Yelp minimum wage row shines spotlight on … broke, fired employee Long before its customer service rep Talia Jane wrote a blog post about how her monthly wage wasn't enough to live on, Yelp has enjoyed a reputation for unethical behavior. The publicly listed ratings company is reported to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on average every two days, typically by small business owners who see …
So you want Obama to interfere? To use his presidential power to force companies to pay higher wages?
And that will satisfy the people like you who blame everything on Obama? The people who complain that he is overusing his powers (by using them far less than other presidents)? That he is a nasty socialist who is undermining America by doing things like expecting better conditions for workers?
I'm not saying I think any prez should interfere.
What I am saying is that prematurely blaming Trump when he isn't even in office is stupid. Blaming Obama would make more sense, but that's not to say I think he should interfere.
To the best of my knowledge there is no time machine that Trump can use to fly back from the future to cause current woes.
As for Ms whiny pants....why does she choose to live in expensive SF area when she only has the capability to earn a paltry $1500? Perhaps she should move to somewhere where someone that generates as little value as she does can afford to live.
If we give people like her handouts then it can only come from one place: jacking up national debt and robbing unborn children even worse than now. A kid born today in the US owes about USD60k (doubled under Obama) before (s)he has a first suck on a breast.
Live within your means... not just the entitled little Ms, but also governments and nations.
What I am saying is that prematurely blaming Trump when he isn't even in office is stupid.
I do not think the article is blaming Trump. He is blaming people like Trump. The people, especially in the US but also prevalent all over the world, who instantly blame the victim and tell them to work harder and earn more money or spend less.
I do have to question why she allows this to continue. If other companies in the area offer a higher wage for the same job, then why doesn't she try to switch jobs? And why does she not look at moving to an area which is cheaper to live in? Yelp can only pay people this wage because people accept it.
However, I do not know all the facts. Maybe she cannot get a job elsewhere for some reason. Maybe she is tied to the area somehow (sick relative etc). Maybe the cost of travel to work would outweigh the potential saving from moving out of the area.
However, it is also despicable that Yelp is putting it's employees in this situation to begin with. What is the point in paying for Silicon Valley perks when it's employees cannot afford to even eat? Why are they paying a significantly lower wage than other companies for the same job? And firing her for what is effectively whistle-blowing is outrageous.
This is one of the reasons why I will not move to the US. They seem to treat employees worse over there than contractors are treated here in the UK, without any of the perks. I see it in the attitude of my current boss, and American who resents having to give holidays, sick pay or any basic benefit to his employees. Sorry, but I'll take a nation who actually has laws to protect it's citizens, at least in part, over "The Land Of The Free" any day.
This is not a new problem. People for hundreds of years before Ms. Whiney have tried to live in the most desirable locales whilst being insufficiently valuable to pull down the required bucks. I want to live in NY Trump Towers. It's my right! Instead I'm stuck in hot, unglamorous Southern California. Woe is me.
Never mind that most of America lives in the meat of the bi-coastal sandwich.
"What I am saying is that prematurely blaming Trump when he isn't even in office is stupid."
He's not blaming Trump. He's blaming a society that likes Trump, and he's blaming his, and -- given your misguided sympathy and deliberate? misreading of the article -- possibly your, hate-filled rhetoric that how much you are paid is directly linked to how hard you work, and if an employee is paid badly and then fired, somehow it's all their fault.
This is possibly the worst facet of American culture, and I hope that it does not continue leaking out into the civilized world.
Hello:
> This is possibly the worst facet of American culture, and I hope that it does not
> continue leaking out into the civilized world.
Indeed it is.
As to it continuing to leak out into the world, it will.
It's a pity, but I'm afraid it will.
Even if Trump does not get to be prez.
No one forced her to work there. She knew the pay before she agreed to work for that rate.She knew the rent before she signed the lease. If she lacks the basic skills to do the math then that's her fault, and hers alone.
As long as people are prepared to work for what Yelp pay, Yelp will continue to pay that. If she is truly worth more then she should look to a better paying job elsewhere.
Did you even read what was written? Any of it? Nope..thought not.
I'm not saying I think any prez should interfere.
Sounds like it.
What I am saying is that prematurely blaming Trump when he isn't even in office is stupid. Blaming Obama would make more sense, but that's not to say I think he should interfere.
As others have pointed out, no one is blaming Trump. The comment was that people like him - you in this case - seem to think it's perfectly fine to attack those in a less privileged position than themselves
rather than consider the reason the unfortunate soul is in that position to begin with
To the best of my knowledge there is no time machine that Trump can use to fly back from the future to cause current woes.
Dick comment.
As for Ms whiny pants....why does she choose to live in expensive SF area when she only has the capability to earn a paltry $1500? Perhaps she should move to somewhere where someone that generates as little value as she does can afford to live.
Not knowing the geography of the area or at which point rents become affordable to her, or the kind of area it would be, I suspect it's probably because it would be either a dangerous area to exist and/or take far too long and cost far too much to travel.
Another case in point of you being a dick again with the personal attack.
If we give people like her handouts then it can only come from one place: jacking up national debt and robbing unborn children even worse than now. A kid born today in the US owes about USD60k (doubled under Obama) before (s)he has a first suck on a breast.
Live within your means... not just the entitled little Ms, but also governments and nations.
And...again...you clearly didn't read the article, did you?
Not once was there any suggestion of giving anyone state handouts. The point was that a billion dollar value company chooses to have it's office in a ridiculously expensive location yet pay its staff the legal minimum wage whilst understanding that their staff most likely cannot afford to live there.
The point being made was that just perhaps Yelp should stop being greedy and selfish and pay a reasonable wage to live on like many of the other tech companies.
In most cases, I hope people never fall on hard times. In your case I believe it would teach you a little humility and understanding because you are one cold hearted, selfish son of a bitch. And yeah - in that respect, you're just like Trump.
@Charles Manning - "why does she choose to live in expensive SF area when she only has the capability to earn a paltry $1500?"
Because that's where the job is?
Also, remember that changing jobs has a cost, in time searching, in lost wages if you can't get the ending and starting dates to line up, in the risk of being fired in the probationary period. Sure, the company has costs too, but they are risking 0.1% or 0.01% of their workforce availability, the employee is risking 100% of their salary.
Perhaps Yelp should have set up their business somewhere where the paltry wages they pay would allow their employees to afford to live.
She chose to take a job, knowing the rate of pay and knowing the overhead costs required to live there.
Let's be clear, no-one forced her to take that job, we don't know what other opportunities were open to her, but she herself says she expected to join Yelp and was surprised she wasn't able to move into a better paid role a lot quicker.
There comes a point where she needs to recognise that she had choices and made bad ones. I had similar experiences where I didn't research a job and got screwed over, thats life I'm afraid.
If people keep taking jobs at such a low paid employer, when their competitors in the same area are paying more, then there comes a point where you have to ask "Are you stupid?"
>taking jobs at such a low paid employer
Well, I dunno. She could have maybe gotten a job somewhere else, true. But public naming and shaming of company behavior is not a bad thing per se.
First, Yelp could try to act a bit more ethically and with more empathy and pay more than minimum wage. Second, I personally dislike companies that run up huge employee-related expenses with perks rather than putting the same $ in your pocket. Third, I doubt the interview process was crystal clear about her prospects & low pay - "yeah, we pay sh.t, and you don't get promoted quickly. So in that economic sense, transparency's a bit of a one-way street - Yelp knows exactly how little it pays, applicants do not know that as clearly.
Now those same applicants, and Yelp customers and users, are more aware of Yelp's behavior. But, hey no problem for Yelp since they are white as snow, right?
As to blaming Trump. Please, much as I hate the jackass with the toupe, it's difficult to argue that this article was not, at least a teensy weensy bit, taking a poke at him specifically.
Hey, I don't mind if they do, but let's call a cat a cat. Personally, not sure at this point how all the "5 ways to stop Trump" articles popping up left and right in the press are helping getting rid of him. He's riding a powerful stream of narrative BS about his being the underdog and the champion of the downtrodden and waving a magic wand of fix-it.
I think he's gonna remain a nuisance until he's facing only one other Rep candidate. Or even until Hillary. But then? I expect something like the Chirac vs Le Pen French vote of 2002. 80% for Chirac, 20% for Le Pen. Amazing, considering how much Chirac was a jackass, but representative of how 80% of the country just hated Le Pen. Like Le Pen, he's full of easy-sounding solutions that would achieve nothing but appeal to 20% of the electorate.
>Because that's where the job is?
Did you seriously just write that? What planet do you live on? I too go where the money is, but one has to weigh in the other factors such as the cost of living. Where I am currently located, there are plenty of jobs, with a much lower cost of living. The woman could actually even save money. But guess what, it's not Silicon Valley...
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-02-25/teachable-moment-young-person-complaining-about-her-job-yelp-discovers-real-minimum-
@Thorne Konots 1 - Yes, I did write that, I live on Earth and posted that comment here too.
So where do you live, as there are plenty of jobs there? The USA currently has about 5% unemployment. If you're outside the USA, then immigration rules probably make it difficult for this woman, or another USA citizen, to fill those vacancies. If you're inside the USA, then the fact that you have jobs to spare indicates there is some other barrier to people moving there. Labour is not freely mobile - just going for a job interview requires travel time.
Now, what hasn't been contested is that Yelp is paying less than a living wage for the location of its business. How is it able to do that? If labour was freely mobile and followed the law of supply and demand, it would start loosing employees until it increased its wages or went out of business. But labour doesn't follow the law of supply and demand because people don't like starving, so they will take a second job to fill-in the shortfall, further increasing supply and pushing wages down further, increasing unemployment. Or, they could decide to not pay their rent, depriving their landlord of the market rent, but, why does that matter, it'll take them months to evict them, and start stealing food, how would that be different from Yelp's wage policy. Yelp is taking advantage of their dominant position to exploit their employees.
"As for Ms whiny pants....why does she choose to live in expensive SF area when she only has the capability to earn a paltry $1500? Perhaps she should move to somewhere where someone that generates as little value as she does can afford to live."
Wow. Or maybe Mr. Yelp could pad his retirement fund by just 1 million less this year and actually not require of his employees that they SPEND MONEY for the privilege of working for him?
The level of stupidity required to blame the employee never ceases to amaze.
What kind of ignorant attitude is that? Kieren Mcarthy deliberately injected anti Trump rhetoric into this article (Right in the headline) in an effort to create click bait and accomplishing his task, Charles Manning responds in kind as is his right.
You, on the other hand; has to attack Manning for simply expressing his opinion. Leaving Obama out of it for the moment....
Only the left leaning feel they have the sole right to comment in their widdle "safe space" and that no one else is allowed to comment or lampoon their "beliefs". Only the left feel the need to be "guiltless".
You're all as guilty as hell for your inability to comprehend what makes small businesses work that's for sure!
The fact is that a $15 minimum wage would put most of the mom and pop shops out of business. As this young foolish lady is complaining she already does not make enough money, what part of the new minimum wage will be eaten up in ludicrous cost increases?
Where do you people think money comes from? Where do you think payroll comes from? Are you all as ignorant as socialist Christoph? Does money grow on trees? Did you think Obama is blameless in this? It is his failed policies that created the demand for Donald Trump.
Better get used to calling him President Trump!
Yelp is not a "mom and pop" business. It is a multimillion dollar enterprise that runs its HQ in one of the most expensive parts of the US. Effectively it is asking its employees to subsidize it by not paying them enough to live. The article was bemoaning the fact that apparently in North America anyone who complains about this situation is deserving of abuse, whereas the wealthy employers are feted.
But maybe you didn't really understand the article.
Just to clarify - it is historically true that when you raise the minimum wage, unemployment goes up. That's why Democrats like to raise the minimum wage when they dominate Congress with a Repub president.
Look it up. This is why the minimum wage has not been raised since Obama has been President.
Blaming Barack Obama for a bad economy is like blaming Ronald MacDonald for a bad hamburger. Neither of them want the responsibility.
Donald Trump's America is already with us
It's official, The Reg is now a political tabloid. Next they will do stories on babies with two heads.
BTW Trump wants to eliminate all taxes on single people making $25K or less, and married filing jointly making $50K or less. That's because he's been a lifelong Democrat. But don't let that stop you from giving in to your hate.
There is a very sick prevailing culture of "blame the victim" in America, fuelled by a psychopathic contempt for the poor - most of whom work full time (in multiple jobs) and pay taxes (unlike their privileged critics, who hide their ill-gotten hoards in tax havens).
Most shocking, to me anyway, is the fact that this sick attitude extends to the deeply impoverished working class majority (although America's neoliberal rules of etiquette dictate that we're not allowed to label them as such), since they've been indoctrinated by centuries of neoliberal doctrine into the delusion that they are all merely "temporarily embarrassed millionaires", that poverty doesn't really exist (and if it does then it certainly isn't the fault of capitalist vultures), and anyone who claims otherwise is clearly just a "lazy bum" who deserves no sympathy whatsoever.
Oh Homer wrote:
> Most shocking, to me anyway, is the fact that this sick attitude extends to the deeply impoverished working class majority
I'm coming late to these comments, but shortly after seeing an even older Youtube video on the subject of US wealth inequality. It's difficult, as an outsider, to see how this situation survives in a democracy, except that the phrase 'indoctrinated by centuries of neoliberal doctrine into the delusion that they are all merely "temporarily embarrassed millionaires"' [Oh Homer, op cit.] sums it up very nicely. I can't be the only observer from the Old World, where "liberal" is a respectable description of a political outlook rather than a deathly insult, who wonders at the instability of the US system. By that I mean an analogy with the stability of the spinning plate trick: it requires constant intervention to prevent it from coming crashing down in an irretrievable mess.
Doesn't Trump present himself not just as a prominent businessman but as a business leader. Didn't he have a TV show in which he purported to teach people how business is done. Trump is already a part of the problem and will continue even if he doesn't become POTUS.
> It is her fault for accepting such a crappy job though
It's not always as simple as that. My son has just quit a somewhat similarly crappy job, which he deliberately went after because it looked as if it was a good opportunity. Under cloak of anonymity, I will say that it was as an engineer installing domestic and small business cable and phone services under a sub-contract. After recruitment, it became clear that he was expected to repay the subcontract company for provision of tools (at more than retail cost), and a shedload of other drawbacks [I just deleted a slew of stuff here!] which made it not a paying proposition to continue working for the company.
Just sayin' that Yelp might not have given their employees an accurate view of what was on offer; indeed that would account for the reported high turnover of new hires, wouldn't it?
First off, let me get one thing clear: I don't support Trump or Obama. I don't live in the USA and it is almost comical watching the US primaries unfold.
But what is even more fun is watching the Trump haters go into completely irrational logical melt-down.
Somehow Lefties think Trump is so powerful that he can come back from the future (when they are so sure he wont be Prez anyway because Clinton will evade the FBI or Bernies's "give everyone free stuff" campaign is going to work) and come make executive orders that made Ms Whiny Pants poorer now.
If Trump really has powers to time travel and be prez when he isn't (and supposedly isn't going to be) then yes, he should be stopped. OR maybe someone paranoid enough to think that should be asking to have their meds strengthened.
But let's face is Ms Whiny Pants is really in this predicament because she has made bad choices, does not take responsibility for those choices and thinks the world at large should bail her out. Sounds like a Bernie voter in the making.
Making everything free and high minimum wages just subsidises bad choice and bad behaviours. It makes the problem worse, not better. It never solves the problem.
Give people $50/hr minimum wage and all the shitty apartments will become more expensive as will all goods and services and the minimum wage will no longer be enough and will have to get jacked up again. The only people that will get rich from this are the landlords.
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Yeah, this pissed me off.
The better half and me, we're Gen Xers who paid off our student loans and had some really hard times doing that. We're now doing okay, but because we went through that, we have empathy for younger people who are getting it really hard, and we wouldn't wish the stalled development of our own lives because of pay restrictions and student loan payments to be passed down to the next generation. We're in favour of the living wage, even if it would mean people are closer to our pay grades, and we're in favour of abolishing student loans, because we believe tertiary education should be free for suitable participants.
That's the point. It's a lack of empathy that produces the line, "we had to do it, so why shouldn't you". To any reasonable human being who's done it, it should be, "we had to do it, we had no backup, and it was horrible and sometimes scary to be teetering on the precipice of bankruptcy and I wouldn't wish that shit on anyone. I hope the future generations don't have to go through that bullshit."
I'm not willing to assign such a devastating lack of empathy to a large portion of humanity, so I just like to take refuge in the safe thought that people who claim to have been through the same thing actually haven't, and they're incorrectly recalling how bad things were for them - when they had to live with their mum and dad for a couple of months. Anyone who's actually had to worry about paying power bills or eaten Tesco Value noodles with tomatoes from the end of the day at the outdoor market for 14 meals a week wouldn't possibly wish it on anyone else or tell someone else to toughen up when they have to do it. That's why your mum and dad didn't let you starve.
I'm a Gen Xer... and you don't speak for me. The main point here is that Talia Jane has no gratitude or humility.
The point isn't "we had to do it, so shouldn't you".... the main point, IMHO is "we had to do it and we learned something in the process, so there's a reason you should to".
When you don't go though the hard times and struggles, you don't have the gratitude, humility or appreciation for what took to get through them.
Talia sounds like most millennials, an entitled brat that never worked a day in her life.... it's sad her parents didn't educate her better.
P.S. I don't believe in a living wage (if there even is such a thing).... I personally believe minimum wage should be 100% abolished. The only people who should know what you make should be you and your boss (and no one else including the government). Taxes should be paid at point of sale for goods and services. Rich people buy more stuff.... ie pay more taxes.
Where do you get this drivel?
"Talia sounds like most millennials, an entitled brat that never worked a day in her life.... "
Er. The entire story is about how she was paid far less than a living wage *for her job*. Which she *worked at*. Do you just take lines out of the cliche book and throw them out there with no thought about their relevance to what actually happened?
"Rich people buy more stuff.... ie pay more taxes."
Unfortunately that works against the poor - they get taxed on 70-80% of their income that isn't disposable, whilst the rich only get taxed on a fraction of that. After all, they didn't get rich in the first place by having to spend all their money on food and rent, they got there by having enough disposable income to not spend it in the first place.
And if you're like the Trumpster and Mutt Romney, you inherited your money, and never had to struggle to pay the rent, buy food, or even to take a vacation past the end of your driveway.
My grandfather was a dairyman in rural Iowa many years ago. He was partners with another man who provided the capital and my grandfather did the hard work. When the partner died, his son summarily kicked my grandfather and his family off the farm because there was no written contract and the son claimed ALL the cattle and left my grandfather nearly destitute... As a result, my father dropped out of school after the eighth grade, along with his older brothers, to support their parents.
The whole aspect of the article was that the "entitled brat" works hard, every day, for a wage that doesn't pay enough for her to live on. She was in fact paying to work, if Yelp had paid her more money then she would be able to pay for this stuff called "food".
Obviously as an "entitled brat" she doesn't deserve to eat food after working a 9 hour shift. Goodness, what sort of world are we living in where people should expect to earn more in wages than it costs them to survive.
As the article points out, Yelp are paying no where near enough for a person to live on, but hey, it's a job, and if you don't take it then you're a pariah on society and should be sent to the electric chair, who cares that by taking the job you end up going into debt every month, that debt it good, it keeps the banks running and we know how careful they are with our money.
"it's a job, and if you don't take it then..."
Well that depends on the society you live in.
If your society has no minimum wage and no benefits system, those without jobs have an income of zero and slowly starve to death. (How slowly depends on whether they turn to crime first.) Frequently such people have children and the wider society gets all icky about *children* starving to death.
So the wider society introduces some sort of benefit system to provide a safety net. Great! Now the cheapskate employers don't have to pay a living wage because the taxpayer will pick up the difference. Sadly, the wider society now gets whiny about why the taxpayer is being forced to subsidize *specifically the meanest* employers in the land. Businesses in particular get uppity about subsidizing the competitors simply so that those competitors can pass on lower costs to customers.
So society introduces a minimum wage. If you aren't prepared to pay that, you can't ask a member of society to work for you. That's annoying, but it is less annoying than being forced to subsidize your competitors.
I've seen less obvious trolls standing on bridges, punching goats...
Failure on every level, although it appears you do have some biters.
This is the way companies work though, they try to extract the maximum from staff while paying the minimum and getting away with, meanwhile spending billions exhorting others (who are also underpaid staff, just working for somebody else) whatever tat it is they're flogging.
If you truly believe that people spending more for the sake of it is a good thing, then more people having more disposable income to spend on more tat is a better thing.
"we had to do it, we learned something in the process, so there's a reason you should to[o]".
Sure thing, like my parent's generation had to deal with polio and, you know, what doesn't kill you can only make you stronger. Pity if it kills you though. Or cripples you for life. Comparing the experience of one generation to the next is meaningless. I bought my first house for less than 3x my annual income. If my kids go into the same industry at today's prices their first, equivalent, house will be 6-7x their income. My kids aren't going to be faced with the same challenges that I was faced with, they are being faced with more than twice the challenge that I had to deal with. How is that fair? If someone in that situation complains, it's not being 'self entitled' it's being aware that they are getting screwed.
You were very lucky as my first house in 1964 was 5.5 x my annual wage. Luckily before my wife became pregnant she was also earning, but it was tight with very few treats and any holidays were B&B.
We did not complain much - then came Harrold W, then Ted Heath !!!
The problem was later when we moved to a new job when mortgage interest rates were 15 - 18%.
We were very relieved when they dropped to 10% ! a few years later.
New house prices may be more, but interest rates are vastly lower.
"The point isn't "we had to do it, so shouldn't you".... the main point, IMHO is "we had to do it and we learned something in the process, so there's a reason you should to".
When you don't go though the hard times and struggles, you don't have the gratitude, humility or appreciation for what took to get through them."
Ah yes, the 'it's an education' argument (when all we really learned was that people are utter bastards, noodles have practically no nutritional value, and debt collectors are real bastards), combined, uniquely, with the 'it's good for you' argument (when all it did was force us to do horrible things and deal with horrible people). Of course, this education isn't compulsory. You only have to get that education if you're poor to begin with.
Well, thinking about it, you might be right. Because we came out the other side of that fairly decent people with empathy. You obviously didn't, so if you actually experienced poverty - which you probably didn't - then the lesson doesn't take all the time. What your experience taught you was that you should act like a complete c... arpet bagger to anyone who has the audacity to demand a good standard of treatment in the place they spend half their waking lives.
You're obviously not someone who had a job at 17 paying £1.50 an hour because Thatcher thought that'd be good for businesses, are you. You're apparently so ignorant you can't tell the difference between the legal minimum and what someone has to earn in order to actually be able to live - the difference between a minimum wage, which is what Talia Jane gets, and a living wage, which is what Talia Jane needs in order to eat and pay bills.
If gratitude or humility are basically you saying that she needs to suck up to the likes of you while you're treating her like crap and expecting her to take it, then you can stick them.
A sense of entitlement you say?
She has the termity to be $125 out of pocket a month (on the understanding she doesn't buy any food or any other consumpables)- for the sake of working for the company- and she has a sense of entitlement?
Cop on.
I honestly do not think I will ever understand the uniquely American way of beating up those who are less well off than they- and the unique theory- that if someone isn't successful- its their own fault.
Wakeup call- the American dream is dead. Cast your vote for Mr. Make America Great Again Trump- if you feel so like it- and see what it feels like to be isolated globally. It didn't work so well for Iran or a plethora of other countries..........
Cop the hell on.
"I honestly do not think I will ever understand the uniquely American way of beating up those who are less well off than they - and the unique theory - that if someone isn't successful - its their own fault."
I can only think that it's similar to the way that many children who are bullied by older kids at school in turn bully younger children when they themselves are older, or the way that some crusty old Consultant doctors who went through living hell when they were junior doctors in the 60's think that today's junior doctors should work the same 48 hours in a row with no sleep just because they had to.
Of course nice, decent people learn from these past experiences, and feel empathy with those who are suffering what they themselves have suffered in the past.
Wankers don't.
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