retail-wage

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Some people just don’t get it, the voters passed the minimum wage increase because if they had to wait on industry to do it, it would never happen. Funny how they don’t have money to pay wages but somehow the organization was able to raise and spend $100K to fight it.

I also enjoyed this little tidbit;

And that means when it comes to making basic decisions about how to run your business, you’re going to have to ask the permission of 280,000 South Dakota voters.

Nice ‘red meat’ statement. That is called ‘regulation’. Nobody is telling you who to employ or fire or what to pay at a maximum, it is just revising a minimum that was already on the books, they are setting a regulation when it comes to wages. If you do not want to pay those standards, close your doors and go on your merry way.

11 Thoughts on “SD Retailers Association fiddling with the will of the people

  1. rufusx on February 4, 2015 at 1:21 pm said:

    They talk about how hard they fought, how much money they spent, etc. to defeat the bill. Well guess what – in spite of all that hard word and personal expense – they LOST the election.

    So now, they’re whining about it. Hmmm, so, employees who work hard, and put their own money and effort into their jobs EVERY DAY, are supposed be the losers???

    Guess they don’t like the way that “loser” shoe fits THEIR foot – eh?

  2. https://www.sdra.org/members/memberdirectory.asp

    This link connects to the Retailers membership directory – the dues paying/voting members of the Retailers Association. It’s the members that fund the Retailers lobbying efforts to fight better wages for working families. If you buy coffee in downtown SF you are buying from a Retailers member business – they often display the Retailer Member stickers on their doors. You will be suprised at the number of “progressive” businesses that pay their Retailer dues to work against the economic interests of their customers. If you believe the minimum wage measure that passed in November should stand as SD law, talk to business owners. Ask them to dump their Retailers membership.

  3. Can’t blame them for fighting it before the vote, but now since it has passed they should just leave it alone, at least for a year. As Minnesota has proven, jobs actually increased after their minimum wage increase.

    I still think they messed up though on the tipped employee wage increase. They should have also included eliminating tip share, that is where servers really take it in the shorts.

  4. if these poor business owners are so bad off now, why don’t they close their business and get a job.

  5. rufusx on February 4, 2015 at 6:15 pm said:

    DL – not only did jobs increase (I.E., so much business growth that additional employees were needed to meet demand) in MN after they raised the Min wage; the segment of the economy that grew the MOST – by far – was the Food Service industry. BTW – MN’s Min wage is the same – regardless of the job – tipped or not.

  6. So you are saying after it has been past by the voters you should let it go??? Does that apply to the events center and aquatics center too? Lol, oh my, the irony.

  7. Me – There was no indoor pool on the ballot, and there never will be, unlike the Event Center.

    And as for that, is there some repeal vote going on with that? Nope.

    Unlike the EC and indoor pool where transparency has gone by the wayside, and there is evident problems at the facility (siding, ticketing) I’m wondering what the evident problems there is with raising the minimum wage? Are businesses closing left and right because of it? If that was the case, I think there should be some intervention, give it a year, if it needs to be tweaked by the legislature, fine, but highly unlikely. This is just a bunch of greedy business owners whining they can’t keep more of their profits.

  8. Retailers in this state have the legislature bought and paid for, changing the new minimum wage law totally just after it was voted on would be political suicide, but they have already started picking at it. I expect full assault on the law to happen next session, after they make it harder to I&R the new assault. Pay attention to what the single party rulers of this state are up too, they have a plan, do we?

  9. Dan Daily on February 5, 2015 at 7:26 am said:

    It all comes together at the point of sale. Some businesses pay above scale (with benefits) what their employees need for quality of life. There’s opportunity for advancement. They enjoy meeting and assisting customers. They’re not stuck in a First Premier cubicle farm call center. A successful responsible business has the respect of employees & customers. Prices are competitive because they have volume & return customers.

  10. Dan Daily on February 5, 2015 at 7:38 am said:

    To be a part of the community, responsible business displays a retailers sticker. They don’t need the meetings because they’ve overcome their addiction to greed and employee bullying.

  11. Well said Dan!!

    You can see this everywhere. Some stores you see the same friendly workers and they stay at the same store for years. Then there are stores that it seems must have 50% turnover as you always see new faces in the store and the employees just do not seem to care.

    A buddy of mine is a home contractor. He recently attended a conference and was hearing all kinds of stories about how much some builders include in their bids for rework. Rework meaning fixing mistakes or poor quality workmanship. My buddy pays better wages, has people waiting to get on his crew and sees hardly any rework because his employees care about what they do. My buddy has a good reputation among his customers and has work lined up for months ahead of time.

    You get what you pay for.

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