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ToxicSlurpee posted:There are entire chains of stores that do things like sell their jeans at cost but put them aaaaaaaall the way in the back so you have to walk past literally everything else to get there.
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Jul 8, 2017 05:22
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MooselanderII posted:I don't see much discussion in this thread about all of the state sales tax avoidance many big e-retailers take advantage of to add extra salt in the wound. While Amazon collects sales tax in all of the states that impose it, a number of other big retailers pretty much don't collect it due to a Supreme Court decision from the early 90's that held that if you don't have physical presence in a state, you don't have to collect sales tax there. The result is that big box stores take an extra competitive hit while state and local communities lose as much at 17.2 billion each year. http://www.efairness.org/files/Updated%20Sales%20Tax%20Loss%20Report.pdf. Some states are trying to challenge this, but in this dumb political environment where nothing matters, who the heck knows if it'll be successful. Good, gently caress regressive sales taxes
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Jul 8, 2017 05:39
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got any sevens posted:Good, gently caress regressive sales taxes As much as I feel like defunding the state is a Bad Thing. gently caress regressive sales taxes.
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Jul 8, 2017 06:04
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MooselanderII posted:I don't see much discussion in this thread about all of the state sales tax avoidance many big e-retailers take advantage of to add extra salt in the wound. While Amazon collects sales tax in all of the states that impose it, a number of other big retailers pretty much don't collect it due to a Supreme Court decision from the early 90's that held that if you don't have physical presence in a state, you don't have to collect sales tax there. The result is that big box stores take an extra competitive hit while state and local communities lose as much at 17.2 billion each year. http://www.efairness.org/files/Updated%20Sales%20Tax%20Loss%20Report.pdf. Some states are trying to challenge this, but in this dumb political environment where nothing matters, who the heck knows if it'll be successful.
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Jul 8, 2017 12:28
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NerdyMcNerdNerd posted:I bet it is some bullshit, like my job, wherein you only qualify for overtime if you've already worked 40 hours. Work a 12 hour day and you're still under 40? Tough titties. That's how every job I've ever worked at has been. I'm not sure why that's some poo poo thing?
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Jul 8, 2017 13:24
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SalTheBard posted:That's how every job I've ever worked at has been. I'm not sure why that's some poo poo thing? With reasonable jobs any shift over 8 hours, the portion over 8 is OT. And if you're over 40, the hours past 40 are OT. And if I have two shifts start/stop within 10 hours, the portions within the 10hr time are OT. So if I work from 9-5, stay an extra hour til 6, then have to come back at 3 til 11, I worked 17 hours but get paid the equivalent of 18.
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Jul 8, 2017 13:54
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Hambilderberglar posted:In the EU this used to be handled by charging the VAT rate of the domicile, now it's just charged based on shipping address. Is there something about this arrangement that would be undesirable in the US? No, that's how they do it nowadays. It's just that long ago Sears got it ruled that mail order sales actually happen out of state so the state can't force them to collect sales tax on it. After a century of cuts to other taxes, states have been fighting the past 20 years to make change that to get a new revenue source.
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Jul 8, 2017 14:46
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SalTheBard posted:That's how every job I've ever worked at has been. I'm not sure why that's some poo poo thing? The eight-hour workday was a massive labor victory backed up by research that shows huge drops in productivity and quality of life when workers go over that amount. Overtime pay is a disincentive to the antisocial and counterproductive act of overworking employees. Allowing loopholes like that erodes the fabric of society and that's why states with strong labor laws don't allow it.
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Jul 8, 2017 17:50
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SalTheBard posted:That's how every job I've ever worked at has been. I'm not sure why that's some poo poo thing? I've been in the UWUA for such a long time that I forget how most workers' rights have been so lovely for so long that even basic stuff like this is unheard of. Unions are great. Unions are necessary. Too bad unions are all but extinct.
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Jul 8, 2017 18:09
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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:The eight-hour workday was a massive labor victory backed up by research that shows huge drops in productivity and quality of life when workers go over that amount. Overtime pay is a disincentive to the antisocial and counterproductive act of overworking employees. Allowing loopholes like that erodes the fabric of society and that's why states with strong labor laws don't allow it. BUT MUH QUARTERLY PROFITS, the capitalist said, before overworking employees anyway and moving on to the next business after the first one ground to a halt.
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Jul 8, 2017 18:18
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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duz posted:No, that's how they do it nowadays.
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Jul 8, 2017 18:18
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Hambilderberglar posted:Could you explain how this works legally because I'm not sure if I'm stupid or just not understanding how they get away with that interpretation. Regulating interstate commerce is the domain of Congress. Sears used to be so big they made sure Congress didn't pass a law allowing states to force sales tax on them. This was back when Sears was mainly just a mail order catalog and so they had no "presence" in the state so the state has no authority over them.
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Jul 8, 2017 18:36
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duz posted:Regulating interstate commerce is the domain of Congress. Sears used to be so big they made sure Congress didn't pass a law allowing states to force sales tax on them. States being able to introduce sales tax but not being able to stipulate which sales fall under it while Congress not being able to introduce a state-base sale tax while being able to stipulate which sales fall under that tax sounds like a pretty weird allocation of legislative powers to me. Is that from an actual court verdict?
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Jul 8, 2017 19:41
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duz posted:Regulating interstate commerce is the domain of Congress. Sears used to be so big they made sure Congress didn't pass a law allowing states to force sales tax on them. It's also because the US Supreme Court ruled in the aforementioned National Bellas Hess and Quill Corp cases that, for sales tax purposes, you needed some sort of physical presence in a state in order for the state to have jurisdiction to tax you (which is known in tax law as nexus). As duz mentioned, there is a legal theory called the Dormant Commerce Clause which basically says "Since the US Constitution (in the Commerce Clause) explicitly says only Congress can regulate commerce between states, native american tribes and other countries, it logically follows that no state can regulate commerce with other states." Note that nothing stops a state from doing pretty much anything to their own resident individuals and businesses from a tax perspective - the legal issue only crops up with interstate commerce. But even then, lots of states (backed by their state Supreme Courts) have stretched what constitutes falling under the Dormant Commerce Clause, since the US Supreme Court has only listened to one state and local tax case in the last 25 years (the Direct Marketing Association v. Brohl case was about whether the DMA had standing to sue because of the Tax Anti-Injunction Act (TAIA) and not really a tax case per se; the TAIA (and the related Tax Injunction Act, or TIA) basically says that you have to pay in any tax due and file a refund claim with the IRS or state tax authority, get it rejected and then can sue the IRS or state tax authority in court - note that this rule doesn't apply to US Tax Court filings, only US District Court and US Court of Federal Claims and state tax courts).
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Jul 8, 2017 19:52
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Why do Americans in particular conflate public transportation, such as using trains, with poor people? This literally does not make sense in like any other country.
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Jul 8, 2017 19:57
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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:The eight-hour workday was a massive labor victory backed up by research that shows huge drops in productivity and quality of life when workers go over that amount. Overtime pay is a disincentive to the antisocial and counterproductive act of overworking employees. Allowing loopholes like that erodes the fabric of society and that's why states with strong labor laws don't allow it. Rotating 12's can actually be amazing for having time off while not having to use PTO to do so. Many people don't like it for various reasons, but it is pretty common in factories that require 24 hour production to use some sort of scheduling like that. As for states with strong labor laws, there are only 3 states that mandate OT pay after 8 hours of working (CA, NV, Raldikuk fucked around with this message at 21:20 on Jul 8, 2017 |
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Jul 8, 2017 20:01
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Significant Ant posted:Why do Americans in particular conflate public transportation, such as using trains, with poor people? Because outside of super metro areas like NYC the majority of people who use public transit do so because they cannot afford anything else. This is for various reasons, but the big reason I moved away from using public transit (in the Minneapolis/St Paul area) when I could afford to get a car is because public transit often takes 4x longer to do the same trip and you're at the mercy of their scheduling.
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Jul 8, 2017 20:03
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Randler posted:States being able to introduce sales tax but not being able to stipulate which sales fall under it while Congress not being able to introduce a state-base sale tax while being able to stipulate which sales fall under that tax sounds like a pretty weird allocation of legislative powers to me. Is that from an actual court verdict? That's basically because the 10th Amendment to the US Constitution gives states powers over any matters not restricted by the US Constitution (such as having their own taxing power) while the Dormant Commerce Clause prohibits actions by the states that would lead to them regulating interstate commerce - US law is full of these sorts of conflicts because of the Federalist vs. Anti-Federalist provisions stuffed into the US Constitution as a compromise after the Articles of Confederation burnt to the ground several years earlier.
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Jul 8, 2017 20:10
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But then you have to deal with parking It’s also extremely mentally draining to be driving to and from work everyday or running errands every single day in densely populated urban/suburban areas I don’t think Americans realize how bad the above really is until they have experienced living in a country with actual public transportation
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Jul 8, 2017 20:10
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Raldikuk posted:Because outside of super metro areas like NYC the majority of people who use public transit do so because they cannot afford anything else. This is for various reasons, but the big reason I moved away from using public transit (in the Minneapolis/St Paul area) when I could afford to get a car is because public transit often takes 4x longer to do the same trip and you're at the mercy of their scheduling. Yeah, it's this. Outside of the major metro areas public transportation is extremely inconvenient and so the only people who use it are the people who have to use it. Thus it has the image of being for the poors so people can afford not to use it won't go anywhere near it. So it doesn't have the funding to increase its coverage ensuring, ensuring that it will continue to be under utilized. As an example the bus from my hometown into the nearest actual metro area took at least an hour and a half and came by every two hours. Driving the same distance took 35 minutes. Significant Ant posted:But then you have to deal with parking Depending on where you live this may not be an issue at all. Clearly I can't speak for everywhere but in the more suburban area I moved to once I left the sticks finding parking was never an issue. Great Metal Jesus fucked around with this message at 20:14 on Jul 8, 2017 |
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Jul 8, 2017 20:12
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Significant Ant posted:But then you have to deal with parking For my current job I used public transit for the first year because I still had my uni transit pass. Getting to work was usually pretty easy since I only needed to use a single bus line with a bus that came every 30 mins. I would have to walk 6 blocks to get from bus stop to work, which was great exercise. Minneapolis is also great because we have a skyway system in downtown, so if it was raining or super cold I could just walk through that. Going from work to my house is a completely different story. Since my shift ends late night, if I didn't get off exactly at my shift end time, then I would miss the last bus for an hour and a half. So if I had an escalated call or something, I would end up having to wait around at work for over an hour just to get a bus home. If I missed that bus, that was it until the morning. Same 6 block walk to the bus stop; except at night the skyways are closed. Keep in mind that the bus ride itself was about 20-30 mins depending on how full the bus is, for a trip I can make in my car in 5 mins; 10 mins if it is rush hour traffic. Now compare that to my current situation with my car. I work at the same exact location; except since I have a car my company pays for my parking pass (they also pay for bus passes) for the garage in our building. Sometimes parking can be a bit difficult because it is crowded depending on how high the demand is for public parking (ie people without passes). My drive in is the same 5 to 10 mins, parking takes maybe 3 mins at worst, and I am in my building so I don't have any walk at all. This hurts my exercise routine but also ensure that I never have to worry about if I have a ride home. This situation isn't at all uncommon and is the very reason everyone I know gets a car as soon as they can. And Minneapolis / St Paul actually has a fairly robust transit system. It's just that if you're not riding peak times you're boned. This is even worse if you don't live as close as I do to work.
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Jul 8, 2017 20:21
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No one uses public transit in the US because it's poorly run and it's poorly run because no one uses it, basically. There are only a few cities that have organized transit rider lobby groups. There's no political value in improving public transit, especially for state-level politicians. E: it doesn't help that in a lot of cases (most?) transit agencies are separate entities from municipal governments. Their boards are appointed by the various City Councils that make up the service area of the transit agency, so it's really hard for users to pressure the leadership or management of the agency. I doubt any City Council member has ever lost their seat because of how they voted on transit agency board appointments. Badger of Basra fucked around with this message at 20:29 on Jul 8, 2017 |
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Jul 8, 2017 20:24
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Significant Ant posted:But then you have to deal with parking What makes you think this is a problem in most of the places where people drive almost exclusively?
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Jul 8, 2017 21:03
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Raldikuk posted:Rotating 12's can actually be amazing for having time off while not having to use PTO to do so. Many people don't like it for various reasons, but it is pretty common in factories that require 24 hour production to use some sort of scheduling like that. It's actually after 12 hours in Colorado, just FYI.
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Jul 8, 2017 21:11
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Noctone posted:It's actually after 12 hours in Colorado, just FYI. Right you are, the third state with the 8 hour is Alaska, oops  Guess CO was sticking out in my mind cuz of the 12 thing.
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Jul 8, 2017 21:19
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maryland just revamped the entire bus system and ohhh boy 
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Jul 8, 2017 21:31
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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:The eight-hour workday was a massive labor victory backed up by research that shows huge drops in productivity and quality of life when workers go over that amount. Overtime pay is a disincentive to the antisocial and counterproductive act of overworking employees. Allowing loopholes like that erodes the fabric of society and that's why states with strong labor laws don't allow it. I think there's a certain benefit to allowing modifications to a default overtime structure, which would theoretically involve employees receiving some other benefit in exchange for working longer shifts at normal pay. In practice, this obviously doesn't work out because in the absence of an effective union, employees do not have sufficient power to negotiate a mutually beneficial arrangement. One of my friends "abuses" the gently caress out of his overtime structure, which sees him paid normally but allowed to bank those overtime hours as time off. If it were strictly regulated that such an arrangement couldn't be made, he'd be worse off for it. He was also working in a fly-in fly-out reserve for a few years, so uninterrupted stretches of time off were way more important to him than getting time and a half for overtime in a place where there's near nothing to do if you aren't working. As always, flexibility will benefit some and hurt others. This is a good argument in favour of strong, effective unions, so that the flexibility can be maintained but used for the benefit of workers instead of used exclusively to gently caress them around.
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Jul 8, 2017 22:09
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Raldikuk posted:Rotating 12's can actually be amazing for having time off while not having to use PTO to do so. Many people don't like it for various reasons, but it is pretty common in factories that require 24 hour production to use some sort of scheduling like that. NV only does OT after 40.
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Jul 8, 2017 23:10
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PT6A posted:As always, flexibility will benefit some and hurt others. This is a good argument in favour of strong, effective unions, so that the flexibility can be maintained but used for the benefit of workers instead of used exclusively to gently caress them around. They've done a great job of gutting every union that isn't centered on a trade with a labor bottleneck of some kind. I've only been a member of one union, and it was bad. Our starting wage was minimum wage. I don't know how good our benefits were, because I never saw them. Sign-ups were in January, and only in January, but you had to work a minimum of one year before you would qualify. Any grievances? Good luck. Our union steward worked graveyard. When our contract renegotiation came up, my union made a big stink about how the company wouldn't give us any kind of raise. They sent posters to our store to put up in the break room, they sent reps to talk to us about a potential strike. It was really kind of motivational, until I found out the raise they were pursuing was .25 cents an hour. I blew off the next union rep that tried to talk to me. When she persisted, I told her it didn't matter whether we won or lost, because the wages were so low I couldn't afford to stay. I told her I could secure a better raise by quitting the union and pocketing my dues. She put a sticker on me. I guess unions for 'unskilled' workers don't have a lot of leverage.
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Jul 8, 2017 23:12
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I guess it's important to realize that we never had even a bare majority of the US workforce unionized, not even at the absolute height of unionization right after WWII. The maximum point was somewhere between 40% and 43% depending on the sources you use. That meant it was always going to be easier to squeeze out any unions that existed. These days, you still see much more unionization in the states that once had higher than average unionization way back when. It's not a perfect match though. 
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Jul 9, 2017 00:23
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Grognan posted:NV only does OT after 40. For NV if a worker makes less than 1.5x the minimum wage then they have to be paid OT after 8 hours worked. See more here
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Jul 9, 2017 00:39
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NerdyMcNerdNerd posted:They've done a great job of gutting every union that isn't centered on a trade with a labor bottleneck of some kind. Oh, agreed 100%. lovely ineffective unions are a cancer, because they devalue the concept of unionization in general in addition to doing nothing beneficial for workers. I'm saying that, in limited circumstances, greater flexibility in the letter of the law when it comes to employment regulations can be mutually beneficial for employers and employees, but it has to be balanced by a union that negotiates strongly and effectively on behalf of the employees. Unions in North America are in a relatively sorry state for the most part, so I don't know it's a feasible option to depend on them to any degree.
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Jul 9, 2017 01:08
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PT6A posted:One of my friends "abuses" the gently caress out of his overtime structure, which sees him paid normally but allowed to bank those overtime hours as time off. If it were strictly regulated that such an arrangement couldn't be made, he'd be worse off for it. He was also working in a fly-in fly-out reserve for a few years, so uninterrupted stretches of time off were way more important to him than getting time and a half for overtime in a place where there's near nothing to do if you aren't working. Worth noting that that is illegal in the States. FLSA requires time-and-a-half pay, but, back in May, Congress was trying to change that.
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Jul 9, 2017 01:18
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BirdOfPlay posted:Worth noting that that is illegal in the States. FLSA requires time-and-a-half pay, but, back in May, Congress was trying to change that. Well, I assume it's not in Canada. And if it is, he's basically in the employ of the federal government regardless, so I'm guessing he would not have much of a chance of changing anything. He also has the option of having those hours paid out as overtime, instead of banking them for time off -- if that makes a difference. That's apparently what most of his co-workers choose, but he prefers being able to gently caress off for a few months at a time and do whatever he wants.
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Jul 9, 2017 01:22
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NerdyMcNerdNerd posted:They've done a great job of gutting every union that isn't centered on a trade with a labor bottleneck of some kind. Was this UFCW?
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Jul 9, 2017 02:32
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Raldikuk posted:As for states with strong labor laws, there are only 3 states that mandate OT pay after 8 hours of working (CA, NV, On this matter, yes. Was that supposed to be some kind of rhetorical trap?
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Jul 9, 2017 03:09
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Amused to Death posted:Was this UFCW? Think so. Maybe it was actually good and I never saw it, but it didn't feel like it was. PT6A posted:Oh, agreed 100%. lovely ineffective unions are a cancer, because they devalue the concept of unionization in general in addition to doing nothing beneficial for workers. I'm saying that, in limited circumstances, greater flexibility in the letter of the law when it comes to employment regulations can be mutually beneficial for employers and employees, but it has to be balanced by a union that negotiates strongly and effectively on behalf of the employees. Unions in North America are in a relatively sorry state for the most part, so I don't know it's a feasible option to depend on them to any degree. Well, I mean. In theory. But since unions are more or less gone, that leaves the government as the only entity that can, through law, give leverage to the American worker. Any kind of flexibility or leeway in the rules will almost always favor corporations, and they have proven time and time again that they will exploit every possible angle.
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Jul 9, 2017 06:17
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NerdyMcNerdNerd posted:Think so. Maybe it was actually good and I never saw it, but it didn't feel like it was. No, they're not good. I was a dues paying member and they couldn't do jack poo poo when I was wrongfully terminated after a manager refused to allow me to use FMLA in a way that my doctor explicitly specified. Had I known anything about my rights I'd have had a nice fat lawsuit on my hands but as it is it just ending up loving my resume over and sending me to retail purgatory for a few years. The union didn't even bother to check in on me at any point in the process.
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Jul 9, 2017 06:22
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OneEightHundred posted:That's like every store. Why do you think groceries put milk as far away from the entrance as possible? ...so that the dairy section (and frozen foods section) is the last thing you reach after navigating all the other aisles, which means that you don't have it in your cart warming up the whole time you're shopping?
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Jul 9, 2017 08:46
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Slanderer posted:...so that the dairy section (and frozen foods section) is the last thing you reach after navigating all the other aisles, which means that you don't have it in your cart warming up the whole time you're shopping? That'd be awfully kind, but grocery store shelf space is meticulously planned (and paid for by the brands filling it) to maximize the possibility you'll remember or be convinced to buy something else as you shop for staples (cross-selling) or be lured into buying more expensive brands that are shelved above cheaper ones at eye level (upselling). There are formulas and meticulous tracking through receipts and everything. I never had to do such a project nyself but optimizing this was apparently like half of what my company did for a while in my former life as a management consultant.
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Jul 9, 2017 10:11
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