THE ECONOMY
It’s Time Employers Showed Workers the Money
For the first time in decades, it’s a worker’s market
There is an unspoken agreement between Williams Sonoma and its store-level employees. In exchange for wages well below the poverty line, workers get discounts on the company’s upscale kitchen supplies. My wife’s employment there a few years ago is a case study on wage inequality.
Shortly after we relocated to North Carolina in 2012, my wife worked as the assistant manager at a local Williams Sonoma. Like many of the company’s employees, she was there primarily for the discounts. The employee discounts were as much as 40% off. Given the company’s high-end inventory, the deals can make a huge difference in an item’s price tag.
Although she had the keys to the store, her pay was only $11.50 an hour. That’s above the current minimum wage of $7.25, yet it only amounts to about $23,920 annually. Once, she mentioned the particulars of her assistant manager position to her mother. Then, after a pause, my mother-in-law explained that she’d earned more money working the Clinique counter at a Little Rock department store — over 20 years earlier.
But not everyone at the company receives cookware in place of decent wages. Take Laura J. Alber, the company’s CEO. In 2019…
