There's no easy way to say this

Re:There's no easy way to say this by lazaroclapp on Tuesday October 04, 2016 @07:51PM (#12640605)

I am probably one of those comments below "justifying it in terms of the minimum wage". Quite honestly, a big part is that I read it as $2,400 USD a month originally (not yearly!). Even if that had been the case, I wouldn't have faulted developers for feeling underpaid in the particular case of KSP (given how big of a success the game ended up being).

As yearly salary it is indeed atrocious. Still, worth saying, not an illegal salary. But yeah, I don't see many people enticed to work for that amount for a for-profit company they don't have significant ownership of. The point is not on whether or not it is advisable to resign in those conditions (of course it is), but on whether it is viable to sue (I doubt it is).

And... many people in Mexico do make minimum wage (around 13% of the country does), but usually not anyone in a specialized profession in a city.

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Re:There's no easy way to say this by eropple on Tuesday October 04, 2016 @08:19PM (#12640731)

> Still, worth saying, not an illegal salary.

"This is so shitty that the nicest thing that can be said is it's not actually illegal" doesn't merit the exculpatory nature of this sentence. And the sentiment behind it isn't really worth much in the first place.

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Re:There's no easy way to say this by lazaroclapp on Tuesday October 04, 2016 @08:46PM (#12640839)

I did never meant to say that made it a good/reasonable thing (although, if we are going down that path, why is it right to pay someone $200 a month to clean toilets and not to write code? If anything, it is a shittier thing - pun intended - to offer that deal to people who don't have the means and options to refuse or get other jobs... but I suspect we would both end up agreeing that the Mexican minimum wage should be higher). My point is that there is likely no legal recourse here, which is an important detail.

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Re:There's no easy way to say this by drdeca on Wednesday October 05, 2016 @02:03AM (#12641835)

How does that compare to the similar argument when people bring up free speech (and a person responds that if the best defense is that the government can't make it illegal, etc.)

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Re:There's no easy way to say this by eropple on Wednesday October 05, 2016 @03:36AM (#12642129)

That's pretty much exactly my argument in those cases, too. The government not finding a piece of speech so objectionable as to be criminal is a far cry from a positive moral defense of its existence.

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Re:There's no easy way to say this by MawNicker on Tuesday October 04, 2016 @08:34PM (#12640793)

"The sentiment behind it" is yours.

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Re:There's no easy way to say this by ido on Tuesday October 04, 2016 @08:28PM (#12640770)

Iirc people ran with that figure...but it was actually given by just one of the employees, who was a 16 year old they got to do "community support".

We dont know how much the coders were making.

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Re:There's no easy way to say this by lazaroclapp on Tuesday October 04, 2016 @08:49PM (#12640853)

Interestingly, Mexican law does put a series of restrictions on employing 16 year olds, so that part might be actually illegal (specially if it's full time work, or anything above 6 hours per day).

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Re:There's no easy way to say this by sandworm101 on Tuesday October 04, 2016 @08:49PM (#12640849)

>> Still, worth saying, not an illegal salary.

Much of that depends on specifics. Some of these devs traveled. Any work done while in other jurisdictions must have been done at local minimum wages. It doesn't take many days spent on the road promoting KSP in the US before you are legally entitled to more.

There are prosecuted cases of offshore firms sending below-minimum workers into the US. It is a crime.

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Re:There's no easy way to say this by lazaroclapp on Tuesday October 04, 2016 @08:56PM (#12640883)

That's interesting to know. Guess my mental model was "this is work that can be done anywhere on earth, for a Mexican company under Mexican laws, so where the employee is should not matter legally", but if the location of the employee had anything to do with the work they were asked to perform... e.g. go to this event and promote our game, then it should indeed be illegal.

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Re:There's no easy way to say this by sandworm101 on Tuesday October 04, 2016 @09:06PM (#12640928)

There are a few jurisdictions that take it to another level. Some governments will sue on behalf of the aggrieved employee. There it is a government taking action to recoup funds and any assigned penalties, not an employee. Third parties (is Valve/steam) can also be sued if they hold funds/property.

(From British Columbia, a typical such jurisdiction.)

"If a third party is or will be indebted to a person who is required to pay money under a determination, the Branch may demand that the third party pay all or part of their indebtedness directly to the Branch."

"The Branch may seize personal or business assets of a person required to pay under a determination, settlement agreement or order to satisfy the amount owing and the costs of the seizure. The Branch may direct the Court Bailiff to seize assets to recover the amount owing. "

http://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/employment-business/employ...

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Re:There's no easy way to say this by dmichulke on Wednesday October 05, 2016 @01:33AM (#12641749)

At the risk oft stating the obvious:

The devs agreed voluntarily to accept this salary for a number of years. It is not ours to judge whether this it was too small, because for them it was not (until now)

Likewise, if you insist on "this salary is too small for them", you're saying that you know better what's good for them than they themselves. I would find that offensive.

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Re:There's no easy way to say this by thomasz on Wednesday October 05, 2016 @02:09AM (#12641850)

We don't have to judge for them. They left. In a very public way.

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