Pentair to sell tool division: Delta, Porter-Cable

[CW]

Yes, he did say what he paid. "Less than $9 dollars an hour".

[Edwin Pawlowski]

OK, the wages are not $20 an hour, but the skill level needed is a 1 on a scale of 1 to 10. You need more skill and training to work stocking shelves at a grocery store or flipping burgers. What is that worth on the open market?

As for not putting anything in the 401k, I do know for a fact that one of these guys has about $100,000 in value in his. Not bad for a HS grad in his

20's with little skills.

If we paid $15 or $20 for the work, a tradesman or carpenter would be getting paid $80 + benefits or so to be in scale. If we paid that rate, we'd also be out of business. We are very much in line with our competition in the region. Our skilled workers get a higher rate, again, competitive with the best around.

You have to put everything in perspective. There are many companies that pay less for higher work demand. This is far from "sweat shop" conditions. We sometimes hire people that come here because it is a big increase from their minimum wage job and think they are doing well. They are for their abilities. Ed

[Charlie Self]

Brian Elfert responds:

You should check out this area. People who get 9 bucks an hour are in the middle to high range, and jobs that pay much more than that are disappearing at a high rate of speed.

I listen to Bush talk about how the economy is improving, then pick up that morning's newspaper with another 110 jobs gone, down from the 350 that went last week and down from the 1100 expected to go in the following week. But, hey, there's a new Eagle store staffing downtown--where a Big Bear went broke.

Of course 15 bucks an hour isn't too high, but how much are you going to pay a person for looking at a part to see if it has obvious faults? A 401K may not be the hot set up at 8-9 bucks an hour, but that health insurance is one helluva come-on for many people. And that pay rate may not be fantastic, but in a lot of areas in this country, it's a livable wage, a good spot to start out, if not a great place to end up.

Or are we all supposed to walk into a job and get paid what everyone else, including those there 15-20-25 years, is paid?

That low end payment is highly variable across the U.S. I can see jobs in some areas that I'd love to have at $50,000 a year, but there's not a single chance in a million you could entice me to California, for instance, for double that kind of money.

Charlie Self "A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way." Mark Twain

[Brian Elfert]

This guy must have played the market very well or is living on virtually nothing if he has put away $100,000 working at $9/hr. He is probably the exception and not the norm for $9/hr workers.

I'm sure the competition is paying the same. You were complaining you can't find workers. Paying $9 a hour probably explains most of it right there.

It would be extremely difficult to raise a family on $9 an hour, no matter how low the cost of living.

Brian Elfert

[skeezics]

hm.. ive realy tried to see your reasoning but it makes no sense. the reason it makes no sense is because of the differen values of the dollar. people working in say pakistan can and do work for much less money than we do here because the us dollar is worth much more in pakistan than it is here. our minimum home in my area is around

100,000 dollars but the minimum home in pakistan is probly 10% of that so those folks are living just as good on the money they make as we are on what we make. those illegals that come here are willling to live with 4 or 5 or more families under the same roof. are you? am i? i think not. they come from poverty so those living conditions are a huge step up for them. us corporations only concider the bottom line. they do not care about their workers needs only the bottom line. sad but true. if they can cut prodution costs by 50% then that 50% goes in their pockets not ours. sure the stockholders make a little but not nearly as much as the corporate execs. if you think your 401k is gonna suport you when you are too old to work think again my friend. with inflation you will likley need a second income just to keep your home much less eat. i dont know what the answer is either but at the rate we are going there will no longer be a middle class in this country before too long. there will be rich and poor period. and without the working middle class we are doomed. skeez

[skeezics]

same here. skeez

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Maybe, but he is if fact worth that much. Some of the money comes from profit sharing and some comes from the 50% matching funds.

It is a part ofit, but I have a difficult time getting workers at higher wages at times. Put an ad in the paper and get two respones. Employment in this area is not too bad overall. People with skills are able to use them. Sure, they may make $15, $20 or $30 an h our, but they h ave the skills and knowledge to earn it. I'm not trying to hire bankers or machinist to do unskilled jobs. My point was that there is a need for people to fill those spots. The locals are over qualified. Ed

[gabriel]

Don't be hypocrits. The making more money thing is temporary until a price war breaks out. This usually happens very soon in competitive industries. Once a proce war is on, the prices come down and everyone is happy because they paid less.

Just look at WalMart, they truly have lower prices, and part of the reason is that they hired a cheaper company that hired illegal immigrant labor.

The moral of the story: Americans, by shopping in droves at WalMart, are causing this on themselves. There's not other way about it. Companies are not going to complain about getting cheap labor, specially if they expand their marketshare. It is up to the citizens (who are too busy shopping at WalMart) to initiate the reform.

The big, big losers in this are unskilled (or low-skilled) american workers whcih are being replaced by cheap labor. Both here and abroad. The bad thing is that skilled jobs are also leaving the country, and americans do not cry about that at all.

[Dmitri]

This is something which really surprises me about this country. Which is lack of really high end US made products. I think is some kind of deficiency in a culture. My wife works in Berkeley Lab and most, if not all, precise equipment they use made abroad. Most from Germany, France and Japan. These are not low wage places. Why American companies do not make any equipment which would compete in this market? This is not only about precise machinery. Simple erasers, just block of latex, yet all engineering students use German erasers (not Chinese), while american made are really a piece of crap. Why good erasers can't be made here in US? My only guess is a lack of culture of the management. There is of course pressure to increase margins and stock price but it does exist in Europe and Japan as well. So, I am not surprised that some major parts of Boeing jet made in Japan.

I am not an American, though I live here in US. And I wish this country to succeed, not in launching men to the Mars (though it would be good) or waging wars left and right, but in making life of its people better. But I don't hold my breath.

Dmitri

[Charlie Self]

Uh, you mean it's not up to the worker to learn more, work harder, get more money. He should just walk in and get top salary with no experience, no skills?

This is an ENTRY level job, for chrissakes. You're not supposed to make enough to raise a family with an entry level job when your entry level includes neither experience nor education.

Charlie Self "A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way." Mark Twain

[George]

Didn't Jimmy and Willie do a bunch of amnestying, too?

Of course, with Jimmy it was Canadians....

[Brian Elfert]

How much skill or education does it really take to work on an auto assembly line and they get paid a lot more than $9/hr.

The original poster was wondering why he couldn't find workers for $9/hr. Not being able to support a family on $9/hr is one reason he can't find workers.

I worked at the Minnesota State Fair cutting grass for $4 or $5 an hour back in the late 80s/early 90s. Most of the workers were lazy bums and management complained all the time about the lousy workers. What did they expect when they paid bottom dollar? I could have made somewhat more elsewhere, but the hours at the fair were great and I was in high school/college.

Brian Elfert

[Unisaw A100]

And some even got to come here against their will.

Imagine that. Not wanting to come to such a swell place as this.

UA100

[Joe Willmann]

Brian Elfert wrote in news:4022ca57$0$41296$ [e-mail]:

Let me see. The guy has 35 employees making $9.00. If he raises his prices so that he can pay them more then we cheap Americans won't buy his product so he goes out of buisness. Then there are 35 people on unemployement.

Hmmmmmm, sounds like a good trade to me.

[skeezics]

um please if you are gonna quote me quote only me. and BTW we do worry about high tech jobs going overseas. that has been a part of the disscusion here too. even if it aint bout woodworkin.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

The bums would be bums at 10X that wage. It is more than just money.

You can't support a family for that wage, but that does not mean people are not happy earning it. Many of our workers are single, but some have second household incomes. One fellow is a computer programmer and supervisor, but likes to work for us to make an few extra $ to afford his BMW. It is a job with no stress, no thinking.

Another single guy does not speak more than a dozen words of English. He makes enough to buy a six pack, once a week or so he buys some poontang, goes to the casino, and then takes a few days off to recuperate. Working for an agency he can get away with calling his own hours, not so with most employers.

Another just works to get out of the house and away from her husband. Still another makes a few bucks to spoil the grand kids.

You may be surprised, but there are many people that have little ambition, are happy with almost nothing, don't want to have responsibility. We offered one of the Temps a full time job as a supervisor, good pay (double to start) and loads of benefits. It scared him off and we did not see him for two weeks.

Another Temp just told me today that he is leaving after this week to go back to this old $15/hour job that he was laid off from some months ago. Good for him. He thanked us for letting him work for us.

Others are working here because they can study for college exams if they are keeping up with the packing. They won't be here forever, I hope.

Brian, I have no idea what you do for a living, but you should look around more and see the different cultures that abound in this country. I'm sure you are earning much more that we pay our packers, but you also have a better education, more ambition, better skills, and probably an upbringing in the USA.

I thought long and hard about these people and wondered if we are exploiting them. No. we are not. We are giving them the opportunity to earn money instead of being a burden on the welfare systems, We give them exposure to assist in learning a different way of life, ability to try to speak English, and learn customs of a new country. They are in no way second class workers. Many go on to bigger and better and we wish them well. We get a real bum once in a while, but we get many dedicated and responsible people and we treat them well. Two that I'm aware of turned down a 50¢ increase at another company because they'd rather work for us. That is a bit difference at their wage level.

There is more, much more, to life that how much you earn. Ed [e-mail]

[CW]

[p_j]

There were illegal immigrants then too.

I visit a doctor's office with my dad which is invariably filled with Serbian old people who speak it constantly. I doubt all of them are fluent in English and may well have been here many decades. What to do? Are they bad?

Pew research studied assimilation including language acquisition. Today's hispanics learned and assimilated faster than any prior group. So much for the "willing to learn" political spin.

Personally, I wish the Italians, Polish, Germans, Irish, Mexicans, Columbians, Purple, Green and Yellow groups would assimilate more slowly. I enjoy different cultures.

[Scott Lurndal]

Unfortunately, CW, there is no year 0. 2BC->1BC->1AD->2AD ad infinitum.

scott

[CW]

far