IKEA gives its US employees a raise

Another major retailer in the United States is giving a boost to its base salary, although the size of the increase will vary from state to state. On Thursday morning, the Swedish furniture retailer IKEA announced that it would be adopting a new wage structure which is expected to increase pay for about 50% of its American employees. The change in company policy will take effect on January 1, 2015.

The new policy will base entry-level compensation on the MIT Living Wage Calculator, which estimates the wages required “to meet minimum standards of living” in each county of each state. IKEA’s new compensation system will offer different base wages at different store locations, depending on the cost of living in the surrounding area. The average minimum hourly wage across all store locations will become $10.59, a 17% increase from what it is now.

Rob Olson, the acting president and CFO for IKEA US, told msnbc that the policy change “goes back to the IKEA vision, which is to create a better everyday life for the many people.”

“We had always focused on making sure we were above average with our compensation rates, so whatever the average of our competitive set was, we wanted to be higher than that,” he said. “Now we’ve said, let’s not worry about where the competition is, let’s worry about where the co-worker is.”

Another major retailer, Gap Inc., unveiled a major wage hike of its own in February, when it announced that it would be increasing its nationwide base pay from $9 to $10. But the decision to peg a wage increase to the cost living is “a big step forward,” Demos senior policy analyst Amy Traub said over email.

“I predict that we’ll see more companies stepping forward to raise wages, as well as pressure continuing to mount for cities, states and federal government to raise the minimum wage across the board,” she said.

Olson denied that IKEA was raising wages in order to get ahead of state and local minimum wage increases.

“For us, it was less about that and more about doing the right thing for the co-worker,” he said. Yet he added the IKEA is prepared to comply with proposed minimum wage hikes across the country, including the suggested $15 minimum wage that will soon be implemented in Seattle and is currently being debated in San Francisco and Chicago.

“If movement is driven within local communities, we will definitely support that and be secure that we are above that level as well,” said Olson.

The MIT Living Wage Calculator bases its estimates on family size as well as region, but IKEA said its minimum hourly wage at all locations would be pegged to the cost living for a single, childless adult. According to Traub, that means working parents are likely to find their new compensation structure “to be very welcome, but it won’t be a living wage.”

Source:

www.msnbc.com

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Disney to pull Boy Scouts funding by 2015 over policy banning gay leaders

By Devon M. Sayers

(CNN) — The Walt Disney Company has given notice to the Boy Scouts of America that it will pull all funding to the group starting in 2015 because of a BSA membership policy that bans gay leaders, the entertainment company said Friday.

Disney does not give money directly to the national organization or local BSA councils. However, through its VoluntEARS program, Disney allows employees to do volunteer work in exchange for cash donations to the charities of their choice.

Employees taking part in the VoluntEARS program will no longer be able to submit the funds to the Boy Scouts, the organization said. The new policy will not affect Walt Disney employees who volunteer with the Scouts, the company said.

“We believe every child deserves the opportunity to be a part of the Scouting experience, and we are disappointed in this decision because it will impact our ability to serve kids,” BSA spokesman Deron Smith said in a statement. “America’s youth need Scouting, and by continuing to focus on the goals that unite us, we continue to accomplish incredible things for young people and the communities we serve.”

Though the Boy Scouts voted last year to allow gay youths to join its ranks, the group maintains a ban on gay Scout leaders.

According to Disney’s charitable giving guidelines, groups become ineligible to receive Disney funding if they “discriminate in the provision of services unlawfully or in a manner inconsistent with Disney’s policies on the basis of race, religion, color, sex, national origin, age, marital status, mental or physical ability, or sexual orientation.”

Disney would not divulge its formula for converting volunteer hours to dollars, but a chart on Disney’s corporate website shows that in 2010, employees raised $4.8 million via 548,000 volunteer hours, which works out to $8.79 an hour.

Among the events for which employees volunteered were a triathlon for Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, the Revlon Run-Walk for cancer, Children’s Hospital of Orange County Walk at Disneyland Resort and the Champion 5K at ESPN for the V Foundation, according to Disney.

Deena Fidas, the director of workplace equality for the Human Rights Campaign, said Disney’s decision “carries a unique weight. When you think about brands that exemplify childhood, you think of Disney, and with them dissociating with BSA, it speaks volumes of where we are with the views we want to send to young people.”

In a recent report, HRC cited numerous victories in its quest to ensure workplace equality and applauded the majority of Fortune 500 companies that now offer sexual-orientation and gender-identity protections to their employees.

Despite that, “we know that over 50% of (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) employees remain closeted on the job,” the report said.

On Thursday, Scouts for Equality, which says it works to end discrimination within the BSA, praised Walt Disney World for ending local support for the BSA’s Central Florida Council.

“We’re never happy to see Scouting suffer as a result of the BSA’s anti-gay policy, but Disney made the right decision to withhold support until Scouting is fully inclusive,” Eagle Scout and Scouts for Equality co-founder Zach Wahls said in a statement.

Scouts for Equality says Disney joins Lockheed Martin, Caterpillar, Major League Soccer, Merck, Intel and UPS as companies who have ended partnerships with the Scouts because of its policy. Fidas said Alcoa and AT&T are also on that list.

News Source: fox59.com

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