Work and Salary Expectations

perry said:
Your sarcasm about your society never ceases:) . I do not know anyone who earns 2200 pesos per month for teaching fulltime .This is not the award wages and certainly if you take into consideration the bonuses by law wages are fair by international standards. We all know that porters get high wages that is equivalent to international standards for relatively easy work.

The salaries she quoted look about right. Teachers are trying to get a 3.5k salary nowadays, and that includes a huge raise to recover ongoing inflation from a couple years.

To that, add one additional month salary, and paid vacation, and that's as much as they get.
Here are some average salaries by area so you can understand what she's talking about: http://www.elsalario.com.ar/main/tr...la-1-salarios-promedio-por-provincia-o-region
 
Guillo said:
All I did was point out how the worker feel. Both you and jared were totally blind to the other side, even insulting me, because I was just pointing you the obvious. And I just talked about reality, things I had gone through, employers I knew, companies I've seen here. I don't assume to know the reality of the US market, or Singapore, but I do know a bit about the Argentinian one, specially from the worker side.

I'm sorry to tell you its your responsibility to do your proper research. You cant expect the workers to absorb the differences between your business model and reality.

Inflation in Argentina shouldn't surprise anyone. You are going to make that big of an investment without looking at past numbers? Read independent analysis?
Beware of "El cuento del tío"!


You keep trying to apply global conditions to local workforce living in local conditions, paid with local salaries. It doesn't make any sense.

If you decide to set up shop somewhere, you should be ready to handle it, both the good (cheaper labor) and the bad (inflation and worker rights) because otherwise you will fail.

There were times when the US was having a great economic time, and Argentina was waaaaaaay down (say, 2001/2002). The other way around.
At that time, you wouldn't have applied the US conditions to here. You would have tried to make the best out of the oportunity. That's probably when a bunch of companies jumped into the country, to make a nice profit off the exchange rate.

That's why its called local conditions, they are local!. You cant expect the world to change as you walk though it. The fact that the US is in recession means nothing to me, and probably will mean nothing for your local workers, specially when they go buy food.

If you are expecting to have the same conditions that in the US, but at a much lower price, I'm sorry to tell you it will be a waste of money. If you cannot handle inflation, you will fail. If you dont respect local labor laws, you will also fail.
You can complain all you want about things being different to the US, but that's the main reason why it might be cheaper to operate from here.

I'm not expecting charity from my employeer. You should expect it from your employees.

You cant ignore the culture of people in a company, much less in a whole country. You can decide that the unionized-worker, "socialist" model sucks and must go, but don't count on it happening anytime soon. Workers wont accept to be stripped of their rights.

No silver bullet.
The same postures you saw here (the worker trying to defend their interests, and the employer trying to defend theirs) are going to show up no matter what.

And stop dreaming that the worker goal will be to grow your business, because that will just not happen, in the same way that yours is not to make all your employees rich.
On the other hand, both of us will be totally ok with those things happening as a side effect of our respective goals.

But Guillo, again that is where we feel your are mistaken. the workers goal SHOULD be to grow the business! If not, get the hell out of the chair so I can find someone who will. Don't you get it? If all the employees had that attitude, the company would collapse and then the "workers" would be out of work!! COME ON! It's SO simple!

It gives me GREAT pleasure when I am able to cut my employees big bonus checks...I want them to be successful and make as much as they can because they contribute to the goals and growth of the company. If they bring in extra money because of their hard work, then damnit I love giving them extra for it.
 
perry said:
Your sarcasm about your society never ceases:). I do not know anyone who earns 2200 pesos per month for teaching fulltime

Sounds like your circle of Argentine friends and acquaintances is much too limited. Broadening it a bit could make for a more interesting life...:);):)
 
This is a global economy whether anyone likes it or not. No country can exist in a bubble. God help Argentina if it's people don't get this. The progress away from poverty for most will come to a dead stop.

I have no dreams about changing Argentina. I, like most looking to do business there, have lots of options and my businesses will thrive. I just think it's a damn shame that a once great nation has faltered so badly and continues down an ugly slope.

You are completely right, Argentina has not joined the global economy nearly to the degree it could have, keeping it's people relatively poor and limiting the future opportunities for all.
 
SaraSara said:
Sorry to see your circle of Argentine friends and acquaintances is so limited. Try broadening it a bit to make life more interesting...:)


Sweet wonderful Sara I see you do not agree with me once again and that is fine I accept this . What I do know is that workers salaries are high by international standards and outperforms many european countries Now I know many here believe that they should be paid as equal as New York , Paris, London or Tokyo but we are not doing so bad down Argentine way and there is employment for those who look and are positive in attitude!
 
jaredwb said:
But Guillo, again that is where we feel your are mistaken. the workers goal SHOULD be to grow the business! If not, get the hell out of the chair so I can find someone who will. Don't you get it? If all the employees had that attitude, the company would collapse and then the "workers" would be out of work!! COME ON! It's SO simple!

It gives me GREAT pleasure when I am able to cut my employees big bonus checks...I want them to be successful and make as much as they can because they contribute to the goals and growth of the company. If they bring in extra money because of their hard work, then damnit I love giving them extra for it.

I'm sorry buddy, but in the same way that you are not trying to grow your partner's business for them unless its on your benefit in some way, its not going to work that way with employees either.

Now, if you pay productivity bonus, then its different. If you are fair with those, you will generate good karma with the employees and that always helps productivity.

Sadly, very few give out productivy bonus down here except for those paying sales commission and that might explain worker opinion of the businessmen. Most will just pay the minimum required by law and nothing else if they can avoid it.
 
perry said:
Sweet wonderful Sara I see you do not agree with me once again and that is fine I accept this . What I do know is that workers salaries are high by international standards and outperforms many european countries Now I know many here believe that they should be paid as equal as New York , Paris, London or Tokyo but we are not doing so bad down Argentine way and there is employment for those who look and are positive in attitude!

I dont know what kind of work you are referring to, but I have several ex coworkers that moved to Europe (always in IT, what can I say, its what I know) and they were getting paid in euros about as much as we were getting paid here in pesos, so we are talking 4x to 5x. Not sure how things are now with depression, but I can take the wild guess that they didn't get their salary cut in half, so they should still be quite ahead of local salaries.
 
Guillo said:
I dont know what kind of work you are referring to, but I have several ex coworkers that moved to Europe (always in IT, what can I say, its what I know) and they were getting paid in euros about as much as we were getting paid here in pesos, so we are talking 4x to 5x. Not sure how things are now with depression, but I can take the wild guess that they didn't get their salary cut in half, so they should still be quite ahead of local salaries.
Guillo said:
I dont know what kind of work you are referring to, but I have several ex coworkers that moved to Europe (always in IT, what can I say, its what I know) and they were getting paid in euros about as much as we were getting paid here in pesos, so we are talking 4x to 5x. Not sure how things are now with depression, but I can take the wild guess that they didn't get their salary cut in half, so they should still be quite ahead of local salaries.

You are talking about the highest paying jobs in IT and of course some countries of Europe pay much better than Argentina. Not all Europe is the same and the standards of living between them can be enormous .

My posts were more for the workers wages and their protections under law which if looked and compared to many societies they are favourable.

Just one example is Building porters, another example is Garbage collectors and there are many more. These are not university trained jobs but pay well.
 
citygirl said:
So ... - what ideas other than money? I'm more than willing to learn and am not being close-minded. I've just run out of ideas so by all means, share away!
Depending on several things (# employees etc.) a cantina where your employees can buy a better and cheaper lunch than in a restaurant may be a possibility. In-house education also comes to my mind. Ask your employees for no or low cost ideas, they ought to know best.
 
jb5 said:
Employers see AR as a country with a smart workforce, and more creative than what is the norm in Asia. It's also a better time zone for coordinating with the US. So it's worth their while to try to set up shop there even though profit margins will be slimmer than they'd be in other competing countries.

When they do their research they are most often looking at the BS inflation statistics the government publishes. To attract foreign investment, AR positions itself as having a very affordable workforce and low overhead. As we all know, that becomes less true everyday.

So companies look at models that sound reasonable and set up shop. The come to like their employees and want to take care of them. Their models should have some leeway, one year of
crazy inflation requiring big raises shouldn't kill the business. But the second and third year most probably will.

So it becomes a bad situation for all. The employees don't understand the realities the employer is facing. The employers in most cases would really like to give them more money but can't.

this is a fascinating post and i genuinely thank you for opening my eyes about this. really interesting - i mean it.
 
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