And ironically, if you wanted to actually tackle human trafficking, restaurants would be a good place to start -- back-house employees often work long hours and rarely have contact with the public, making it easy to conceal trafficked workers.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/03/29/521971468/in...

Exactly! You can keep the restaurant industry without the wage theft. Just do what Australia and New Zealand do: pay restaurant workers a living wage and not have a tipping culture.

Both those nations also have legalized sex work too.

New Zealand doesn't really pay restaurant workers a living wage. Most waitstaff will be on minimum wage, or near minimum (~$16-17 per hour). The living wage in NZ is $20 per hour.

Australia has it better. Most waitstaff I know are on at least $20 per hour, with penalty rates for working after 10pm or working on Sunday.

That assumes one has a right to dictate how someone else will manage their private property.

Ideas like a mandatory "living wage", that while possibly well-intended, amount to coercive impositions that are rationalized by dogmatic self-righteousness, and end up having pretty severe negative unintended consequences.

They're in the same class of laws as those prohibiting prostitution and drug-use.

UK and most of Europe has to. America the Great is stuck in the social Stone Age.

UK legal position is more nuanced than that. Money-for-sex is generally legal, but on-street soliciting, two prostitutes sharing a flat, some forms of advertising, and many other aspects of the sex trade are crimes. So you may be legal, depending on what kind of sex work you're doing. Or you may be not. It isn't Amsterdam.

Not saying being restaurant worker is peaches, but lets compare the two...

1) A worker in a restaurant has legal recourse if treated unlawfully in any way.

2) A worker in a restaurant can start their own restaurant to compete with their employer any time they like.

3) A worker in a restaurant is free to leave for a better paying job anytime they want.

4) A worker in a restaurant can disclose poor treatment to the press if they want.

Alternatively...

1) A sex worker often has no legal recourse without risking their life.

2) A sex worker often cant compete with their employer without risking their life.

3) A sex worker often cant leave their pimp without risking their life.

4) A sex worker can't disclose poor treatment to the press without risking their life.

See the difference?

These do not sound like compelling reasons to continue making sex work a crime. In fact, they sound like arguments for the opposite policy.

Please read the thread, I was addressing the other point that was made. Which is that a restaurant worker is a slave just like a sex worker.