The lack of access to on-site medical or to cultural events like Take Your Kid To Work Day is presumably to draw a clear line between Vendor and Employee. If a group of vendor workers file a class action suit to be reclassified as employees (with backpay/benefits), a company wants to be able to say "Nope, they were vendors. Look at all the ways we made the distinction clear." If they're treated as employees in every way except the payer of their checks, it's a lot harder to justify why they were classified as vendors and received lesser benefits because of it.

I was a temp at another large company before moving to a full-time role at my current one. My contract was capped at 1 year, because without the cap, there was a perceived risk that I could seek to be retroactively classified as an employee and entitled to the benefits I didn't receive as a vendor.

Also, if you make these roles direct employees, then you can get into an awkward position wrt 401K contributions, if the delta between your highest and lowest payed employees is too great. My understanding is that this is why Amazon caps salary at 160/185k

That lawsuit single-handedly created an additional layer of intermediaries (whole industry, really), which eats up ~30% of consulting revenue and provides close to zero value.

> – The numbers of hours worked by low-wage workers fell by 3.5 million hours per quarter. This was reflected both in thousands of job losses and reductions in hours worked by those who retained their jobs. > > – The losses were so dramatic that this increase “reduced income paid to low-wage employees of single-location Seattle businesses by roughly $120 million on an annual basis.” On average, low-wage workers lost $125 per month. The minimum wage has always been a lousy income transfer program, but at this level you’d come out ahead just setting a hundred million dollars a year on fire. And that’s before we get into who kept vs lost their jobs.

When laws with one goal achieve the exact opposite, we need to rethink the laws. Unfortunately, pyrrhic victories are rather common in politics.

This may be technically true, but ultimately it's just window dressing. And for FB (and many other companies that play the same game with its more expendable workers), a convenient dodge in terms of both expenses and liabilities.

If you show up at Facebook's building every morning, work in their cafeteria, mop their floors and scrub their toilets -- then for all practical purposes, you're working for Facebook.

I've done contract programming, on site, for a blue collar heavy business. I didn't get invited to their functions either.

Let's please not try to compare the "plight" of contract tech workers to to the situation that bottom-tier contract service workers are in.

I don't personally see a difference other than the average wage for what I do. Companies contract other companies for many things. Janitorial, security guards, software work, etc. They shouldn't be involved in the salary of some other company's workers. If there's a wage issue in this case, it's not Facebook's issue to sort it out.

There's this "respect" part, which is one of the major points of the article. And the fact that you apparently don't even see it as an issue -- while those on the other side of the coin insist that it is, in fact, quite a huge issue -- is a great part of what makes it such a huge issue.

If there's a wage issue in this case, it's not Facebook's issue to sort it out.

Right -- it's a matter for the legislators and the courts.

And if Facebook can't, or won't do the right thing for their workers, on this front -- they'll be made to do it.

My experiences as an on site contract worker don't always line up with that.

I do get your point in cases where companies are misclassifying actual workers as contract help. I think we just disagree that this is the case here. It seems obvious to me that they are employees of the food service company, and should be.

Fwiw, I have been a low paid factory worker in the past. It's not a matter where I don't empathize.

Are there notable companies that staff their in house cafeteria with actual employees?

You keep getting back to your experience as an on-site, and highly paid (compared to most folks) tech worker.

The whole point of the original article is the experience of low-paid, contract service workers is vastly different.

It seems obvious to me that they are employees of the food service company, and should be.

Whether they should or should not be is something one can have various points of view on.

I just don't think that just because they, currently, technically, "are" has any bearing on the "should be" part.

Yes, because you implied it came with respect. It doesn't always.

the distance between the two classes of Facebook workers can feel immense.

>I don't personally see a difference other than the average wage for what I do.

As a highly-paid tech contractor it is obvious on which side of that class divide you fall. Even though you were a contractor. So when you say that you were a contractor and were still respected that's not really the point. Of course you were respected, you're on the correct side of the class divide. That is the difference in respect here, not contract work per se, but the experience of being a poorly paid service worker who lives in a garage yet spends every day working at a company employing legions of young and wealthy programmers who live in fancy apartments. That's why she says: “We don’t live the dream. The techies are living the dream. It’s for them.” You're that techie, you're living that dream.

If the idea is just that Facebook employees should be polite and well-mannered two other types of workers in the building that makes sense.

Edit: I just don't get where the line is. If FB uses ChemLawn to fertilize the grounds, are they also responsible for those workers wage rates? What about the HVAC crew, building maintenance (assuming they work for, say, Smith Building Maintenance) ? If ADP does their payroll is FB responsible for those employees wage rate? Security guards? These food service employees work for a company that provides food for more than one company. I just don't get it. Why isn't their actual employer responsible for their wage rate?

EDIT: And I would go even further to say that your comments here are an amazing illustration of the justification that happens by those on the upper end. First through a hackneyed attempt at saying "I've been there. It's not that bad." Then through indifference or this sort of broad appeal to "that's just how the market works" or "it's not Facebooks's responsibility" as if poor people just pop out of the aether and it's not our society which creates and allows for poor people to even exist in the first place!

You're putting words in my mouth I never said. In quotes even. I feel like some kind of stand in Boogeyman for someone else that you are mad at.

I'm not arguing whether it is a problem. I'm arguing that FB isn't the right place to solve it.

But in practical terms -- this is basically saying it will never be solved at all.

But any "victory" with a corporate customer of their employer wouldn't help the guy down the street behind the counter at a BBQ restaurant, making less for similar work.

I would put more energy into the union mentioned in the article. Which could grow to have leverage beyond one situation.

Well, we'll see about that.

Being as, you know, it's not like companies such as Facebook have some inalienable right to exist, or anything like that.

The people who clean my company's office don't attend our town hall meetings, eat lunch with us, or take part in our 401k.

They may be working at Facebook, but they work for their own company.

Actually it's a fairly recent invention. It only seems "standard" if one has no recollection of a time and a place (not so far back) when outsourcing (and the systematic discounting of blue collar workers, generally) wasn't nearly as prevalent as it is today.

They may be working at Facebook, but they work for their own company.

We all acknowledge that that's the way things (technically) are. What's at issue is whether that's the way they ought to be.

And the extent to which, while it may be technically correct that these people are working for different companies... on a deeper, more fundamental level -- it's just a big gimmick.

So I guess what I was trying to say was, while it isn't new, it's become so common that one could say that things have basically "tipped".

And it's the idea that this state of affairs is somehow "standard" -- is what's the invention.

I don't think you can legislate individuals and groups enough to make them decent. You have to go about it another way.

I also don't think it's reasonable to imply that people who think free markets are more efficient and humane are also somehow less compassionate.

Im afraid this is no longer about perks at Facebook. To me this looks release of frustration about making bad life and career choices.

There are no easy solutions to these peoples problems.

The only ray of hope for this people is the modern day economic ecosystem and overall internet place has made it easy to retrain yourself for better paying jobs. Its going to be hard, time consuming and brutal. But that is the only way out.

It's understandable. We're culpable to some degree and that doesn't feel good.

It is the way it is today.

Yet..... There are tradeoffs where being "poor" can be better than "have just enough +" stable. Solving for financial and health concerns together adds a glue to a relationship that money can never buy

There are many forms of capitalism...

Humanistic capitalism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanistic_capitalism

Anarcho-capitalism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism

Democratic capitalism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_capitalism

Eco-capitalism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eco-capitalism

Inclusive capitalism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inclusive_capitalism

Neo-capitalism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Capitalism

...just to name a few.

Which is what the Dude above was referring to.

So I'll say the regulate-the-problem-away impulse is a pipe dream in the long run.

I'll call it "the lesser of nightmares".

Being as we've seen where "just let property owners do whatever they want" has lead us to in the past.

Considering that, I don't believe this case, really justifies your (apparent) paranoia against the free market.

Or that is to say, "regulated".

Which again, is why I referred to it as the "lesser of nightmares".

capitalism: "an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state."

meritocracy: "government or the holding of power by people selected on the basis of their ability."

morality: "principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior."

Here's how I think about "us looking down on them":

Assume both capitalism and meritocracy. Then the question becomes: How should superiors (in profit and ability) treat inferiors? That's the morality question. Try putting yourself in the cafeteria worker's shoes (i.e., you do not have ability and profit). How should you be treated? Surely things other than ability and profit should matter. We think "good" people deserve "good" things. What makes a person "good"? Is someone good if they were born with and then cultivated ability? Doesn't the low wage worker also work hard? Then the differences for ability are determined at birth. Does something determined at birth concern one's morality in the present? How about profit? Does someone's wealth factor into their morality?

I do not think morality is concentrated in the powerful. I think there are immoral powerful people and moral powerless people. I think it is fair to treat a moral person with respect regardless of their power position. I cannot tell whether a person is moral by their ability and profit so, a priori any other evidence, I believe in being respectful to everyone.

tldr: I judge people based on their morality and power isn't a signal. Therefore, I believe it is wrong to look down upon a person based on their power position.

> Capitalism is the use of markets as the primary method of resource allocation within a society.

http://www.americanteeth.org/2015/06/21/why-i-m-a-capitalist...

I lost a game of Go to the guy who wrote this. He's a total socialist, but he _gets it_. Capitalism is just using markets, and when he and I use that word we just mean that. But when many progessive-types use that word, they mean all of the perceived evils and unjustice that coming along with that system.

The Dude is absolutely right and spot on with this of course -- and in any case shouldn't have been downvoted for pointing it out.

Systematic social segregation and pervasive, manufactured feelings of inadequacy and inferiority aren't merely "bugs" in modern capitalism; they're among its core features.

That's the "real" problem here (as other commenters have identified in this thread).

1. have property rights so they have some say (even on the vote-with-your-feet level) in how things play out

2. the human condition can be leveraged against itself for general societal improvement

The counterargument is that a small group of humans can somehow design (and maintain!) a system that is somehow less susceptible to humanity.

No, this is how the market works, but the market is hardly meritocratic. On which merit do you propose we judge workers in order to determine fair compensation for their work?

"meritocracy" is a myth. Too many people forget that they started the 10-lap race with a 9-lap headstart.

I am personally very thankful for the headstart that my family gave me. Lots of others I grew up with didn't get the headstart.

...And it had nothing to do with me personally, it was an accident of lucky birth.

Well, too much further discussion along these lines will turn into a semantic quagmire. However, you can draw a spectrum where "individuals decide for themselves" is on one end and "a central power decides for everyone" is at the other. In that viewpoint, capitalism and totalitarianism are at odds, regardless of whether the central authority is an officer of a government bureau or a corporate one.

EDIT: I guess this is a bad question since it's really a matter of degrees. Perhaps a better question is: How meritocratic do you feel that our society is?

Wikipedia, on the other hand, is providing value, and isn't extracting the price. Therefore they rely on donations. If Wikipedia extracted their price for the amount of value they provide, I'd say they'll be one of the biggest companies in the world.