The 40th number was not chosen by me nor was it me who proposed it in this thread.
You said this, and I agree with it. But I also don’t really see the difference between lobbying the government vs lobbying the company you work for (which is what the article is about). Your first response was about how people should do something if they are upset with their situation. This is what they are doing. The only thing I’ve really said in this thread is that I support their goal and would be happy if they made $4 more per hour. Especially if they are handling collectibles and assets that we all highly value and want the rest of the world to take seriously.
Their job is to grade the cards regardless of value, and really they should be treating the $5 cards with the same care as the $5000.
Do you also feel that the minimum wage works who wash cars are also entitled to $20/H because they might wash a $50K car.
I might be being harsh and blunt here, so don’t take it personally. But being paid hourly to look at hundreds of cards a day, in my opinion, is not anymore skilled labour than any other entry level / factory job.
There are 13% that are being paid more money, presumably because the companies feel they add more than $16/H value to the organization.
Unaffordability is widespread in our country. Wage increases like this are band aids to the real problem; excessive government spending financed through federal debt. Unless you are able to secure a stake in growing equity markets, its only going to get more difficult. If you don’t own a home, even worse.
Unfortunately, I believe the US lacks the political will to stop what has eroded purchasing power for decades.
I believe the Syracuse location that the article is discussing is for TCGPlayer direct orders, which is going to mean a lot of low value bulk rather than the high value cards that go through the ebay authentication process.
People making less than living wage do not have the savings to quit their job and start a business. They literally cannot afford to take that sort of risk.
The fact that you propose that as a realistic option for them is the part that’s in bad faith or rooted in ignorance.
I mean $50k is the average new car price in the US so that’s not quite comparable. Do I think someone should be paid at least $20/hr to wash a $200k+ car? Yeah I do. It’s not entitlement, it’s a reasonable expectation given the increased liability in handling a more expensive vehicle.
Also, you mention authenticating $5 cards, but I think this job is for ebay authenticity meaning the minimum value is $250
I agree, and all those people should also be paid a wage that allows them to live a basic life. Not fancy, not extravagant, but they should be able to afford a reasonable rent, food, and essential utilities like phone and internet.
These people aren’t being paid enough to get that where they live, so they’re exercising their rights to collectively bargain for more pay. I don’t see how this leads to communism.
I can handle the healthy disagreement and discussion, even if we don’t agree at the end of the day, we can still be friends!
I feel that I am in the minority here, but I’m not sure if that’s because those that agree with me are afraid to speak up, or that I am truly on my own.
I will preface this saying, I am not a compensation specialist, but if we look at popular compensable factors, maybe we can figure out if these employees should be worth more than your standard entry level burger flippers:
Experience
Education
Supervisory Responsibility
Budget Accountability
Complexity
Mental and Physical Demands
Card grader :
Little to no prerequisite experience required, will very likely need to be fully trained
none required
none required
none required
routine process based on trained guidelines
not excessively demanding
Burger Flipper :
Little to no prerequisite experience required, will very likely need to be fully trained
If you make $30K a year, maybe we can work out a budget that has them living a simple life.
If you have two family household making $30K/year, isn’t that enough to live a simple life?
Maybe it isn’t reasonable to think having your own house on a single minimum wage job in a high cost of living city.
I do think there is a budget out there that allows you the basic life on $30K/year, but you have to share your accommodations, and you probably need to use public transportation, and eating out is a luxury.
At a more basic level, which I think is probably the gap that will never be crossed in views on this particular issue.
Why do you care if someone wants to earn more than the minimum wage to do a job? I’d be very happy for people if all minimum wages go up. Hopefully everyone gets fair renumeration for what they do given that inflation has shot up world wide, everything costs a lot more but wages have not kept up.
It’s a fallacy that paying everyone more to flip burgers (as seems to be the standard comparison for a minimum wage = low skill job) will mean burger prices go up. Other countries have higher minimum wage equivalents than America but don’t have burgers costing much more overall.
You said earlier that lobbying for a living wage to go up is the way forward. I’d say unionising and going on strike will have a more direct impact for them. Of course with America’s state by state laws on being able to fire someone over anything it could backfire but writing to your local representative isn’t going to do much.
I think most agree with your points about education and training, the contention is more on the liability and risk. The baseline for a card to go through authenticity is $250. Where a burger is a few dollars. Also you are acting as a middleman for an item that isn’t easily replicable, if at all. If something goes wrong, this carries significant monetary and emotional damage. Where if you overcook a burger, you just make another, at little to no damage.
This elevated liability and risk warrants a higher wage.
But eBay is the one taking on the risk, not the individual, right?
The employee just goes “whoops”, and isn’t impacted, it’s eBay that gets nailed and the funds are taken out of ebays share of the pie, not garnished from the employees wages.
The point is increased wages typically means increased value. Take grading companies for example. Right now they are encapsulating suspicious autographs. If they offered more, and you’d be surprised how marginal someone would accept, they could hire a more seasoned individual who could rectify these issues.
Clearly there is friction at the intersection of people with the necessary experience and willingness to do this job. The current liability eBay faces is a strike, slowing necessary production.
Ebay is also taking risks on our behalf, If a minimum wage employee determines that your $5000 card is guaranteed authentic - when it’s actually not - you lose any path to recourse.
