September 25, 2017

Target is making big news today. Hippie rag Bloomberg News (yeah) reports that:

Target Corp. is betting that the path to becoming a healthier company is through fatter paychecks.The big-box retailer said Monday it is set to raise its minimum hourly wage to $11 in October. By the end of 2020, it plans to bump its wage floor even higher, to $15 per hour. The retailer did not say exactly how many of its 323,000 employees would be affected by the change in policy. It also did not specify how much the pay raise would add to its expenses, according to Bloomberg News.

But even without those details, it seems safe to say that Target is making a smart play by increasing its base wage.

But WalMart only raised its base minimum wage to $10.00 an hour for employees who took a training course. Managers can start at $15.00 an hour -- think of it -- and while WalMart said they're also working to provide more predictable schedules, the world of big-box retail is still a go-nowhere and forget about getting sick or needing childcare kind of job.

Still, increasing wages has shown to lead to better outcomes for store quality. Turns out when employees are paid more, the stores are cleaner and the shelves are better stocked. who knew? Everybody except upper management?

And it's often the only job available in many communities.

Let's hope this victory for the #Fightfor15 movement starts a trend. But let's also remember that without organized self-representation, workers are nearly always at the mercy of gigantic corporate decisions. There's nothing stopping big-box stores from changing work policies in a negative way, without workers organizing against it.

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