Is everyone making less than $32/hr being “utterly screwed over”? Should we as a society just mandate that everyone make at least $32/hr? If not, why are they the special case? If so, what greater economic effects do you think that idea would have?
Quite frankly, I’ve yet to see anyone in this thread make a rational argument. It’s all just “OH YOU REPUBLICANS WANT TO STOMP PUPPIES DON’T YOU?” type stuff. Or just knee-jerk support without thinking of the greater implications. It’s quite bizarre actually.
And to think in the other thread some were talking about what a liberal I am and how I come here to have an echo chamber, and so quickly an example is delivered where you’re all nuts.
I guess you don’t, at least not for hourly workers. If the state has any long-term benefits to worry about, maybe there’s some financial incentive for them to keep employees for life. Probably not.
Control of the Dulles toll road operations transferred to the airport last year, and workers are now employees of VDOT or Abacus. I’m not sure if full-timers are VDOT and part-timers are Abacus or what, but if you’re a part-time Abacus person starting pay is $9.25/hr. That seems low to me given the cost of living in the Reston/Herndon area, but it is what it is. Doesn’t help my case, unfortunately.
Management of the Dulles toll road has been all over the place, and I’m surprised that VDOT employees are also manning the toll booths; I’m not sure what this says about the long term viability of private ownership if public employees are working there. However, I can’t argue that this is now the second example of private companies paying toll booth operators in the ballpark of $10/hr, so unless I find something else to support my case I’m going to concede for the moment.
Why is it threadshitting and irrelevant? These decisions aren’t made in a vacuum. His justification for the cuts is that the state has a budget deficit, and that they need to make cuts. This seems to be rather small potatoes in the realm of thing that he could cut or taxes that he could increase. It does smell of a political move trying to stick it to the Unions which tend to lean Democratic.
There’s nothing really to concede, though. I didn’t start this thread looking to convince everyone that any penny over $10.60 an hour (or whatever) paid to toll workers is unfair and must be stomped out, and if you don’t agree with me then go fuck yourself…
It’s just more that the process by which public unions negotiate with public employees to inflate their wages to something far higher than what an equivalently-skilled private sector is working for (generally) creates long run problems for the government. Putting this in the entire context of state budgetary processes in general in this country, the $32 an hour tollbooth worker isn’t the problem per se. It’s just the system in general. I’m using the $32 to highlight the problem moreso than have it be the problem.
It’s irrelevant because the NJ turnpike authority is a quasi-state entity which runs a budgetary surplus.
This has nothing to do with NJ’s budget, it has everything to do with how unions have successfully (in some jobs - important point) inflated their wages to something far greater than an equivalent private sector job.
Yes, I think they’re appropriately paid, in that, that’s what they bargained for and that’s what they got. People gotta fucking live, man. Just because it isn’t glamorous job that requires a PhD to pull off doesn’t mean the people doing it should have to live in poverty.
I’m just not on board with this whole, Oh My Stars, someone uneducated schlub is not poor and makes me unhappy, shit.
And, by the way, I *don’t *think teachers are appropriately paid, by and large.
What about tollbooth workers makes them unique in deserving those wages for unskilled labor? Or are they not unique? Does every unskilled job deserve $27.50+ per hour?
Do you feel that this is an economically viable possibility?
If not, and you accept that it’s impractical to pay unskiled labor such a way, why are you defending it in the specific case of the tollbooth workers?
Ah, and now we get to the meat. I don’t think that public union bargains are as fair as they are made out to be. No, I’m not implying corruption or shenanigans, but there are many factors that distort public union negotiations and will cause higher wages to result than in an equivalent private union. You want proof of that? The 32 an hour is proof of that.
Yes, it’s not their fault that that’s the case. And I’m not blaming them for it. (in fact, no where here am I blaming the toll collectors for anything). But… we don’t have to like it or even continue to put up with it.
so, what is your grand suggestion for the 52% of workers who make under $13.75 an hour in this country? fuck them because they weren’t lucky enough to get employed on the public’s teat?
What about distributing all of the money we can saved by effectively paring back public union wages and giving it to them?
Not every unskilled job deserves $30/hour, but neither does every unskilled job deserve minimum wage. You guys make it sound like these are a bunch of braindead morons whose only skill is to hold out their hands.
It’s not neurosurgery, but it’s not collecting cans either. Do you think you could stop denigrating toll-takers who are just trying to make a decent living as though they were mere vermin who irritate you when you’re on the turnpike.
I’m defending toll-takers because … why the hell shouldn’t I? They’re hard-working regular guys just like 75% of the country. Why are you attacking them? What did you get beat up by a toll taker when you were a kid or something?
What other places would you cut then? Infrastructure, hospitals, libraries, schools, police, fire departments, trash collection? Most voters think those are necessities and a great many of us like things like state parks and support for the arts. Not to mention that, if NJ is anything like Indiana, businesses are always asking the state for tax abatements, infrastruture improvements, and grants for training. Furthermore, if cutting the budget is so important why quibble over wages? Why not insist that the state collect money via EZ Pass and automated toll booths (I’ve seen these operate 24/7 in Chicago) and cut the collectors altogether? Frankly, in order to get a balanced budget, I would be happy cutting the money going to unionized IF shit like tax abatements and subsidies to big businesses (the oil companies spring to mind) and payments to farmers who are near-millionaires were cut, too. You conservaties are trying to have your cake and eat it, too, because most of you are never going to say no to expenditures like these.
Nonsense and taradiddle, Senor Beef. It doesn’t matter if workers are skilled or unskilled; if their wages come from tax dollars, the taxpayers must still put up the money.
Bullshit and balderdash. I haven’t see anyone in this thread propose that DMV workers make $150,000 a year or that dog catchers make a million. I suspect that few Dopers would make that argument. People have been arguing that people making somewhat less than the median salary of that state are not grossly overpaid.
so where’s your outrage for the burger flipper or server? would you not have a problem spending $9.00 on a big mac, or $35 for the pasta primavera at olive garden?
there’s a component of put up or shut up here, don’tcha think?
I have a problem paying anything for a Big Mac. You couldn’t force one of those grease bombs down my throat.
Besides that … why should I be outraged at what McDonald’s workers make or don’t make? It’s not really in the same league as government work, whether its toll-taker or VA orderly. If McDonalds workers decided to unionize and demand $60,000/yr for entry level burger flipping at age 16, they’d never get it through. And if they did, McDonalds would fold like a road map and good riddence to them.
All said and done, I don’t get these connections. You asked me if I thought $60k a year is a decent salary for a toll-taker – leaving off the fact that that’s not what each one makes, let alone at entry level. Yes. I think it is a fine salary for the job. So why do I keep getting inundated with burger flippers and teachers? One has nothing to do with the other.
McDonalds is almost by definition, an entry level job. That’s why your Big Macs are flipped by teenagers and not 45 year old guys with a wife three kids and a mortgage. Toll-takers, government workers, are there as a career. What is the altenative you’re hoping for? Teenagers manning the toll-boths for minimum wage? I’m sure there would be absolutely no problems with stealing, or abusing the system, or anything other things that teenagers earning minimum wage are wont to do.
why do you think age deserves a wage premium for substantially the same job where there is no capacity for experience to either enhance or add value?
and you’ve never seen middle aged people working at mac do or any of another number of minimum wage service jobs? or are you advocating that they get paid more than their pimply-faced coworkers too?
would it also surprise you to learn that engineers (who don’t move into management) face virtually flat income progression curves? in that an “entry level” PhD engineer will make, approximately, the same as a PhD engineer with 30 years experience in the same job? do you wonder why that is?
oh, and I’d like a response to post #154 too, instead of you changing the topic.
What are you babbling about? What question are you clinging to here? Why I think toll-takers should earn what they earn? I already told you. And now on top of burger flippers and teachers I have to wrestle with enginieers too.
Unless the job is somehow dramatically more difficult in New Jersey than it is in the rest of the country (and it’s not; I had a buddy who did it on the GSP), the state is overpaying drastically.
This is money that should be going to schools, parks, and police.