Parkland Health & Hospital System in Dallas announced Wednesday a new plan to raise the minimum wage to $10.25 for 230 janitors, cafeteria workers and other low-wage employees. The $1.50 per hour raise will be funded with bonus checks previously paid to executives.
The hospital’s 60 vice presidents and top executives made the decision to cover the cost of $350,000 for a year. They hope that by providing a living wage they can improve workers’ morale.
“It is the right thing to do,” said Paula Dobbs-Wiggins, MD, chair of the Board’s Employee Relations Executive Compensation Committee. “(We are) recognizing the importance and value of all our employees to fulfilling our mission.”
“It helps us recruit and maintain a higher caliber of staff at all levels inside Parkland,” said Jim Dunn, PhD, Executive Vice President and Chief Talent Officer at Parkland.
Other companies have voluntarily raised their minimum wages lately, including the retailer Gap, which boosted its lowest pay to $10 an hour.
[Photo credit: SEIU workers, New York City – CC license]
This action is certainly admirable and I applaud management’s decision to help their workers. But at the same time this seems to be obvious to me and many other non-CEO, COO or CFO types of employees: Pay your talented and hard-working employees well, treat them with respect and they will work harder for you — sorry, but “DUH!” When you pay the worker bees well, they have more money to spend at the grocery store or movie theater and this will help the wider base of our economy, whereas if executives get and spend their huge (and sometimes undeserved and unearned) bonuses, it tends to help only those industries that cater to the rich, i.e. private jet companies, fancy hotels, golf courses, BMW dealers, yacht builders, etc.
You got it sir; Its always amazed me how money mongerer corps don’t grasp that it is the consumers purchasing that gives them their money. If you keep people on a barely sustainable level, guess what …..they don’t consume. mmmmm