I have friends in the Fight for $15 movement. I know how hard they have worked on multiple fronts. So when the popular business media acknowledges its momentum--that deserves some serious kudos. The acknowledgement of the Big Mo came not only on the super popular radio show
Marketplace, which is:
"...the most widely heard program on business and the economy – radio or television, commercial or public broadcasting – in the country."
The comment is also interesting because it came from a mainstream business magazine editor,
Leigh Gallagher, who is assistant managing editor at Fortune.
Lots of people made that momentum that she is seeing and feeling. Take a bow folks.
On the show the two guests were talking about the minimum wage. One guest, Sudeep Reddy, from the Wall Street Journal needed to bring up possible gloom and doom from the movement, but even then he thinks it will be "only around the edges."
Gallagher also talked about the innovations that LA is doing with the minimum wage, like publishing a list of employers with more than 100 employees on Medicaid. She notes that:
"The thing that hasn't been talked about is how much employers have been relying on taxpayer money for public help for people who are not making a living wage."
I almost had to laugh when I heard that. I've heard it talked about, but I run in dirty hippie circles. (Nice visual, eh?)
I'm glad she made that last comment because it represents a mind-shift taking place.
Corporations have figured out how to shift costs to the public without paying into the same public system for a long time.
Think about how much has shifted when the idea that that corporations should pay for the services they use, instead funneling the profits to a small group of people, seems radical. And health care for employees is just part of the shift, they also use roads, water, sewage, infrastructure, a court system, police and fire. They should pay for these, it's pretty amazing PR work that they have convinced people they shouldn't.
Soon you will be hearing the screaming of victim hood when these lists come out. They will bitch about having to report at all, talk about how they will go broke if they have to pay a living wage to everyone. They will also probably suddenly be very concerned about employee privacy.
They will compare themselves to small businesses, as if they had the same resources, "Small business don't have to do this!!! Why are you picking on us for our success!"
They will threaten to move to Texas, China or some other third world country that does the crappy jobs with employees who don't demand things like health care. Or who think safety regulations are for wimps. ("Texas welcomes your explosives business within our city limits." )
Instead of raising the wages they will fire everyone who was on medicaid, just so they aren't on the list again. "It's not our fault the workers can't manage their money, we were doing them a favor by hiring them! Not anymore, THIS is the thanks we get? Public humiliation and forced to pay more money to fewer people who might not manage their money well either!"
They will say it's our fault, "Ya happy now Liberals, see what you made me do!? I had to fire the very people you wanted to help!"
Of course the real cost savings could be in outsourcing their own jobs, but that won't happen. Yes, the Board of Director folks could find someone to do their jobs for less, but the real benefit the CEO whiners provide to their shareholders is their professional whining about regulations and committeemen to lobbying politicians for more tax breaks. Lobbying is where they want to do all their work, it has the best ROI.
But enough about my predicting gloomy futures! This comment and the work that inspired it is good news! Sure it was buried on a Friday before a Memorial Day weekend, but it's there and it calls for some acknowledgement, optimism and celebration!