are abysmal. Beyond that, on the consumer end they charge rates for random things unless you keep a significant amount of money in your accounts. If you do then they basically charge you no money and call you once a week begging to redistribute your savings into something with "greater returns" by which they mean stocks.
  - moate 8y ago
    >>I wonder of 'trickle down economics' works when the money is injected more closely to where it's supposed to trickle from? That's specifically not trickle-down economics. That's just a economics. If you give more money to people, you're just giving more money to people. The whole point of a trickle-down is that if you give large sums of money to already rich and powerful individuals, typically in the form of tax breaks or subsidies, then they will invest that money in sectors that create jobs which allows the wealth to trickle-down to the people you're positing to help. I'm not here trying to talk about the merits of either, just pointing out that this is an entirely different style of economics.
    - Ari_Ugwu 8y ago
      I'm not sure I follow. A very big company that benefits from many subsidies and government assurances used those profits gained to improve the lives of it's workers. It very literally _trickled down_ from benefits given to the top.
TheHypnotist 8y ago
When I was a bank teller I was paid $10/hour. This is a dream. That said - the teller is an endangered position.
- ModernMech 8y ago
  Is it though? I heard that when ATMs were introduced, and tellers are still around. There's no shortage of banks in my town, each surely stocked with tellers. What's threatening tellers now?
  - dwighttk 8y ago
    The few times I've gone into a bank there's been ~5 teller positions manned by 1 teller.
  - grimjack00 8y ago
    But how many tellers? And what other duties do they have besides performing customer transactions? I was a teller back in the mid-nineties, and even then, depending on the branch, we almost never had a full teller line. There were maybe two full-timers, and the rest (3-4) were part-time and scheduled to cover peak hours.
    - wcarron 8y ago
      My Chase branch in KTown in Los Angeles literally always has a wait. I have gone at least a dozen times during the week and there have always been at least 4 tellers solely manning the transactions. The line for the tellers is invariably over 10 people long. Other bank employees handle new accounts and whatnot.
      - jcims 8y ago
        Is there enough retail in that area that they might be handling a disproportionate number of deposits?
      - scruple 8y ago
cirgue 8y ago
If nothing else, it signals to the rest of corporate america, which might actually have more people that would benifit from this, that it's cool to make these kinds of moves. That's a good thing, or at least not a bad thing.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
C1sc0cat 8y ago
Probably a lot of female relatively low paid back tellers - could even bring cleaning and janitorial back in house (and hire mostly men) as that would make the pay disparities look better.

by mabbo 8y ago

Bartweiss 8y ago

The concerns you list don't stop this from being a good thing, I agree. My bigger concern is what BoAs rate of low-wage direct employees versus contractors looks like, and will look like in the future. The overall trend seems to be that contracted service work is paid somewhat worse than direct, but also faces no benefits, high firing rates, and far nastier working conditions. I don't have numbers on BoA, and I doubt they'll publicize them. But my concern is that moves like this (without a corresponding guarantee for contractors) create an incentive to offload ever more work into conditions that might be even worse than the current state of affairs. I don't want to undersell this, though. I doubt bank tellers will become contract labor anytime soon, and this will actually represent a significant raise for them.

mabbo 8y ago
If they quickly move now to replace all their tellers to contractors, I will then judge BoA on that action. Until then, good on 'em.
Ari_Ugwu 8y ago
I wonder of 'trickle down economics' works when the money is injected more closely to where it's supposed to trickle from? While I don't think Bank of America has a large percentage of skill workers compared to knowledge workers I think this sends a very forward thinking message. The debt waters are rising for both consumer and corporate and I assume we'll see a correction soon that once again hits middle class and lower class folks _almost_ ready to make a mobility play. $20/hr during the coming lean times could be just enough to keep some folks from losing too much ground. I'm just guessing at the rationale but it does kind of make me want to switch banks in support. Next few years could get rough for +60% of the US population.
- Dumblydorr 8y ago
  Personally I've had B of A for years, they offer a variety of products but I've found them nickel and diming me while offering practically zero interest on the savings I leave there, lest I incur 5 dollars monthly for not having 300 bucks in savings.
  - true_religion 8y ago
    BoA basically wants you to open up an investment "savings" account with them, and allow them to use your money to play in the market. It's why their interest rates are abysmal. Beyond that, on the consumer end they charge rates for random things unless you keep a significant amount of money in your accounts. If you do then they basically charge you no money and call you once a week begging to redistribute your savings into something with "greater returns" by which they mean stocks.
- moate 8y ago
  >>I wonder of 'trickle down economics' works when the money is injected more closely to where it's supposed to trickle from? That's specifically not trickle-down economics. That's just a economics. If you give more money to people, you're just giving more money to people. The whole point of a trickle-down is that if you give large sums of money to already rich and powerful individuals, typically in the form of tax breaks or subsidies, then they will invest that money in sectors that create jobs which allows the wealth to trickle-down to the people you're positing to help. I'm not here trying to talk about the merits of either, just pointing out that this is an entirely different style of economics.
  - Ari_Ugwu 8y ago
    I'm not sure I follow. A very big company that benefits from many subsidies and government assurances used those profits gained to improve the lives of it's workers. It very literally _trickled down_ from benefits given to the top.

TheHypnotist 8y ago

When I was a bank teller I was paid $10/hour. This is a dream. That said - the teller is an endangered position.

ModernMech 8y ago
Is it though? I heard that when ATMs were introduced, and tellers are still around. There's no shortage of banks in my town, each surely stocked with tellers. What's threatening tellers now?
- dwighttk 8y ago
  The few times I've gone into a bank there's been ~5 teller positions manned by 1 teller.
- grimjack00 8y ago
  But how many tellers? And what other duties do they have besides performing customer transactions? I was a teller back in the mid-nineties, and even then, depending on the branch, we almost never had a full teller line. There were maybe two full-timers, and the rest (3-4) were part-time and scheduled to cover peak hours.
  - wcarron 8y ago
    My Chase branch in KTown in Los Angeles literally always has a wait. I have gone at least a dozen times during the week and there have always been at least 4 tellers solely manning the transactions. The line for the tellers is invariably over 10 people long. Other bank employees handle new accounts and whatnot.
    - jcims 8y ago
      Is there enough retail in that area that they might be handling a disproportionate number of deposits?
    - scruple 8y ago

cirgue 8y ago

If nothing else, it signals to the rest of corporate america, which might actually have more people that would benifit from this, that it's cool to make these kinds of moves. That's a good thing, or at least not a bad thing.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

C1sc0cat 8y ago

Probably a lot of female relatively low paid back tellers - could even bring cleaning and janitorial back in house (and hire mostly men) as that would make the pay disparities look better.