What are they thinking ?!

As i said before I would not care i would work at CP for $5.00 an hour. Its not always about the money. Maybe a job should be fun. I hate my current job but i make good money. If I loved my job i would not care if i made $7.50 an hour or $5.00 an hour as long as i looked forward to getting up to go to work every day. All though i would not recommend CP as a carrier unless you have management experience. But it would be a great start off job for collage students or High School grads. OH wait it already is....

I can tell you that many restaurants pay less than minimum wage and get away with it because tips are to be claimed on tax forms and raise a person over minimum wage. I never worked at CP, but I'd bet if they structured their bonuses properly they could pay whatever they felt like and justify it.

^ - however, if the wage + claimed tips does not meet the minimum wage, it is up to the restaurant to make it so. I'm not sure if that is done on a check by check basis, or how you make sure all tips are claimed, but that part is written in (saw it in one of the links in here).

I was thinking about that too, if bonuses are offered to a limited audience, I don't know how they can justify paying less than minimum wage to everyone.

Maverick...I appreciate your sentiments but you have to work AT the job to know if you are going to like the job. While returning employees may not care about the wage they don't make up the bulk of the staff. They need to attract thousands of new employees each year.

I'm not sure how they do that when they are paying less than minimum wage and it becomes a story in the press that they are fighting the requirement to pay it.

I worked at Cedar Point, Geauga Lake and Disney so my love and appreciation of the industry is pretty deep. But I'll tell you right now that if my own children wanted to work at Cedar Point I would strongly urge them not to right now. If a company will go to great lengths to NOT pay the MINIMUM wage...what does that say about said company? What does that say about the other services/support the company SHOULD provide while the child is working?

When I worked the College Program at WDW I was amongst the lowest paid cast members on the totem pole. But...we still made the minimum wage for crying out loud.

Maybe I missed it Chief, but where was the press story on this?

99er said:
Here you go, another job that could pay more and has housing.

http://www.valleyfair.com/public/jobs/index.cfm

That way you get your LEGAL wage.

I noticed that you said "could" since it shows their jobs starting at $6.75. Interesting that people use examples as bad if not worse than CP's.

I'm now willing to believe this is going to come down to bonus wages being included. The contract will read something to the effect:

You are contracted to work from X date to X date and will make $7.35 an hour as long as you fulfill this contract. If you fail to fulfill this contract we are under no obligation to pay the additional $.35 an hour.

As long as you sign something to that general idea it will be perfectly legal.

I'm not a lawyer, but I'm not convinced that kind of a provision could pass legal muster. CP could skate out of its obligations in that situation by simply firing or letting go employees days before the bonus would kick in.

It works for the NFL....

Duly noting the joke, the NFL doesn't pay minimum wage. You're talking about skirting contractual obligations, not federal and state law.

You can't sign a contract that breaks the law and expect it to hold water. If so, every employer would just have minors sign a paper saying that they don't mind working more hours than legally allowed.

But with that said, Cedar Point doesn't give their seasonals contracts anyway, they give them "employee agreements". Big difference ;)

A contract is a contract, regardless of whether it calls itself a contract or not.

Mike - yes I realize that. Just hoping to interject some humor into the discussion. Perhaps if I had said that the redshirt's contract was often terminated early you would have gotten it. ;)

Pay has been taken down off the site.

Yes, but it's not like Starfleet officially hands those (poor, unfortunate) souls their discharge papers. They merely place them in positions where the odd Gorn, Andorian, or silicon-based monster does the discharging for them. ;)

Just because Starfleet prefers to have someone else do the dirty work doesn't mean they aren't at fault. Can you think of any job more dangerous than "First Name Only Away Team Member"? Starfleet sets these guys up with nice bonus packages for completing their tour of duty KNOWING full well that they will never complete their contract. Its despicable.

Jesmcsel said:
If so, every employer would just have minors sign a paper saying that they don't mind working more hours than legally allowed.

Except that pesky fact that minors can't sign legally binding contracts.

Hey, our educational system's not that bad, I'm sure lots of minors can sign anything they want.

I haven't seen anything in the press about the wage...yet. But, there is never a story until there IS a story...and then it is too late. When it comes to Marketing Cedar Fair is generally good. When it comes to PR Cedar Fair is generally less than good.

Ensign Smith said:
Yes, but it's not like Starfleet officially hands those (poor, unfortunate) souls their discharge papers. They merely place them in positions where the odd Gorn, Andorian, or silicon-based monster does the discharging for them. ;)

So that's how Six Flags gets rid of their employees... They just place them in positions where a random B&M or Intamin will do the discharging for them.

Too soon?

Loopy said:
I noticed that you said "could" since it shows their jobs starting at $6.75. Interesting that people use examples as bad if not worse than CP's.

I said it that way because I knew that base rate was not the lower pay. I was not sure exactly how much base rate was for someone 18 and over at the time of posting. After I posted that I talked to friend that works fulltime for the park and learned that you actually start at $7.50 and can work up to $7.75 with incentives (I think that’s what he said). I never went back and edited the post though cause I didn’t really care. But now that you brought it back up, there is the story. Regardless, its more then what Cedar Point is offering so I was basically right.

Heck, even if it WAS $6.95, you would still technically make more because of the $1 bonus. Just read everything they offer, its much better than what Cedar Point has to offer. Even housing is better (not just from reading, I have seen it).