I'm a call center manager for a mid sized business in the south bay area. We are struggling to hire people because we pay shit ($20/hr) for this area. I tell my boss almost every single day that the reason we can't hire is because we pay shit, and we should pay more, like $25 or even $30. This came up during a management meeting we were having at the company with most of the managers from other departments and I repeated that sentiment, another manager (who is in his late 50s) chimed in and said “$30 is way too much, they don't deserve $30 because their job is not that hard, they just answer phones and watch YouTube at their desks”
I fired back and explained that it has nothing to do with how hard the job is, it has to do with how expensive it is to live here. People who work at McDonalds down the street should also be making $30/hr. People who are washing cars and cleaning toilets and picking up shopping carts and turning signs on the street should be making that. Corporate greed has fucked up this whole region of the country, nobody can afford to live here and I personally know people cramming 7 people into a 2br apartment and we are at the breaking point where the cash has to flow back downwards or society will crumble.
Other manager just waved me off and said “nah, you are just buying in to all the liberal propoganda” and then the meeting ended. He just has no fucking clue what it is actually like for people.
Through other conversations I've heard/been in with him, he thinks things will all blow over in another year and we should just hold out until then and not give raises because we can't take them back. He has no ownership in the company and raising starting pay has no negative impact on him in any way. He is just straight up brainwashed by capitalism to want to shit on the lower class for no reason at all and I just don't get it. Like. His own team is having to work harder because the whole company is understaffed and he just doesn't want to fix that??? How the fuck do they think this is supposed to work? Our employee feedback has been hugely negative regarding pay, even if they appreciate the pretty good benefits and vacation policy we have, we need to address the very evident issue across the whole company and I'm the only manager who seems to think so, most of the others aren't opposed but they just say “welp that's out of our hands” and move on with their lives. I feel like I'm going crazy.