Silly woman.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

Doesn't she know she's not as important as her bosses? She should be lucky they deign to pay her at all!

Comments

[american-geist.livejournal.com]

Jeff's argument is that health insurance is a BENEFIT not a wage, therefor, for some totally semantic reason it doesn't count.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

My total compensation includes my health insurance. There's a cost, and the company certainly calculates it.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Not that it doesn't count, but that it's different. Benefits are benefits, they're optional pieces in addition to a wage that change from year to year, if not more. Some years I've paid more for insurance, others I've seen no change with added benefits. To treat them as wages kind of misses the point of them, both in current practice and historically, since benefits like health insurance were put in place specifically to circumvent wage controls.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

It's all compensation.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

But it's not like docking pay, because benefits aren't a paycheck, it's more like an extra.

Now, if she had some sort of employment agreement that her benefits wouldn't ever change, maybe she'd have a place for complaint in this scenario.

[saint-monkey.livejournal.com]

She can still complain, it's a loss of a benefit that she used to have. It is only fair that she let her employer know that if they don't change it she will quit. But those are her options, attempt to negotiate, or bail. If she had a contract that stated that this was part of her employment package that couldn't be altered, then she can do more than complain, she can sue.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

It certainly is docking her pay, because now instead of it being covered, she has to pay for it. She gets less pay.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Of course.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

It's not docking her pay, as her pay is not impacted. How she chooses to spend her money isn't any concern of the employer in this scenario.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

as always, you refuse to consider the larger context of the change.

[blueduck37.livejournal.com]

Odd how that's the entirely opposite argument that the Wall St.-ers make about their million dollar bonuses.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

I don't see what I'm not considering here. She's not entitled to any specific benefits in this scenario, her actual pay doesn't change, and you're still insisting it's essentially a dock in pay because she may choose to spend some of her actual pay on something previously covered by her insurance.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

In what way?

[mylaptopisevil.livejournal.com]

In that they have to get paid bonuses or else you're docking their pay.

[blueduck37.livejournal.com]

The notion that benefits are not part of your wage/pay agreement... that they're a luxury that your employer can alter or deny you on a whim. That's the opposite of the Wall St-ers who defended receiving insane bonuses as a) their companies failed and were bailed out, and b) they were laying off the bottom rung of their company's payroll... they insisted their bonuses weren't, well, bonuses, but rather a previously agreed-upon part of their wages that couldn't/shouldn't be altered just because of present circumstances.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

I don't see what I'm not considering here.

Yeah, I know. You never do.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

dude, those people are FAR more important. For one thing, they're much more likely to be men.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

You mean the contractually-obligated bonuses?

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

So, in other words, nothing like what we're talking about here at all.

[spaz-own-joo.livejournal.com]

Now, if she had some sort of employment agreement that her pay wouldn't ever change, maybe she'd have a place for complaint in this scenario.

Think about the difference between benefits and pay as they apply to this sentence. Do employees typically have contracts that stipulate no pay cuts?

[mylaptopisevil.livejournal.com]

So you'd have a bigger issue with benefits being removed if they were "contractually-obligated'?

[mylaptopisevil.livejournal.com]

BUT THERE IS A CONTRACTUAL OBLIGATION FOR BONUSES.

NO CONTRACTS FOR BENEFITS HAW HAW

[dwer.livejournal.com]

If only these people had some kind of organization that would allow them to unify their bargaining power collectively, to be able to negotiate with the employers on some kind of equal basis...

[dwer.livejournal.com]

that can't be it. Jeff NEVER bows to authority. He told me so himself!

[mylaptopisevil.livejournal.com]

It's called the socialist party you communist sympathizer. >:(