7 ms·

'It's a crisis': Facebook kitchen staff work multiple jobs to get by

54 points by sandino 7y ago

dehrmann 7y ago
Is this a Facebook-specific problem, or are most Bay Area food service workers in a similar situation?
- cheeze 7y ago
  This is not a Facebook specific problem, but FB is easy to pick on because they are sitting on so much cash. But I agree, you could replace FB with almost any company down there. Shit, I'd be willing to bet that line cook at FB pays quite a bit more than fast food, etc.
  - dehrmann 7y ago
    > FB is easy to pick on because they are sitting on so much cash. It's also popular to pick on FB these days.
strooper 7y ago
This housing crisis is going on for long time. I was wondering why don't these tech giants build housing complex for their employees. It would definitely solve a lot of issues, including controlled and balanced housing cost for the employees, group/public transport, and above all a vibrant community. Is it a permit issue? Or something else?
- homonculus1 7y ago
  Corporate towns are not the solution to outdated, protectionist zoning.
- Qwertystop 7y ago
  That's called a "company town", or well on the way to it. Not sure I want to encourage Facebook trying to become its own municipality.
- lm28469 7y ago
  You have a very optimistic view on the thing. Where you see a "vibrant community" I see an inexistent work-life balance and gaited communities. It would be a real life echo chamber, SV is already enough of a bubble as it is I doubt they'd need a FacebookVille or a GoogleVille.
- teej 7y ago
  They are. Both Google and Facebook are actively working on housing developments in the area. https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/02/08/facebook-unveils-new-vision-for-big-willow-village-complex-in-menlo-park/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/02/08/facebook-unveils-new-... https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/06/google-affordable-housing-california-real-estate-development/591991/ https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/06/google-affordable-hou...
- dwyerm 7y ago
  Facebook is looking into paying its employees in scrip, and now they should also be indebted to the company town? I get what you're saying, and I want to agree, but it smacks of the old Company Town that I grew up in, and the current FIFO/DIDO living conditions of remote Australian mining towns. It is bad enough that so many FAANG employees are in trouble with immigration if they lose their jobs. The fear of losing one's home would be a pretty powerful force in labor relations. Yes, it would be a good to build more housing, and it would be convenient to reserve some of that housing for your workers, and it would be a perk to subsidize that housing for your workers, but we'd have to wrap some serious regulations around them that would likely make Company Housing devolve pretty quickly.
- likpok 7y ago
  The housing crisis isn't because nobody wants to build housing, but because housing is difficult to build legally. The big tech companies face exactly the same problem that everyone else faces (actually: even more so since a "company town" is unpopular for other reasons).
conanbatt 7y ago
Its quite daunting that the employees find it easier to compel facebook to increase their salaries, maybe 10%, than to complain on city hall that puts the rules that made their rent 300% of what they were.
- closeparen 7y ago
  At ~500k/unit, neither municipal nor state government can afford to build public housing in any meaningful quantity. We just had a huge electoral battle over a measure that raises taxes for only a few thousand units (Prop C). Millions of them would be required. Rent control expansion is both popular and technically doable, but would require repealing Costa-Hawkins, which survived this year's challenge. You will never see a left-leaning activist group representing the working class in California support a "let the market work" sort of policy like more for-profit development permits. Those ideas - public housing, rent control, increased supply - are pretty much the policy levers, and none are going to happen at scale within this set of voter preferences.
  - conanbatt 7y ago
    There are way more people interested in a housing policy solution than employees of facebook wanting a pay raise.
  - joshuamorton 7y ago
    > You will never see a left-leaning activist group representing the working class in California support a market-based solution like permitting more for-profit development. If that ever happens, it will be despite these workers' objections. That's like, literally, the entire platform of the YIMBY movement. These groups are by and large left-leaning, and activist groups. They generally support more market rate or affordable (or both!) housing. Basically any development.
    - closeparen 7y ago
      YIMBY sits pretty far to the right as Bay Area politics go, and is primarily tech workers fighting against the DSA, tenants union, and other working-class coalitions.
roenxi 7y ago
I have a huge amount of sympathy for these people. Clearly something is going wrong and they shouldn't be the ones dealing with it. That said... > "When a company is trying to pay you the same rate that they pay in other cities, we can’t accept that." [said a line cook] If it works for other cities, the problem clearly isn't the rate of pay. The problem is probably local politics of housing. Demands like that are not completely reasonable.
- permatech 7y ago
  Isn’t the problem that there is a concentration of high earners?
- ashelmire 7y ago
  > If it works for other cities, the problem clearly isn't the rate of pay. Ok. So if they earned 5 dollars a day, it would be ok because it works for cities in third world countries? I think it's obvious that the local cost of living is always a relevant factor in pay.
  - roenxi 7y ago
    The US has a federal minimum wage of $7.25/hr. This isn't a comparison with the 3rd world, this is a comparison with civilised, livable and comfortable lifestyles in other US cities. It is obvious that the cost of living is a relevant factor. The question is why are the costs of living higher in California than elsewhere? It isn't because rich people exist. It is because California doesn't have enough houses for the marginal house-hunter. Paying the marginal buyer more isn't going to create more houses. If there wasn't a place for them to rent before, there still won't be when you pay them more. If it were possible to create more houses, the current prices would already be making it happen.
    - ashelmire 7y ago
      You've moved the goal posts a bit, but regardless: > The US has a federal minimum wage of $7.25/hr. This isn't a comparison with the 3rd world, this is a comparison with civilised, livable and comfortable lifestyles in other US cities. There is no where in this country where $7.25 is a liveable, comfortable wage. It is the lowest amount legally allowed. And very few work for that wage - and very few of them are independent adults. See [1]. Nowhere in the United States can a minimum wage worker (or even close to it) affording the average 2 br apartment (say, if they had kids); and there are only a few places in the country where someone working 40 hrs / week on minimum wage can afford a 1 br apartment [2]. > It is obvious that the cost of living is a relevant factor. The question is why are the costs of living higher in California than elsewhere? It isn't because rich people exist. It is because California doesn't have enough houses for the marginal house-hunter. I hope the above mentioned points make it clear that this is not a problem just in California, but nationwide. Which means wages are insufficient nationwide and cost of living is too high nationwide. > Paying the marginal buyer more isn't going to create more houses. If there wasn't a place for them to rent before, there still won't be when you pay them more. If it were possible to create more houses, the current prices would already be making it happen. I'm going to assume you're arguing in good faith here and respectfully disagree. The problem isn't that there aren't homes for them to buy or rent; the problem is that those homes and rentals are at too high a price. At $20/hr maybe they can afford to live in .5% of available rental units; and at $30/hr maybe they could afford 5%. That's a tenfold increase in potential living spaces, without those living spaces becoming more affordable. Yes, the other issues in the bay area exist, with the NIMBYism and such. But these problems still exist nationwide. There are a few potential ways for government to help solve this issue. The main ways (hopefully I didn't miss any obvious ones) are: increase minimum wage or average wages via law or other influence; increase taxes on home ownership, especially for non-residents; introduce rent control laws; provide incentives for and remove obstruction from building new construction, especially high density construction. 1. https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2017/home.htm https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2017/home.htm 2. https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/06/affordable-housing-minimum-wage-rent-apartment-house-rental/592024/ https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/06/affordable-housing-mi...
ZhuanXia 7y ago
Increasing wages will not help as they will be captured by rising rents. I hate to get all Georgist here, but landowners are not creating economic value. In fact, by supporting zoning laws they are vastly worse than landowners historically. They are leaching off the productivity of the city. The moustache-twirling villains are not the business owners nor even the corporations, it is the land owners who created nothing yet receive most the value these workers generate. Just because this is a tyranny of a majority who owns, this does not make their yoke any less evil. From a policy perspective, I like federal land-value taxes that tax based on the counterfactual value of the land absent zoning restrictions, which would internalize the costs of zoning on landowners. But almost no common law jurisdiction has escaped the zoning-law trap, save for Texas. So I don't see it getting better any time soon.
- bartread 7y ago
  > landowners are not creating economic value. ... They are leaching off the productivity of the city. I think this is the nub of it. Whilst increasing rents might look good in the context of an economist's "perfect" model, the reality sucks ass for actual human beings trying to make a living and have a decent quality of life. And I cannot overstate the importance of the latter. I don't pretend to know what the answer is here, particularly not in the context of a US economic and legal milieu (I'm from the UK), but it certainly seems like there's a strong disparity in power between landlords and tenants (possibly fostered by the legislative environment) that needs to be addressed.
  - javagram 7y ago
    In an economist’s perfect model, land owners could sell their land to developers or build apartments on it themselves. Supply and demand would keep prices from rising. In practice, regulations and zoning stifle the operation of the “perfect” economic model and you get what we see now.
- api 7y ago
  A reference to back this up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_rent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_rent At this point I fully support the "nuclear option" against NIMBYs: the state needs to step in and override local zoning. Local zoning boards have proven themselves to be self-interested obstructionists who are only interested in bleeding cities dry by restricting supply to profit off real estate inflation. My ears are pretty much closed to any appeal otherwise. NIMBYs can go to hell.
forgotmyhnacc 7y ago
Many restaurant owners in the bay area are annoyed at Google and Facebook, because they keep on hiring away their line cooks and other staff with higher pay and better benefits. I suppose this article is on the front page because it bashes tech companies though.
- TYPE_FASTER 7y ago
  A lack of affordable housing is also causing problems in other areas that don't have a large tech economy, like Jackson Hole and other ski towns.
- sandino 7y ago
  So what you're saying basically is -- because (some of) the restaurant industry pays even worse than tech -- That the tech industry's pay levels are, ergo, no problem at all?
  - whatshisface 7y ago
    The parent is saying that if you're going to fight for labor you should probably start with the local restaurants, because they're the biggest problem. If that doesn't fit the "stick it to the big corp" thing then I guess things might be more complicated than that.
    - sandino 7y ago
      Another way of looking at the issue is - we can also make a lot of progress if we set certain standards for those companies that are clearly able to pay more.
      - conanbatt 7y ago
        Or simple cut out the benefit altogether, which will depress the wage below what it is now plus increase unemployment.
- cdubzzz 7y ago
dfxm12 7y ago
On an economical level, what's a better solution? Facebook paying their kitchen staff more (than the current $23/hr), or SF taking steps to lower its cost of living so that "one job should be enough" to get by on minimum wage (currently $15/hr)? Or something else?
- traderjane 7y ago
  If you pay people more than the parties with the highest leverage will extract more rent from your employees.
  - whatshisface 7y ago
    Then why do software developers have more spending money than line cooks?
    - conanbatt 7y ago
      Because the day they don't, they won't be in SF at all.
- bassman9000 7y ago
  Vote different. Same guys for decades.
cheeky78 7y ago
When you live in a city/state that is pushing out the middle/lower classes through increased government regulations and taxes, this is what happens. This is not a blueprint for the rest of the US. I hope voters take notice.
fortran77 7y ago
San Francisco city council wants to solve this problem by banning corporate cafeterias: http://www.ktvu.com/news/sf-city-leaders-push-to-ban-company-cafeterias http://www.ktvu.com/news/sf-city-leaders-push-to-ban-company...
floren 7y ago
I hope these people manage to get better pay. I hope the same thing happens all across the Bay Area in all service jobs, and I hope the pressure trickles up until the tech employees feel the squeeze of $25 burritos, plus even worse rents as the people making their lunches can afford to live in the city and compete for housing. Then I hope people either stop accepting tech jobs in the Bay Area, or companies decide it's a losing proposition to set up shop in a place where you have to pay $250k a year to a new grad. We've got better communications and networks than any time in history. Why do software companies, which consume no raw materials and produce no physical product (both good reasons for setting up in a port city), all need to cluster in half a dozen spots? Think how much more runway you could get out of your seed funding if you set up shop in Missoula or Albuquerque, where you can rent a whole house for $1500/mo, can hire from the local university, and have beautiful outdoor recreation within a 15 minute drive?
- chillacy 7y ago
  I would be cool to see YC try remote cohorts or build a cohort in a cheaper location.
  - conanbatt 7y ago
    They've tried and found it very unsuccessful, unless they buil the entire batch-infrastructure. But companies will definitely start opening more and more satelite offices everywhere. The same salary for the same company in SF or Seattle yields 2-3k a month more for a software employee, and housing costs 1/2. Eventually the table turns and then SF won't be able to do anything about it.
- theshadowmonkey 7y ago
  Missoula or Albuquerque are nice places to live in. But, the supply of talent is very limited and not so diverse. In the Bay Area, you have so much talent concentrated that its easy to get people iff you pay the right amount of money(which is pretty high)
- conanbatt 7y ago
  The fastest and most effective way to increase the pay for all low wage workers is to abolish sales taxes. This implies no cost for companies and increased income for all citizens. The city only needs to reduce its spending 25% to achieve that. Considering it already has one of the highest and most inefficient government expenditure rates in the world, its easily achievable with very little fiscal discipline. Thats an actual political solution.
docker_up 7y ago
The truth is that the only way to increase wages is to protest or to quit their jobs en masse so I support these workers protesting. The problem with low-skilled jobs is that there's probably someone waiting to take their job at $23/hr, but that's how the system works and unfortunately low-skilled jobs don't have a tremendous amount of value. This is the counter argument to allowing illegal immigrants - they are more willing to take these low-skilled jobs and to suppress wages much longer.
cameronbrown 7y ago
The answer of course is to distribute. Silicon Valley has an echochamber problem already, maybe it's time for these companies to spread out/move their HQs across the US. There's plenty of room. What's so special about the bay area? Surely if FAANG move somewhere else their employees will follow.
- sct202 7y ago
  Toyota moved their headquarters from LA to Dallas a couple years ago, and they retained 2/3's of their HQ employees in the move. FAANG isn't exactly the same but it's the closest example I could find of a recent large scale move from California. If there is a point where the tech industry starts to grow less and be more stable, you'll probably see some companies trying to make the move. But right now it'd be too disruptive to potentially lose 1/3 of your HQ employees in a move and screw up any growth plans you had.
tempsy 7y ago
I've recently reached a personal finance threshold where I'm making a substantial return e.g. enough to live on on a relatively "low risk" mix of index funds/stock investments. It made me realize that being in a position where your money is "working" for you is really the starkest difference between the rich and the poor.
sct202 7y ago
I was kind of shocked when I saw the $23/hr, because that's a pretty high wage for a line cook. Like I could not imagine anywhere else except for maybe NYC where a line cook would protest with that rate. According to the MIT Living Wage Calculator, he would be able to support himself on that but it'd be difficult if he had any dependents. http://livingwage.mit.edu/metros/41860 http://livingwage.mit.edu/metros/41860
thorwasdfasdf 7y ago
The bay area Housing situation is hopelessly screwed up. There's no way in we're going to be able to undo 50 years of political insanity and build enough housing for everyone in just a few years. It's time we accept that hiring in the bay area is no longer feasible. Right now, this isn't Facebook's problem. As long as there's still desperate people to hire, then they'll always be able to hire more. We (the people that work for these companies and the voters within the city) need to take a stand, and start lobbying these companies to get out of the bay area. Or at the very least, we need to start asking for much higher salaries. 600k to 800k needs to be the norm to live in palo alto to afford an average house (2.5M - 3.5M). Personally, I don't think people are going to be able to do it. There's such a vast oversupply of labor, that the employers have a much stronger bargaining position. There's still many other cities with plenty of tech people to hire. i don't see why all tech companies have to be in the 1 place where local voters don't want any residential growth.
- chillacy 7y ago
  Employment has inelastic demand, people will work for anything to survive because they have to. It’s that or get your way into disability, which an increasing number of people do.
- mariushn 7y ago
  > We (the people that work for these companies and the voters within the city) need to take a stand For inspiration, would you please share an example of what you are personally doing?
- ap3 7y ago
  Lobbying for companies to leave the Bay Area? Why not stop working for them and work somewhere else where you can live comfortably?
theshadowmonkey 7y ago
Isnt this the common situation in most of Bay Area for service workers? Im in no way associated to Facebook, but I think its a bit unfair to call them out just to make the headline sensational. They're just another tenant in the Bay Area.
thorwasdfasdf 7y ago
Instead of creating a useless currency, Facebook should of allied itself with 20 other tech companies and created a brand new city, in the middle of nowhere. One that was built from the ground up to be sustainable and affordable where everyone can walk or scoot to work. A city unhindered by zoning or burdensome regulations. Then connect it to some of the existing cities with high speed trains or helicopter buses. It would be a win win situation for everyone involved.

54 points by sandino 7y ago

dehrmann 7y ago

Is this a Facebook-specific problem, or are most Bay Area food service workers in a similar situation?

cheeze 7y ago
This is not a Facebook specific problem, but FB is easy to pick on because they are sitting on so much cash. But I agree, you could replace FB with almost any company down there. Shit, I'd be willing to bet that line cook at FB pays quite a bit more than fast food, etc.
- dehrmann 7y ago
  > FB is easy to pick on because they are sitting on so much cash. It's also popular to pick on FB these days.

strooper 7y ago

This housing crisis is going on for long time. I was wondering why don't these tech giants build housing complex for their employees. It would definitely solve a lot of issues, including controlled and balanced housing cost for the employees, group/public transport, and above all a vibrant community. Is it a permit issue? Or something else?

homonculus1 7y ago
Corporate towns are not the solution to outdated, protectionist zoning.
Qwertystop 7y ago
That's called a "company town", or well on the way to it. Not sure I want to encourage Facebook trying to become its own municipality.
lm28469 7y ago
You have a very optimistic view on the thing. Where you see a "vibrant community" I see an inexistent work-life balance and gaited communities. It would be a real life echo chamber, SV is already enough of a bubble as it is I doubt they'd need a FacebookVille or a GoogleVille.
teej 7y ago
They are. Both Google and Facebook are actively working on housing developments in the area. https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/02/08/facebook-unveils-new-vision-for-big-willow-village-complex-in-menlo-park/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/02/08/facebook-unveils-new-... https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/06/google-affordable-housing-california-real-estate-development/591991/ https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/06/google-affordable-hou...
dwyerm 7y ago
Facebook is looking into paying its employees in scrip, and now they should also be indebted to the company town? I get what you're saying, and I want to agree, but it smacks of the old Company Town that I grew up in, and the current FIFO/DIDO living conditions of remote Australian mining towns. It is bad enough that so many FAANG employees are in trouble with immigration if they lose their jobs. The fear of losing one's home would be a pretty powerful force in labor relations. Yes, it would be a good to build more housing, and it would be convenient to reserve some of that housing for your workers, and it would be a perk to subsidize that housing for your workers, but we'd have to wrap some serious regulations around them that would likely make Company Housing devolve pretty quickly.
likpok 7y ago
The housing crisis isn't because nobody wants to build housing, but because housing is difficult to build legally. The big tech companies face exactly the same problem that everyone else faces (actually: even more so since a "company town" is unpopular for other reasons).

conanbatt 7y ago

Its quite daunting that the employees find it easier to compel facebook to increase their salaries, maybe 10%, than to complain on city hall that puts the rules that made their rent 300% of what they were.

closeparen 7y ago
At ~500k/unit, neither municipal nor state government can afford to build public housing in any meaningful quantity. We just had a huge electoral battle over a measure that raises taxes for only a few thousand units (Prop C). Millions of them would be required. Rent control expansion is both popular and technically doable, but would require repealing Costa-Hawkins, which survived this year's challenge. You will never see a left-leaning activist group representing the working class in California support a "let the market work" sort of policy like more for-profit development permits. Those ideas - public housing, rent control, increased supply - are pretty much the policy levers, and none are going to happen at scale within this set of voter preferences.
- conanbatt 7y ago
  There are way more people interested in a housing policy solution than employees of facebook wanting a pay raise.
- joshuamorton 7y ago
  > You will never see a left-leaning activist group representing the working class in California support a market-based solution like permitting more for-profit development. If that ever happens, it will be despite these workers' objections. That's like, literally, the entire platform of the YIMBY movement. These groups are by and large left-leaning, and activist groups. They generally support more market rate or affordable (or both!) housing. Basically any development.
  - closeparen 7y ago
    YIMBY sits pretty far to the right as Bay Area politics go, and is primarily tech workers fighting against the DSA, tenants union, and other working-class coalitions.

roenxi 7y ago

I have a huge amount of sympathy for these people. Clearly something is going wrong and they shouldn't be the ones dealing with it. That said... > "When a company is trying to pay you the same rate that they pay in other cities, we can’t accept that." [said a line cook] If it works for other cities, the problem clearly isn't the rate of pay. The problem is probably local politics of housing. Demands like that are not completely reasonable.

permatech 7y ago
Isn’t the problem that there is a concentration of high earners?
ashelmire 7y ago
> If it works for other cities, the problem clearly isn't the rate of pay. Ok. So if they earned 5 dollars a day, it would be ok because it works for cities in third world countries? I think it's obvious that the local cost of living is always a relevant factor in pay.
- roenxi 7y ago
  The US has a federal minimum wage of $7.25/hr. This isn't a comparison with the 3rd world, this is a comparison with civilised, livable and comfortable lifestyles in other US cities. It is obvious that the cost of living is a relevant factor. The question is why are the costs of living higher in California than elsewhere? It isn't because rich people exist. It is because California doesn't have enough houses for the marginal house-hunter. Paying the marginal buyer more isn't going to create more houses. If there wasn't a place for them to rent before, there still won't be when you pay them more. If it were possible to create more houses, the current prices would already be making it happen.
  - ashelmire 7y ago
    You've moved the goal posts a bit, but regardless: > The US has a federal minimum wage of $7.25/hr. This isn't a comparison with the 3rd world, this is a comparison with civilised, livable and comfortable lifestyles in other US cities. There is no where in this country where $7.25 is a liveable, comfortable wage. It is the lowest amount legally allowed. And very few work for that wage - and very few of them are independent adults. See [1]. Nowhere in the United States can a minimum wage worker (or even close to it) affording the average 2 br apartment (say, if they had kids); and there are only a few places in the country where someone working 40 hrs / week on minimum wage can afford a 1 br apartment [2]. > It is obvious that the cost of living is a relevant factor. The question is why are the costs of living higher in California than elsewhere? It isn't because rich people exist. It is because California doesn't have enough houses for the marginal house-hunter. I hope the above mentioned points make it clear that this is not a problem just in California, but nationwide. Which means wages are insufficient nationwide and cost of living is too high nationwide. > Paying the marginal buyer more isn't going to create more houses. If there wasn't a place for them to rent before, there still won't be when you pay them more. If it were possible to create more houses, the current prices would already be making it happen. I'm going to assume you're arguing in good faith here and respectfully disagree. The problem isn't that there aren't homes for them to buy or rent; the problem is that those homes and rentals are at too high a price. At $20/hr maybe they can afford to live in .5% of available rental units; and at $30/hr maybe they could afford 5%. That's a tenfold increase in potential living spaces, without those living spaces becoming more affordable. Yes, the other issues in the bay area exist, with the NIMBYism and such. But these problems still exist nationwide. There are a few potential ways for government to help solve this issue. The main ways (hopefully I didn't miss any obvious ones) are: increase minimum wage or average wages via law or other influence; increase taxes on home ownership, especially for non-residents; introduce rent control laws; provide incentives for and remove obstruction from building new construction, especially high density construction. 1. https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2017/home.htm https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2017/home.htm 2. https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/06/affordable-housing-minimum-wage-rent-apartment-house-rental/592024/ https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/06/affordable-housing-mi...

ZhuanXia 7y ago

Increasing wages will not help as they will be captured by rising rents. I hate to get all Georgist here, but landowners are not creating economic value. In fact, by supporting zoning laws they are vastly worse than landowners historically. They are leaching off the productivity of the city. The moustache-twirling villains are not the business owners nor even the corporations, it is the land owners who created nothing yet receive most the value these workers generate. Just because this is a tyranny of a majority who owns, this does not make their yoke any less evil. From a policy perspective, I like federal land-value taxes that tax based on the counterfactual value of the land absent zoning restrictions, which would internalize the costs of zoning on landowners. But almost no common law jurisdiction has escaped the zoning-law trap, save for Texas. So I don't see it getting better any time soon.

bartread 7y ago
> landowners are not creating economic value. ... They are leaching off the productivity of the city. I think this is the nub of it. Whilst increasing rents might look good in the context of an economist's "perfect" model, the reality sucks ass for actual human beings trying to make a living and have a decent quality of life. And I cannot overstate the importance of the latter. I don't pretend to know what the answer is here, particularly not in the context of a US economic and legal milieu (I'm from the UK), but it certainly seems like there's a strong disparity in power between landlords and tenants (possibly fostered by the legislative environment) that needs to be addressed.
- javagram 7y ago
  In an economist’s perfect model, land owners could sell their land to developers or build apartments on it themselves. Supply and demand would keep prices from rising. In practice, regulations and zoning stifle the operation of the “perfect” economic model and you get what we see now.
api 7y ago
A reference to back this up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_rent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_rent At this point I fully support the "nuclear option" against NIMBYs: the state needs to step in and override local zoning. Local zoning boards have proven themselves to be self-interested obstructionists who are only interested in bleeding cities dry by restricting supply to profit off real estate inflation. My ears are pretty much closed to any appeal otherwise. NIMBYs can go to hell.

forgotmyhnacc 7y ago

Many restaurant owners in the bay area are annoyed at Google and Facebook, because they keep on hiring away their line cooks and other staff with higher pay and better benefits. I suppose this article is on the front page because it bashes tech companies though.

TYPE_FASTER 7y ago
A lack of affordable housing is also causing problems in other areas that don't have a large tech economy, like Jackson Hole and other ski towns.
sandino 7y ago
So what you're saying basically is -- because (some of) the restaurant industry pays even worse than tech -- That the tech industry's pay levels are, ergo, no problem at all?
- whatshisface 7y ago
  The parent is saying that if you're going to fight for labor you should probably start with the local restaurants, because they're the biggest problem. If that doesn't fit the "stick it to the big corp" thing then I guess things might be more complicated than that.
  - sandino 7y ago
    Another way of looking at the issue is - we can also make a lot of progress if we set certain standards for those companies that are clearly able to pay more.
    - conanbatt 7y ago
      Or simple cut out the benefit altogether, which will depress the wage below what it is now plus increase unemployment.
cdubzzz 7y ago

dfxm12 7y ago

On an economical level, what's a better solution? Facebook paying their kitchen staff more (than the current $23/hr), or SF taking steps to lower its cost of living so that "one job should be enough" to get by on minimum wage (currently $15/hr)? Or something else?

traderjane 7y ago
If you pay people more than the parties with the highest leverage will extract more rent from your employees.
- whatshisface 7y ago
  Then why do software developers have more spending money than line cooks?
  - conanbatt 7y ago
    Because the day they don't, they won't be in SF at all.
bassman9000 7y ago
Vote different. Same guys for decades.

cheeky78 7y ago

When you live in a city/state that is pushing out the middle/lower classes through increased government regulations and taxes, this is what happens. This is not a blueprint for the rest of the US. I hope voters take notice.

fortran77 7y ago

San Francisco city council wants to solve this problem by banning corporate cafeterias: http://www.ktvu.com/news/sf-city-leaders-push-to-ban-company-cafeterias http://www.ktvu.com/news/sf-city-leaders-push-to-ban-company...

floren 7y ago

I hope these people manage to get better pay. I hope the same thing happens all across the Bay Area in all service jobs, and I hope the pressure trickles up until the tech employees feel the squeeze of $25 burritos, plus even worse rents as the people making their lunches can afford to live in the city and compete for housing. Then I hope people either stop accepting tech jobs in the Bay Area, or companies decide it's a losing proposition to set up shop in a place where you have to pay $250k a year to a new grad. We've got better communications and networks than any time in history. Why do software companies, which consume no raw materials and produce no physical product (both good reasons for setting up in a port city), all need to cluster in half a dozen spots? Think how much more runway you could get out of your seed funding if you set up shop in Missoula or Albuquerque, where you can rent a whole house for $1500/mo, can hire from the local university, and have beautiful outdoor recreation within a 15 minute drive?

chillacy 7y ago
I would be cool to see YC try remote cohorts or build a cohort in a cheaper location.
- conanbatt 7y ago
  They've tried and found it very unsuccessful, unless they buil the entire batch-infrastructure. But companies will definitely start opening more and more satelite offices everywhere. The same salary for the same company in SF or Seattle yields 2-3k a month more for a software employee, and housing costs 1/2. Eventually the table turns and then SF won't be able to do anything about it.
theshadowmonkey 7y ago
Missoula or Albuquerque are nice places to live in. But, the supply of talent is very limited and not so diverse. In the Bay Area, you have so much talent concentrated that its easy to get people iff you pay the right amount of money(which is pretty high)
conanbatt 7y ago
The fastest and most effective way to increase the pay for all low wage workers is to abolish sales taxes. This implies no cost for companies and increased income for all citizens. The city only needs to reduce its spending 25% to achieve that. Considering it already has one of the highest and most inefficient government expenditure rates in the world, its easily achievable with very little fiscal discipline. Thats an actual political solution.

docker_up 7y ago

The truth is that the only way to increase wages is to protest or to quit their jobs en masse so I support these workers protesting. The problem with low-skilled jobs is that there's probably someone waiting to take their job at $23/hr, but that's how the system works and unfortunately low-skilled jobs don't have a tremendous amount of value. This is the counter argument to allowing illegal immigrants - they are more willing to take these low-skilled jobs and to suppress wages much longer.

cameronbrown 7y ago

The answer of course is to distribute. Silicon Valley has an echochamber problem already, maybe it's time for these companies to spread out/move their HQs across the US. There's plenty of room. What's so special about the bay area? Surely if FAANG move somewhere else their employees will follow.

sct202 7y ago
Toyota moved their headquarters from LA to Dallas a couple years ago, and they retained 2/3's of their HQ employees in the move. FAANG isn't exactly the same but it's the closest example I could find of a recent large scale move from California. If there is a point where the tech industry starts to grow less and be more stable, you'll probably see some companies trying to make the move. But right now it'd be too disruptive to potentially lose 1/3 of your HQ employees in a move and screw up any growth plans you had.

tempsy 7y ago

I've recently reached a personal finance threshold where I'm making a substantial return e.g. enough to live on on a relatively "low risk" mix of index funds/stock investments. It made me realize that being in a position where your money is "working" for you is really the starkest difference between the rich and the poor.

sct202 7y ago

I was kind of shocked when I saw the $23/hr, because that's a pretty high wage for a line cook. Like I could not imagine anywhere else except for maybe NYC where a line cook would protest with that rate. According to the MIT Living Wage Calculator, he would be able to support himself on that but it'd be difficult if he had any dependents. http://livingwage.mit.edu/metros/41860 http://livingwage.mit.edu/metros/41860

thorwasdfasdf 7y ago

The bay area Housing situation is hopelessly screwed up. There's no way in we're going to be able to undo 50 years of political insanity and build enough housing for everyone in just a few years. It's time we accept that hiring in the bay area is no longer feasible. Right now, this isn't Facebook's problem. As long as there's still desperate people to hire, then they'll always be able to hire more. We (the people that work for these companies and the voters within the city) need to take a stand, and start lobbying these companies to get out of the bay area. Or at the very least, we need to start asking for much higher salaries. 600k to 800k needs to be the norm to live in palo alto to afford an average house (2.5M - 3.5M). Personally, I don't think people are going to be able to do it. There's such a vast oversupply of labor, that the employers have a much stronger bargaining position. There's still many other cities with plenty of tech people to hire. i don't see why all tech companies have to be in the 1 place where local voters don't want any residential growth.

chillacy 7y ago
Employment has inelastic demand, people will work for anything to survive because they have to. It’s that or get your way into disability, which an increasing number of people do.
mariushn 7y ago
> We (the people that work for these companies and the voters within the city) need to take a stand For inspiration, would you please share an example of what you are personally doing?
ap3 7y ago
Lobbying for companies to leave the Bay Area? Why not stop working for them and work somewhere else where you can live comfortably?

theshadowmonkey 7y ago

Isnt this the common situation in most of Bay Area for service workers? Im in no way associated to Facebook, but I think its a bit unfair to call them out just to make the headline sensational. They're just another tenant in the Bay Area.

thorwasdfasdf 7y ago

Instead of creating a useless currency, Facebook should of allied itself with 20 other tech companies and created a brand new city, in the middle of nowhere. One that was built from the ground up to be sustainable and affordable where everyone can walk or scoot to work. A city unhindered by zoning or burdensome regulations. Then connect it to some of the existing cities with high speed trains or helicopter buses. It would be a win win situation for everyone involved.