It's pretty obvious why when you look at the near slavery conditions that abused workers doing things like picking tomatos in Florida are subjected to. Shitty businessmen get away with nasty shit when workers lack protection.
The difference between today and 75 years ago is that we now import second class humans again who lack access to basic rights and import goods manufactured by peasants abroad.
But enough outcry about the companies "exploiting" the islanders was enough for the companies to say "uncle," and automate the harvest with machines. I'm sure that had an effect on the economies of the islands.
I can't really explain here why I'm in this situation for a few reasons (particularly anonymity - if my employer finds out I've said any of this I'll be fired and his "friends" will come for a visit), but here's what I can say:
my employer is a thief. Tax fraud, wage theft, copyright violation. Staff are expendable, and routinely fired for not working certain shifts (illegal, because the staff are hired for differing shifts and are not required to work extra). Contract fraud, multiple different types of harassment and abuse of staff, as well as threats against personal safety.
Basically, anything he can get away with to pocket a few dollars, he will do. I'm sure you can imagine that minimum wage is, to him, a target; if it didn't exist, he would pay us much less.
What keeps him in business is powerful friends in government (in a country with "low levels of corruption") who seem to help complaints get lost rather than actioned, and the local gangs who will have a chat with anybody who gets out of line.
That sound horrible.
Is there anything that can be done to bring such people to justice without exposing dvtv75?
It does part of that, but creates a precarious position for most of the workers. If the minimum wage is higher than the market-clearing wage (as might be evidenced by 100s of applicants for every opening at a fast food restaurant), then the employer knows there is little repercussion for firing (or force-quitting) an employee.
"Plenty more where they came from" and the employee knows that they just passed the 100:1 gauntlet to get this job, so they're a bit more inclined to put up with BS.
But it's worse than most other forms of welfare. We can do better. Much better.
The rest of the argument I'm quite sympathetic to. It just always puzzles me, this assumption that labor share will always destroy itself by turning into exactly increased costs, as if owner profit was either nothing, or completely non-negotiable.
The reason is straightforward - a higher minimum wage disproportionally affects goods and services produced by employees that get paid said wage, or close to it. These tend to be the cheaper products on the market, and so the poorer you are, the more such products are in your consumption budget. Obviously everyone has a substantial amount, so the tax is still spread around - but poor still end up paying proportionally more of it.
For another perspective at the same problem, consider what happens when the wage gets raised. Now your paycheck is higher - but so is the cost of your food, most likely, because the people producing it were also paid little, and are now paid slightly more. So the actual increase in purchasing power is less than the nominal dollar amount - and the difference is proportional to how many cheap (= produced by low-paid labor) products you consume. Whereas someone on the high middle class end of the spectrum will see some minor increases in restaurant bills and such, but it's a blip on the radar compared to their income (and their mortgage, education costs, car loan etc).
The obvious conclusion is that we should stop being half-assed about it, recognize that our existing arrangement, between min. wage and unemployment insurance, is already a kind of UBI, acknowledge that it means that we as a society are already okay with the moral argument behind UBI, and work on implementing it ASAP.