Amusement park workers exempt from minimum wage increase in Ohio
Posted
Ohio Gov. Bob Taft yesterday signed a law exempting some workers from the newly increased minimum wage approved by voters on Nov. 7. Democrats accused Republicans of using the usually routine process of translating a constitutional amendment into law to write out some workers, including home health-care workers, amusement park employees, and agricultural workers at small operations.
Read more from The Toledo Blade.
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Seriously, if we're talking about such a small percentage of workers, then WHY carve out these exemptions in the first place? Will the rest of us be "adversely affected" if SOME prices need to be raised so that those few who ARE living on the bottom rung of the ladder get a LITTLE breathing room....even if temporarily?
Every day, I find that I'm getting more liberal....or that the rest of you'uns are getting more conservative...yikes!
Why the hell would Cedar Fair lobby the state (and who said they did?) when they aren't paying their kids minimum wage in the first place? Now if someone challenged the seasonal worker overtime exemption, then yes, I can see them getting really political, really fast.
Please, Rob, the grocery worker unions are what screw with labor costs, and nobody there is making minimum wage.
Jeff nailed it there.
I remember years ago my aunt (who was a cashier at A&P) was on strike (not her choice) because her union wanted $12 an hour for cashiers. This was before scanners, but it was also when gas was 50 cents a gallon.
Even $12 an hour today for "beep and bag" is a crazy wage.
I don't believe that Marc's is unionized, and if that is true, I'm sure the wages have to do with their prices going up.
Still, I'm not complaining. I used to shop between Giant Eagle, Tops, and Marc's (and I know for a fact that Giant Eagle and Tops are union) and I just shop at Marc's because of the cheaper prices.
I really think everything consumable has gone up because shipping costs have gone up. Wages are going to do the same thing.
~Rob Willi
Gator said:
Every day, I find that I'm getting more liberal....or that the rest of you'uns are getting more conservative...
And it warms the cockles of my heart. :)
Here comes the heartless, oversimplified answer as only I can do it:
If you don't like being paid less than minimum wage, then don't take a job that pays less than minimum wage.
If you're the type of person who has to take a "less than minimum wage" job, then your also the type of person who can find a minimum wage job. Enough people refuse to work for crap wages and soon these places have to pay higher to get workers.
As far as the implications or validity of minimum wage - I wish I cared.
But I am of the mindset that a raise in minimum wage comes with increased prices and also reduces the value of the pay of anyone making more than minimum wage. (and someone making $8 or $10 an hour is even less likely to get a future raise due to the increased costs of those around them getting a minimum wage 'raise') Seems like it hurts more people than it helps. Which goes back to the other part of Gator's take:
Will the rest of us be "adversely affected" if SOME prices need to be raised so that those few who ARE living on the bottom rung of the ladder get a LITTLE breathing room....even if temporarily?
So everyone takes the hit for a temporary (and marginal) increase in the the quality of life of minimally skilled workers. Still seems like it hurts more than it helps.
And in non-typical Gonch fashion, I don't have a list of stats and facts to back that up - just gut feeling and personal opinion.
Here's where it gets crazy, so hang on...my strong suspicion is that those people who ARE living (if you want to call it that) on $6-7/hour, end up COSTING society more in the long run....
Why you ask? (Or SHOULD have asked)...let's start with something close to me that I have *somewhat* decent data on - Medicaid. Healthcare costs to society from the uninsured/underinsured, if you were able to get your hands on the numbers, would almost certainly show that it would cost US less (you, me, everybody) - if everyone had health insurance. People without health insurance, where do they go for "routine" medical care? That's right, the EMERGENCY room. Without the basic doctor/patient relationship that I'm sure ALMOST everyone reading this post has, the poorest of the poor go without...until it's time-consuming, costly, and probably medically-intensive.
So, before I get painted as a "bleeding heart" (meh, probably guilty anyway), consider that I also tend to see things from an economic perspective as well. Lyndon Johnson, Republican, was the impetus behind "the Great Society"...that was a WHILE ago, no? Fiscally AND morally, I can't help but think ALL of us are best-served by ensuring that we DON'T have "third-world enclaves" inside our own borders...
Marc's is ghetto. I can't shop there. They don't even take credit cards.
As Walt said, there's no evidence that raising the minimum wage has any positive effect on the people it's supposed to help. That's his story and I'm stickin' to it.
After reading your statement and actually describing to everyone how it works. I owe you a beer next time I run into you at a park.
On a side note, my uncle is a prof. of economics and was involved in that study. He said that the results were actually higher than alot of them expected.
What does Gonch know? He's a stay at home mom. ;)
You're lucky you have things in place to censor the forum. :)
All I know is it'll be 8 years this April since I've held an honest-to-goodness, working-for-the-man job and my personal income is higher than it ever was then. (The real upside is that I'm doing doing different things rather than just one job, doing things I enjoy and spending less time 'working')
Not too bad for an 'unskilled' worker.
My lack of sympathy comes from experience.
In all seriousness...go SEC!
Employees of La Ronde in Montreal have it great. You make close to 9$/hour for your first month... then after that probation, you're close to 10$/hour for the rest of the summer. You also get guaranted hours once the park starts its full schedule. So, if the park closes down one day a few hours early due to low attendance, you're still paid your full 12 hours shift! 12 hours is cause the blue collar union (the park was owned by the city before) negociated a wacky schedule: employees are divided in 2 teams. Each team never work on the same days and the schedule is like this:
Team A works monday-tuesday, off wednesday-thursday, work friday-saturday-sunday. Team B? They only work wednesday-thursday! The other week, its the opposite. So, the problem is that by the time sunday comes in... that team will have worked 25 hours in 2 days and they still have to do a full opening to closing shift!
The union is what lead the town of Montreal to sell the park to Six Flags. In 1999, the park was rolling... they installed 4 new rides in 5 years, attendance was great and the park was clean and in good shape... What did the union do? Create problems during labor contract talks which lead to the city locking the employees out! The park ran on a reduced schedule while bosses operated the major rides, but then, the union made a bogus claim to court that the city was using scabs (Quebec also has an anti-scab law) and so, the park was shutdown for close to 2 weeks.
By the time a new union contract was signed, the city had enough with the park and cancelled both the 2000 wooden coaster and the purchase of Eurostar! They then put the park on sale. Six Flags then bought it and got stuck with the unions... In 2004, the union threatened the same things and Six Flags got scared and threw down the nicest labor contract anyone had ever seen. They also cancelled the large 40 millions investment... Instead, that money went to Great Escape for their hotel and La Ronde got the Shoot the Chutes.*** This post was edited by Absimilliard 1/3/2007 8:39:45 PM ***
This just continues the trend of amusement parks in Ohio as well as other seasonal jobs in ohios being excluded from most ohio labor laws concerning pay...
no, i'm not a Taft fan, i was just making note of the obvious hatred for the man, and how it found its way into a forum for coaster enthusiasts.
p.s. heck, ill even go as far to say, i personally think minimum wage should be abolished. its done as much damage as the welfare system has to the American economy, in my opinion, both historically, and presently. now, lets see how many cans of worms that opens lol...*** This post was edited by vacoasterfreak 1/3/2007 9:19:03 PM ***
The parks still have to compete in the job market with other businesses. Will someone work at CP if they can make more money at the Wendy's on route 6 (which probably pays above minimum already).
What they need to worry about is if they are paying enough to attract teh average young employee. (They should be trying to recruity better than the average young employee but that horse left the barn years ago.) It is irrelevant that they pay more than the minimum wage (including the bonus).
What they ARE NOT doing is paying the wage (and providing the living facilities) to attract those employees. As a result, they are traveling the world looking for employees from overseas to fill the vacancies. For the past 10 years or so that has helped fill the void. But, sooner or later, that well is going to dry up. What will they do then? With the current leader I would suggest that there is no vision in this regard.
Cedar Point used to be THE place to work...and the $ didn't matter. Dick needs to open the purse strings and spend some money on the employee experience.
I'm an Engineer on the Railroad. Yes I am only 19 myself, but we had members on our crew last season of all ages up to age 49. Our daily routine is actual labor compared to, (no offense) the ride op's that sit and push buttons, check safety restraints, and read spiel's for hours everyday.
We polish our locomotives, hand wash them, oil, grease, shovel coal, fill our tenders with water, and tend to a fire all day-every day. Every time we pull out of a station we have the life's of 200-400 people in our hands on each train. It is an precision art and skilled job to keep a steam locomotive running and maintained on a start/stop basis of 5-7 minutes between stations. At night before our shift is over, we have to hand fill the tenders with a little over a half ton of coal each day. We do this by sifting the coal with pitch forks, load it into 5 gallon buckets, and then lift them to the tender and dump them. This is fun at 11:30 at night after a 12 hour shift sitting next to a hot boiler all day at 110 degree's outside. When it's needed, we have to do track maintenance, which does involve hand driving spikes, replacing ties and rail.
Remember overall, this is a live boiler in operation. Not something just anyone can operate.
You may ask why we do this, many reasons that some may understand and some may not. It's just not something you can stick a new person on to operate at random times through the season. The majority of us on the crew like or have a passion for railroading, which is a dieing art today. We understand what it takes to operate a railroad. This is just simply stated...
This brings me to the main point of this topic... We only get payed the same as a general ride op on any other ride in the park. I'm not begging for a pay raise, but at least the minimum wage that Ohio just passed. Back in the earlier years of the Railroad, crew members got payed double what the general ride operators were payed. Last season, Team leader’s on a normal ride were payed $6.55, Engineer’s on the railroad were payed $6.40.
That is enough ranting on for now, and i'm not trying to start an argument, but NO sarcasm shown…
cp&le r.r. guy, I just read your post. You guys deserve to be paid double. I'm amazed you have to do all the maintenance, and you guys really do have the most safety critical job of all the ride operators.*** This post was edited by Pete 1/3/2007 10:41:55 PM ***
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