The Anabaptist perception on wages & salaries!

[steve-in-kville]

In my three county area (Lebanon, Lancaster, Berks Counties) there is the perception that Mennonite owned businesses do not pay the best. In of which various conspiracy theories emerge.

There are a variety of people here on MN, some of which are employers, some of which are employees, a few retirees and so forth. What is your perception on this? Does the stereotype of being frugal carry over in how we tend to compensate our employees?

As typical, I have no agenda.... sorta

Discuss, comment, etc.

[mike]

In my three county area (Lebanon, Lancaster, Berks Counties) there is the perception that Mennonite owned businesses do not pay the best. In of which various conspiracy theories emerge.

There are a variety of people here on MN, some of which are employers, some of which are employees, a few retirees and so forth. What is your perception on this? Does the stereotype of being frugal carry over in how we tend to compensate our employees?

As typical, I have no agenda.... sorta

Discuss, comment, etc.

I don't know what the perception is in areas like yours, but the reality is that a lot of businesses had to pony up after Covid when the labor market went hot, whether they were stingy or not. Some large employers that for years depended on cheap Amish and Mennonite labor suddenly had to compete with manufacturing jobs that were paying $20-25 per hour for any kid out of school.

I think the reality is that Amish and Mennonites often care more about the character of their workplace than they do about getting the absolute highest paycheck they could. Unfortunately this may leave open the door for some employers to take advantage of the situation. The idea that Amish and Mennonite businesses are stingy when it comes to pay may have some validity in this scenario. I am aware of one semi-local Mennonite businessman who has had a bad reputation for stinginess for years, and by this point it is all but costing him his business. He has to look as far as an hour away for employees, partly because he will only hire plain people, and the plain people that are local won't work for him. But even that workforce is drying up. He has literally driven around in my area stopping at plain homes looking for employees. At this point there are aspects of his business that he has had to scale down for lack of labor. So even in situations where Mennonite employers can take advantage of community loyalty in order to pay less, there is still a labor market, and they have to compete or lose.

As an employer, I have to compete in a local labor market in which plain people don't factor highly. Out of maybe 55 employees, we may have 5-8 who are Mennonite. It is always a challenge to know whether we are compensating fairly. Some companies in somewhat similar businesses advertise compensation that is fiercely competitive (for our area), such as Rutters gas stations which supposedly pay an average of up to $18/hour or higher for management, and yet employees don't seem to be lining up there. I would say that we try to pay what we need to in order to keep our workforce, but that we sometimes lose employees who want more benefits, higher pay, or more flexibility. I had a manager who recently quit for that reason. It is often hard for a small business to compete with the benefits offered by large corporations, or by many government jobs.

[Josh]

I have noticed some (not all) who are very stingy on wages and time off. In Lebanon County, I can think of one employer that thought they were being generous with 1 week of (unpaid) time off per year. The standard in that particular profession was north of 3, and often more. (The owners frequently took time off for whatever they wanted, which I also feel is improper for owners to not set an example of whatever work ethic they expect from employees.)

But it turns out they would give lots of time off for “missions”. So some young people figured out they just needed to take vacations in Haiti, Central America, etc. and then they could take multiple weeks off. More amusingly. They would even get paid for it.

These employers also feel they are exempt from various laws like requiring Obamacare if they are over 50 employees. And then they don’t offer benefit plans to their employees either - which seems a bit unfair.

Here’s another example. A young man was looking into different jobs in a tech sort of profession. They were targeting $50k. He had found an identical job except with more time off and less responsibility or expectations to be in the office vs working from home for over double that. They asked him how much he expected to get paid and he said $80k. They laughed and asked if he was joking.

He wasn’t. Then they said there’s no way someone could expect to make that much. He informed them he had an offer for what he had and they were shocked.

Meanwhile, owners often lavish themselves with big distributions and seem to be living a wealthy lifestyle, which seems improper when not paying a market salary.

Scooting over to Tennessee, some ultra conservatives seem to just regularly ignore employment laws. They pay people as contractors because “we have convictions against paying Social Security”. They also hire illegal aliens - obviously multiple laws are being broken.

They don’t pay overtime time and a half and they often expect people to work extra hours without getting paid for them at all which seems a bit ridiculous. They used to be stingy with unpaid time off too - that changed however when one of their workers had a conversation about their employment practices and informed them she’d apply for unemployment if she got terminated after taking a week off to help an immediate member who was getting a surgery. Now she can take off whenever she wants…

(The penalties when employees misclassified as contractors go on unemployment are, well, severe. I have a former employer who went out of business due to this, about a year after I left. The state of PA made each of the owners personally liable and they spent several years paying the debts off.)

[mike]

These employers also feel they are exempt from various laws like requiring Obamacare if they are over 50 employees. And then they don’t offer benefit plans to their employees either - which seems a bit unfair.

It doesn't matter what you "feel." If you are over 50 (full-time) employees, the ACA requires you to have health insurance. How are these people not getting fined?

[steve-in-kville]

In my opinion, the majority of the "limited partnerships" that many conservatives have are borderline illegal, if not completely off the rails. I worked for such an operation years ago. The only benefit I had was five days a year I could take off and get paid. Whether I burned them on a holiday or not was my choice.

That same place created a loophole to stay in operation when Covid had places shut down.

[steve-in-kville]

I had a manager who recently quit for that reason. It is often hard for a small business to compete with the benefits offered by large corporations, or by many government jobs.

Can you promote someone from within to fill that? Or must you hire from the outside?

[Josh]

These employers also feel they are exempt from various laws like requiring Obamacare if they are over 50 employees. And then they don’t offer benefit plans to their employees either - which seems a bit unfair.

It doesn't matter what you "feel." If you are over 50 (full-time) employees, the ACA requires you to have health insurance. How are these people not getting fined?

They persuade their employees not to apply for ACA plans and receive the subsidy.

The ACA doesn’t actually require anything because doing so would be unconstitutional. It does have a $2,500 “fee” per employee that is due if you have over 50 employees and any of them receive an ACA subsidy. If your crew is all Mennonites and you can make sure they don’t apply for that, you’re good.

[Josh]

In my opinion, the majority of the "limited partnerships" that many conservatives have are borderline illegal, if not completely off the rails. I worked for such an operation years ago. The only benefit I had was five days a year I could take off and get paid. Whether I burned them on a holiday or not was my choice.

That same place created a loophole to stay in operation when Covid had places shut down.

An LP is actually an entirely legal way to do it, probably a much safer way than using subcontractors.

Of course, as someone who is technically an owner… you could just take days off, since technically you can’t be fired either. I know a Mennonite gentleman who “exercised” this option when his employer made him technically a partner so he could legallydodge (some) taxes and employment rules. The gentleman started up his own business and then said he was going to be serving the employer as now one of his customers.

Mennonites who try to use these are counting on the fact their “1% partners” won’t sue them. In my opinion, if this is how things are going to be done, then Mennonite churches need to adjudicate such disputes and make sure everyone is treated fairly, just like a real court would (or should). And that would include not being able to fire “partners”.

[mike]

I had a manager who recently quit for that reason. It is often hard for a small business to compete with the benefits offered by large corporations, or by many government jobs.

Can you promote someone from within to fill that? Or must you hire from the outside?

From within. It always works better to promote someone who has been with the business for some time than to hire somebody new to the business. I've always wondered how it works when a business hires someone in a management position from outside the company. I'm sure it can be done, but it's got to be much harder of a transition for everyone involved. It's almost like selling a business, where the new owner is suddenly in charge of a bunch of people who have much more experience than the owner in running the business.

[Josh]

I had a manager who recently quit for that reason. It is often hard for a small business to compete with the benefits offered by large corporations, or by many government jobs.

Can you promote someone from within to fill that? Or must you hire from the outside?

From within. It always works better to promote someone who has been with the business for some time than to hire somebody new to the business. I've always wondered how it works when a business hires someone in a management position from outside the company. I'm sure it can be done, but it's got to be much harder of a transition for everyone involved. It's almost like selling a business, where the new owner is suddenly in charge of a bunch of people who have much more experience than the owner in running the business.

Corporate America has shifted over the last 20 or so years to preferring to hire senior positions from the outside. Internal promotions have become rare and are hard to get. Likewise, changing jobs often means a 20% (or more) raise - internal raises are usually around 2% - 4%, which with current inflation often means long time employees are actually losing pay.

In turn, this means people are constantly shifting around. In my last several jobs, most people only stuck around for 2 years. I had been at a 70-employee place for 2 ½ years and was one of the most senior employees.