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I do see a bit of improvement. CVS starts out at $15/hr. I have a feeling that is only in certain zip codes? Kroger decided to close a store because it didn'

I do see a bit of improvement. CVS starts out at $15/hr. I have a feeling that is only in certain zip codes? Kroger decided to close a store because it didn't want to pay a covid front line temporary increase of $4/hr. I don't see a big increase in wages, and I work a lot of lousy jobs. If job conditions were a bit better, a lot of employees will stay at a low paying job because they actually like their fellow employees, and sometimes the job. I don't know why being nice/respectful is so out of fashion in corporate america? I grocery shop at Safeway, and The Nugget markets. Safeway employees hate their job. They even have a hard time retaining new immigrants. When I shop at Safeway, I sometimes need to move to another line if I feel the checker is having a bad day. (I overheard an employee state a manager wanted him at a store 70 miles away at 5 am the next day, and he told that manager he didn't have transportation other than the bus. I wanted to grab the phone and lay into that "Manager".) As opposed to The Nugget, which is notated as one of the best 100 places to work. It's like going back to the fifties. The employees are nice. It might be they hire people whom will have better jobs one day? Anyways, it's not just about wage. I have had lousy low paid jobs I liked, and well paid union jobs I despise.

vkou 5y ago
> Kroger decided to close a store because it didn't want to pay a covid front line temporary increase of $4/hr. If you're talking about Seattle, Kroger closed that store because it was underperforming for years, not because of a temporary wage increase that affected every grocery store in the city. Weeks later, they started advertising open positions with wage increases for nearby stores they didn't close... When it comes to political decisions, firms lie all the time about their motivations. I don't understand how anyone can take what they say at face value, without any means to verify their claims. The reality is that nobody closes their grocery business because labour costs went up for them and their competitors. Customers still need groceries to live, and you and your competitors just pass the costs directly to them, without any change to profit margins or market share. Closing your grocery over this is as nonsensical as closing your grocery because the spot price of milk went up to $15/gallon.
- cratermoon 5y ago
  > When it comes to political decisions, firms lie all the time about their motivations Of course they're not going to say "we're closing because we don't want to pay our employees a decent wage", that would be bad optics. You can be pretty sure that if you ask employees at the store, they'll say that whatever the stated reason, the intended message from the parent company is "we ain't gonna pay you more".
  - lazyasciiart 5y ago
    No, every employee was offered transfers to nearby stores, which were all paying the higher rate.
- archduck 5y ago
  Kroger also elected to close three locations in Los Angeles rather than hike their employees' pay $5/hr in accordance with a new (temporary) hazard pay during covid. It gets argued again and again that the profit incentive is necessary for cutting inefficiencies, and looking at it from Kroger's perspective, this appears to be another such example. Yet this is only the case for Kroger - when considered in its full context, as a supplier of necessities for working class folks, it's the total opposite. It's the composition fallacy at work: just because companies with a profit motive evolve to cut inefficiencies wherever possible (such as by externalizing costs) does not mean that society as a whole reaps the same benefits.

vkou 5y ago

> Kroger decided to close a store because it didn't want to pay a covid front line temporary increase of $4/hr. If you're talking about Seattle, Kroger closed that store because it was underperforming for years, not because of a temporary wage increase that affected every grocery store in the city. Weeks later, they started advertising open positions with wage increases for nearby stores they didn't close... When it comes to political decisions, firms lie all the time about their motivations. I don't understand how anyone can take what they say at face value, without any means to verify their claims. The reality is that nobody closes their grocery business because labour costs went up for them and their competitors. Customers still need groceries to live, and you and your competitors just pass the costs directly to them, without any change to profit margins or market share. Closing your grocery over this is as nonsensical as closing your grocery because the spot price of milk went up to $15/gallon.

cratermoon 5y ago
> When it comes to political decisions, firms lie all the time about their motivations Of course they're not going to say "we're closing because we don't want to pay our employees a decent wage", that would be bad optics. You can be pretty sure that if you ask employees at the store, they'll say that whatever the stated reason, the intended message from the parent company is "we ain't gonna pay you more".
- lazyasciiart 5y ago
  No, every employee was offered transfers to nearby stores, which were all paying the higher rate.
archduck 5y ago
Kroger also elected to close three locations in Los Angeles rather than hike their employees' pay $5/hr in accordance with a new (temporary) hazard pay during covid. It gets argued again and again that the profit incentive is necessary for cutting inefficiencies, and looking at it from Kroger's perspective, this appears to be another such example. Yet this is only the case for Kroger - when considered in its full context, as a supplier of necessities for working class folks, it's the total opposite. It's the composition fallacy at work: just because companies with a profit motive evolve to cut inefficiencies wherever possible (such as by externalizing costs) does not mean that society as a whole reaps the same benefits.