(05-23-2009 03:26 PM)kinderowl Wrote: (05-23-2009 03:19 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote: I think minimum wage is $7.25, so a vacation week check would be $290 before taxes - say $240 net. if you think that is going to get a family to Disney World, much less in, I can only say go for it. Ditto a trip to the homeland - cost questions aside, for the undocumented there is the problem of getting back. I doubt it even finances a trip to the lake, as that is living expense money, not mad money.
straw man responding to what i did not say or defend. and, you're mistaken if you think that undocumented folks don't risk going back and forth occasionally to see family, or that low income folks aren't willing to find a way to go home once in a blue moon.
i'll give you a for instance, quite a few builders around houston don't bother to work the second half of december because their crews go home for the holidays. those crews are not high income earners, and some may be documented or undocumented workers, but it doesn't stop them from going home.
OK, guess I misunderstood someything, but in return please note that at no time have I contended that no one ever goes home or that nobody ever goes even to Disney World. I am in the realm of "often" or "usually", not "always" and "never". I know that MANY construction companies don't work in the second half of December, and I know that PART of the reason is that SOME of their crews will take off, whether to go home to Alabama or Chihuahua or for other reasons, I don't know. (I doubt that ALL of them are just not showing up so they can go home for the holidays, heck for many of them, Houston is home.) When you put that together with the fact that there is going to be a lot of downtime for Christmas, New Years, and possible bad winter weather, and trying to get things done with an unknown portion of your crew missing, it just make sense to get the vacation requirement out of the way all at once and give all of them the time off, whether they want it or not. I even think it is probable that some people who would have preferred to work, once given the mandatory time off, will decide to go home and others will decide to find temporary work. Does this not make sense?
This is a common response in Mexico as well, giving everybody two weeks at Christmas and half the week before Easter, closing the manufacturing plants. The businesses i worked with there always closed from about Dec. 20 to about Jan 3, depending on how sundays fell, and always closed the Thursday, friday and saturday before Easter, and expected a lot of absenteeism the next couple of days. Maybe some of them come to Houston to visit family, I really don't know. I can't say it never happens. I know some of the workers had family in New Mexico and Texas, for sure.
If I am a worker taking home about $300/wk for 50 hours work, and then am told to stay away a week, and I will get a $240 check for 40 hours of vacation pay, well, some workers will be happy, some will go see Aunt Greta, and some will be upset that it is costing them $60. Some will sit home all week (not neccesarily a bad thing), some will do some home or car repairs, some will...anything and everything. Some will go home to _____ and never return, some will find a new job. Some good things will happen and some bad. I doubt these are the results envisioned by the author of the bill.
So, where exactly are we differing? I've already said to pass the law.