After a holiday hiatus, SLACE has returned for the spring semester.
This edition of Sunday Funday is more heartwarming than hilarious. It is one last bit of holiday spirit before beginning again the trials and tribulations of ordinary life.
From everyone at SLACE, we wish you all a happy, healthy and intellectually engaging new year.
A Look Inside Amazon on Cyber Monday
In anticipation of Cyber Monday, 60 Minutes ran a segment that took a look into how Amazon.com operates.
Here is how the story began:
There has never been a company quite like Amazon. Conceived as an online book seller, Amazon has reinvented itself time and again, changing the way the world shops, reads and computes. Amazon has 225 million customers around the world. Its goal is to sell everything to everyone. The brainchild of Jeff Bezos, Amazon prides itself on disrupting the traditional way of doing things. A few weeks ago the company announced it was launching Sunday delivery.
Tonight, for the first time, you will be introduced to perhaps Amazon’s boldest venture ever.
The Working Poor and Minimum Wage
The cover story this morning on CBS Sunday Morning was about the movement to increase the federal minimum wage.
Here is how the story began:
Twenty-seven-year-old Nancy Salgado’s sweet smile may be her most marketable asset in the fast food industry — that and her willingness to do just about any task . . .
“I work at grill, I fry products; making sandwiches, assembling the sandwiches,” she told Moriarty. “I work breakfast, lunch, dinner. I work cashier. I work drive-through. I do drink station. Throw away garbage. Pretty much that’s it.”
“Do you think [that] people run in to get their fast food, do they notice the person serving them?” Moriarty asked.
“No, they never notice. But I believe that’s my skill to be friendly. Even though I’m heartbroken, even though I have problems at home and I have to deal with them day by day, I would still give you a smile.”
And yet, after working for a decade at McDonald’s franchise restaurants in Chicago, she still earns the state minimum wage in Illinois — currently $8.25 an hour.
Salgado, a divorced mother of two, struggles to get by on little more than a thousand dollars a month, and that’s with no benefits. . . .