The only reason this passed at all is because of COVID. Gas stations are complaining pretty uniformly and quite loudly that they can't get their labor levels back to pre-COVID levels
But that would not be popular, and so the current staffing levels are also not popular, so there is finally sufficient political pressure to somewhat drop the gas station attendant requirement.
Let labor prices keep going up, and soon no gas station attendants will be required because voters will want cheaper gas prices more than they want someone to fill their gas.
Market rate changes for jobs and some corporations (and people) seem to think that people should take jobs as offered even when they’re bad. We have record low unemployment, yet companies that complain about labor levels are basically outing themselves as bad employers, for some definitions of bad (pay, safety, comfort, etc).
Businesses complaining about labor levels because they're too cheap to pay labor market rate and businesses complaining about laws which require them to hire employees at rates which the market will not bear are different. It is pretty clear the person I responded to thought the rate which would bring labor levels back up is not something which would be tolerated by the customers.
>>> Let labor prices keep going up, and soon no gas station attendants will be required because voters will want cheaper gas prices more than they want someone to fill their gas.
> yet companies that complain about labor levels are basically outing themselves as bad employers
Are they really bad employers when they are complaining about laws/regulation which require them to hire people for positions their customers won't pay for and do not need? I would imagine most gas stations would prefer to become completely self-serve. I don't see gas stations any place which does not require an employee to pump trying to hire people in any significant capacity to pump gas. I don't believe I've ever seen one. I don't see voters in Oregon tolerating the requirement for much longer if the market rate is above what they are willing to pay. Pushing to change laws to conform to a new reality is not a sign of "bad employers".
No. But we’re all part of the same set of laws. Maybe some laws should change with time, but lobbying for law changes because you’re a bad business isn’t great either.
They could raise prices in Oregon, or they could lower profit margins. Both are things that may help them pay a market-rate salary. Oil companies had record profits over the last year… so there was ample money to go towards salaries. They made about $1 per gallon in profits (in Oregon)… which is enough that each car fill up can almost pay a full hour of salary.
For context, they made about $0.07 in profits per gallon in Florida… by selling it at a lower cost with a smaller margin. So they could do it and stay in business.
These seem intuitively linked? If there's not enough labor to go around, more jobs will be pushed under the 'water level' where the value provided by them is less than the cost of the labor.
But saying “people don’t want to work” is false - we’re at a point in history where people have chosen to work more than any other point in history.