Embracing a living wage is good for business, and good for all
Op-Ed By Jeff Furman, Chair of the Ben & Jerry's Board of Directors
Fortune, April 9, 2015
... It’s a moral disgrace that so many hard-working Americans have to scrape to get by on a minimum wage that is 25% below what it was in 1968. It’s also bad for business.
I chair the board of a company —Ben & Jerry’s—that has had a livable wage policy for about 20 years. Exact wage levels are determined by local costs of living. In Vermont, where we have our headquarters and flagship factories, our starting wage is $16.92. ...
At Ben & Jerry’s, these relatively high labor costs have not held us back. We outsell the overall U.S. ice cream market and profits are at the top end of the industry. Globally, we operate in more than 30 countries.
You may say our branding makes us a special case. ... But other large firms ... have pursued a similar path. Costco is perhaps the most well-known example, with an average wage of $20 per hour. The Container Store is another one, with annual salaries of nearly $50,000 — almost twice the retail average.
Insurance giant Aetna , which recently announced substantial raises for their lowest-paid workers, has crunched the numbers on just one of the costs associated with the low-wage model: employee turnover has been draining company coffers by an astounding $120 million per year. ...
Workers are demanding more, and they should. They should also call out the corporate lobby groups that are being flat out obstructionist.
The National Restaurant Association and the American Hotel & Lodging Association, for example, are using every legal and political tactic in the book to block minimum wage raises from being implemented in Seattle, San Diego, Los Angeles, and other cities. Instead, these trade associations should be helping businesses transition to a high-road model. ...
Copyright 2015 Jeff Furman