September 3, 2014 by David K. Sutton
A Shopping Mall With Two Minimum Wages
You can’t make this stuff up folks. Apparently the owners of a few retail stores believe the minimum wage is actually a maximum wage, otherwise I’m trying to figure out why this is a problem:
A unique situation has mall employees fighting for jobs on a one side of a shopping mall because they’ll get paid more.
Westfield Valley Mall on Stevens Creek Boulevard is in both the cities of San Jose and Santa Clara.
A city zoning map shows the majority of the mall is in San Jose, which currently has a $10.15 per hour minimum wage. But a portion of the west end of the property is in Santa Clara, with a $9 per hour minimum wage. —
“When we offered people jobs, they would say, ‘Well, I got a job on the other side of the mall’,” said Juan Luna, a manager at Shoe Palace in the Santa Clara side of the mall.
“We were going through the hiring process and then we would let them know it’s $8 an hour. They were like, ‘Really, the mall over there gets paid $10,'” Luna said. —
Other retailers have a more challenging issue, like Wetzel’s Pretzels, which operates two stores on opposite sides of the mall.
An employee said management has decided to rotate employees.
“We move back and forth each week,” the worker said. “But I’d rather work on the San Jose side.”
Wetzel’s Pretzels has a “more challenging issue”?
You know, sometimes I read articles that are supposed to be serious, but instead of learning something, I’m left scratching my head, then pounding my head on the desk, then needing a metal plate inserted to fix the skull damage I’ve now inflicted upon myself, only then to find out I piss my pants every time I run the microwave and forget who I am for half an hour (thanks Cousin Eddie).
I’m failing to see the challenging issue here because there’s a simple solution to this fucking problem: Pay your employees a wage equal to or greater than the San Jose minimum wage. Problem solved. Oh, you don’t want to do that? Well, then it seems to me the problem is you, not the two minimum wages.