What the inspectors should do is give the contractors in question the figurative death penalty: permanently revoked contractor license, revocation of work orders, clawback of money already paid, jail time and serious fines for the individuals responsible. We for some reason have a high tolerance for white-collar crimes when we really should be prosecuting them vigorously.
One of the fundamental problems with employer/employee relations is that employers usually have more workers than employees have jobs. Losing your job is worse than having an employee quit. This fundamental imbalance of power means that we'll always need ways to even things out if we want reasonably fair situations for employees.
Labor laws and law enforcement can cover part of that. And we should certainly pursue it. But I think people should also pursue collective action, be that as formal as a union or as casual as Google's workers all pressuring their employers to stop doing military work. Resilient systems always have multiple ways to keep a problem from getting out of control.
Courts and law enforcement has evolved to become the very last resort for dealing with these white collar issues. It's become the cultural automatic solution to everything in American (or should I say western) government systems. Every time something goes wrong we're always told the solution is more new agencies to be formed and more complex - slow changing - laws. And these agencies and law always have little mandate to prove efficacy and ROI. They get put in place and stay that way for years. What matters was 'something had to be done' at the time.
So of course law enforcement hasn't been doing a good job at punishing what the rich do. Looking at law enforcement in isolation as the only solution of course is going to look like it's doing a poor job vs enforcing typical criminal laws, which tend to affect middle/lower class people far more.
As income is the greatest indicator of standard criminal acts (drug crimes, theft, violence, etc). Wealthy people simply don't get involved in such crimes and are far more likely to be involved in white collar crime, which thousands of US agencies have been set up to punitively enforce.
There may be serious issues in the justice system (in terms of sentencing, representation, law enforcement culture, etc) regarding the way the wealthy are treated in terms of standard criminal issues. But applying the same lense to white collar crime while ignoring the larger scope of regulatory frameworks and agency based intervention is to severely misunderstand the issue.
These non-law enforcement agencies play a massive role in the US economy.
Yes, the efficacy of always turning to agencies and regulatory frameworks can be honestly questioned and likely a source of many loopholes, but their pure effort and the subsequent costs they impose on the economic system in their efforts to stop this behaviour can't be downplayed... as if they aren't being pursued compared to 'blue collar' crime.
Involving more of the courts and law enforcement to white collar crime could legitimately be a solution here and the lack of real punishment for these actions is a real problem IMO. I'm merely saying the results today are a side effect of how things are done, the automatic political solutions being put in place every time something goes wrong in business, not that things are good as they are.
It took a social movement for prosecutors to get a fucking backbone when it came to rape and sexual misconduct among the powerful. It should be a lot easier than that for prosecutors to charge white collar criminals. This is just paper
I'm not saying this isn't a difficult burden for those who deal with the inspections, but in terms of priorities, huge numbers of people getting robbed by their employers would seem to deserve more attention?
Agreed. But read The Chickenshit Club if you want to get some insight as to why we no longer do this.
I pay a monthly fee of 15€/month, have access to a labor lawyer and a "resistance box" in case I have to go on strike or something, they match a % of your salary (not remember how much, but in my case it was like 80% of it). They also have a sensible approach on collective agreements.
I also have access to more stuff I can't remember now.
Sadly this trade union is small, and sectorial, but it very refreshing seen this, because most trade unions in Spain have bad rep.
I accept that unions have had a valuable place in society, and they're definitely still good for some things, but I don't believe their poor reputation today is "corporate propaganda". They seem to be one of those types of organizations that have outlived their original purpose, mostly, and now exist to propagate themselves.
Ultimately, it's just another power structure. The structure is neither good nor bad. What matters is the people. ("The machinery of government is always subordinate to the will of those who administer that machinery.") Like every organization, over time they tend to collect the type of people who take advantage of that power structure.
There's a fantastic This American Life that I've recommended here before: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/561/nummi-2015
It's on the NUMMI plant. GM's worst plant was shut down; Toyota took it over as part of a joint venture to show GM how to make cars in the Toyota way. The story of the workers and how they change as they work for an employer that treats them with respect is amazing.
It definitely made me believe that unions indeed could be shitty. But also, that it's not a one-sided thing, and that other relationships are not just possible, but necessary if we're going to make things that are more useful and reliable than a '79 Chevette.
This is a very interesting take and I'm exactly the same way. In fact, I just gave notice last week at my current position so that I could pursue a position with a company that was leaner and where more of my time would be spent on relevant work versus meta work. Fortunately, the complete compensation packages, benefits, insurance, et al. at both places came out to about a wash. My current employer is more secure from an employment perspective but I'm willing to give that up in exchange for "staying in the game" technically and for seeing the fruits of my labor have a more direct impact in the marketplace.
You really really can work at a better place.
I think it's both. My best friend makes $31 / hour installing plastic car door clips on an assembly line. That's a ridiculous wage for what he does (literally anyone could do his job.)
I'm happy for him and his family, but there's also a negative aspect to labor costing 3-4x what would be competitive in an open market.
Id consider such arguments if they applied to CEO's or similarly were reducing corporate expenses on things of questionable value. I find most of the companies that aay they can't pay workers overpay upper management and have a lot of frivilous spending.
A friend recently rented out an apartment in central London to people working for a nonprofit org at £10k per month and this is only scratching the surface of ludicrous corporate expense culture. Meanwhile these upper management say they can't pay their staff a living wage...
I really don't buy the argument that normal workers deserve to be paid crap because of "free market", but for some reason executive compensation needs to be amazingly outlandish.
No argument from me; I think it's absurd at both ends. If I had to keep one I would absolutely keep paying my friend ~60k / year.
How do I know what is the case? The fact that anyone with functioning limbs could do his job? That comes from him and the job description he gave me.
> And it's pretty clear the company is making enough money to cover it
Yeah I think you forgot about those factories which don't reside in the US.
There are lots of jobs like that where people are paid lots of money. I'm not buying your argument. Hell, most CEOs do a completely awful job, and still get to command much, much higher salaries. If you want to complain about people being overpaid, start with the executives.
$60k is way beyond the minimum in most of the US. It’s a good living even in major cities like Atlanta. Also, paying $60k to all 125 million full time workers would basically eat up all US wage income. The income range would have to be $60-70k.
In the sake of full disclosure, what year did you graduate college?
https://www.fool.com/retirement/2017/05/01/this-is-the-no-1-...
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/06/upshot/lost-jobs-houses-s...
I make around that and without health insurance my chronic illness would be a disaster financially. Fortunately with decent insurance it’s just a disaster physically and emotionally.
What a generalization. Nevermind the thousands of small businesses operating on razor thin margins. They wouldn't be negatively affected by $60k minimum wage in the least bit.
My friend lives in Loves Park IL, near where I (we) grew up. You're delierious if you think it costs even 60k (120k since most families have two earners) to live there. Go experience the rest of the country some time.
i know a couple people selling 'legalshield', and a few people that have bought it. having the ability to contact an attorney for 'now and then' questions, to clear stuff up, or write letters.... $30/month or something like that. Seems similar, and potentially valuable, to have that in a corporate setting, depending on how much $ it would actually run you.
Other ways separates the money from the labor. There will always be strife in that organization. Having a worker owned co-op also means that the profits don't go elsewhere - they go back to the people doing the labor.
> Windings Inc. is headquartered in New Ulm, Minnesota, with domestic and international production facilities and capabilities. Windings maintains the highest standards in manufacturing, engineering, material management and concept development while achieving a global presence in the industry.
> Our company was founded in 1965. The majority of our business is made up of the Industrial, Aerospace, and Defense markets.
...
> In 1998, Windings Inc. formed an ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan) for a planned purchase and transition of Company stock to the employees of Windings. The higher sense of responsibility that comes with employee ownership has made Windings even more responsive to customer needs and encourages innovation to bring greater value to its customers. In 2008, the company became 100% employee-owned.
I don't read Italian, but there are a set of unemployment laws in Italy that roughly state - if there are 10 unemployed people who have an idea for a company, they can request all their unemployment insurance collectively and form a worker cooperative. Right now, there's more than 8000 such cooperatives in Italy.
In Norway, Kantega is another such example. They're considered in the top 100 best workplaces in Europe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kantega
Suma, a food collective, is another such example. Again, note the humane treatment of workers. Again, this is democracy in the workplace - the workers collectively decide how they are to be treated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suma_(co-operative)
Prof. Wolff had a dissertation he gave, which is on youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1WUKahMm1s
> LinkedIn failed to record, account and pay for all hours worked in a workweek, investigators found ... "Off the clock' hours are all too common for the American worker. This practice harms workers, denies them the wages they have rightfully earned and takes away time with families," said Susana Blanco, district director for the division in San Francisco. "We urge all employers, large and small, to review their pay practices to ensure employees know their basic workplace rights and that the commitment to compliance works through all levels of the organization. The department is committed to protecting the rights of workers and leveling the playing field for all law-abiding employers."
Collective bargaining is a life sentence of mediocrity for both a company and individuals. However, for 19th and 20th style assembly line type work where workers are literally interchangeable, then I can understand the appeal of collective bargaining. Some guy turning the same screw all day on an assembly line — there is not much room for “excelling” — you either turn the screw when the next part gets to you, or you don’t. Screw-turning doesn’t really have much opportunity for innovation or extra-mile at the individual level. But for a restaurant worker who might be extra nice to a customer or stay a few minutes late to help make the place extra clean or the kitchen worker who reduces food waste by being more efficient — even those “low” level jobs would be harmed by collective bargaining. Jobs that benefit from collective bargaining are ones with extremely minimal autonomy or require an extremely low skill set: just turn a screw. For jobs that actually require intelligence (emotional or intellectual,) collective bargaining is an insult. Unless of course you are poorly motivated in which case it’s a gift.
It may even describe what is an inevitable outcome, but, absent compelling evidence, even that is merely conjecture.
Otherwise, there's nothing inherent to collective bargaining that requires any of the features you mentioned. Even "collective" doesn't have to mean collectivism in the socialism/communism sense.
> assembly line type work where workers are literally interchangeable
Anecdotally, I've read the observation (perhaps even complaint) here on HN that employers still have a tendency to prefer their workers be more interchangeable than intelligent or individually productive.
Even if this attitude is minority, but a large minority, it creates an environment where unions seem desireable.
How do you reconcile this opinion with the high-levels of pay and celebrity in the entertainment industry and professional sports? They're all unionized and their bosses make money hand over fist as well.
But add a chronic health issue or having to take care of a dependant and you'll quickly find out why that job security + decent instead of maximum wage is not such a bad idea.
The fact that they can't represents a major political failure. Good policies can make a huge difference.
Here in the UK, the HMRC (our tax authority) is responsible for enforcing the National Minimum Wage. This makes a great deal of sense. Employers are legally required to report wage payments to HMRC for payroll tax purposes and the HMRC have tremendous institutional capacity for conducting financial investigations. For HMRC, a minimum wage complaint is a twofer - underpaid wages mean less revenue from payroll taxes and is usually a sign of tax evasion. HMRC operate a confidential hotline for reporting violations of the minimum wage law.
Where workers need to resolve a complaint, they can access mediation or binding arbitration completely free of charge. There is inevitably the risk of retaliatory action by an employer, but at least employees have the ability to enforce their rights without having to pay for legal representation.
Unions are part of the picture, but they're a reflection of a broader political culture. Trade unions can't turn the electorate socialist, but a socialist electorate can build strong trade unions.
Fines are a slap on the wrist. But take away freedom from the guilty and things will change. Quickly.
Robbery is a violent crime (robbery, by definition, consists of using force or threat of force/intimidation) that places members of the public in danger. For example, last month there was a Nigerian bank robbery last month where bank robbers armed with assault rifles and got into a gun battle with police officers that left 16 people dead. [1]
Now, you could make the argument that running around with an assault rifle and firing at people is its own crime, but when you walk into a bank and hand the teller a note that says "Give me all the money in the vault," you are stating by implication that you intend to do [very very bad thing] to them if they don't -- you are using the implied threat of violence. (By the same token, if you confront people in an alleyway and say "Hey buddy, give me your wallet," you can't defend yourself in court saying, "But I never threatened people with violence!" The threat of violence is implied by your demand.)
So, in your question, you ask why bank robbery (a violent crime) is a jailable offense, while wage theft (a white collar crime) isn't. I think there's a lot of support for the idea that "non-violent offenders don't belong in prison (but violent offenders do)."
It's the same reason that burglarizing your neighbor's house while they're on vacation is considered by most jurisdictions to be a less serious crime than mugging someone: robbers don't just victimize people by taking their money; they also threaten the victim's physical safety. I personally would feel much more rattled if I had $200 in cash taken from me at gunpoint than if I had a client stiff me for $500.
[1] https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/06/africa/nigeria-bank-robbery/i...
And yet you'd still go to jail for doing that. Potentially for several years depending on the value of what you stole.
Wage theft orders of magnitude larger than that burglary would still typically only get a slap-on-the-wrist (relative to the ill-gotten gains) fine.
To turn your attempt on its head: why is robbing one person an offense that gets incarceration, but robbing a hundred people may not even get you prosecuted?
In the latter case (where you describe "robbing a hundred people"), are you referring to wage theft? Because if the employer is not using violence or threat of violence, then by definition they are not "robbing" people.
That was the entire point of my post: theft and robbery are not the same; robbery is theft + use/threat of violence.
And then you used the analogy of breaking into a house when nobody's home. And I pointed out that carries stiffer penalties than wage theft, despite not involving the use or threat of violence against a person.
Your attempt to split hairs to justify the near complete lack of punishment for wage theft is not succeeding.
As I said earlier, put people in jail for theft and fraud and you'll see those things decrease. As it is now, too often (white collar) crime __does__ pay.
If you purposely under pay someone, you are:
1) devaluing them as a human being and a citizen
2) you likely could be putting them under excessive stress due to lack of income.
3) if they are (mostly) minorites it could be argued that your decision is racism.
Etc.
Given what we know about the mind and the body, the gap between physical violence and emotional violence is becoming less and less disticnt. (Note: Studies have found the memory and effect of emotional abuse last longer).
It is at this illogocial to priortize one over the other. Theft is theft. In both case there are "side effects." In fact, I'd argue your better off witnessing a bank robbery then being subjected to wage theft.
None the less, fines are a slap on the wrist. Look at Wells Fargo. Disgusting. They say crime doesn't pay; unless of course your collar is white.
If we eliminated those agreements and exposed companies to increased litigation risk, what would you expect to happen to wages? They’d go down naturally.
Let’s pretend companies were bound by French style agreements — wages would quickly drop to French-style wages. American workers have more disposable income that almost every other country. If you want to reduce that disposable income, start allowing class actions.
Mind you, employees DO have protection against wage “theft” — that’s already a crime. A simple google search will return dozens of law firms ready to represent a worker who thinks they’ve been wronged. Even arbitration agreements can’t protect against illegal activity.
The only people getting paid for class actions are attorneys. The worker doesn’t win anything but maybe a $25 check. Meanwhile their employer has to incur extraordinary expenses. Who pays for that? The workers through lower salaries and customers through higher prices.
Minimum wage Workers do not have the time or resources to hire a Lawyer to chase down $100 in withheld overtime.
When theft has occurred at a mass scale, such as Amazon Warehouse Workers or UPS Employees... it is far less expensive for the Employer to settle the matter with one collective unit, rather than thousands of individuals.
Yes, the Lawyers reap the majority of the benefits, but the judgement takes that penalty into account.
Class Action with regards to wage suits is very rare and this was mainly a push by plaintiff attorneys who stood to rake in millions while offering no guarantee of providing a substantive reward for the plaintive.
In the end as stated by some the reasoning, the two laws are written as such that binding agreements are truly that, binding. If that needs to change then Congress needs to act.
In reality, it's almost guaranteed to be favorable to the employer, because they're the ones paying for the arbiter.
"Class Action with regards to wage suits is very rare and this was mainly a push by plaintiff attorneys who stood to rake in millions while offering no guarantee of providing a substantive reward for the plaintive."
Other than a change of behavior of the company, which would stop this from happening. Although you've not mentioned what you base your position on.
"In the end as stated by some the reasoning, the two laws are written as such that binding agreements are truly that, binding. If that needs to change then Congress needs to act."
That's already law. But what's happening is that employers are abusing their power over the employees, and basically saying, "I am altering the deal. Pray I do not alter it further." And most employees do not have the resources or knowledge to be able to enforce the original agreement.
Unions suck, they really do. These things happen and people have to leave and find a new place, staying and litigating is not going to make any difference, and a union cannot spring money out of nowhere, they ould have the exact same issues.
No, absolutely not. There is nothing in that statement that is true.
"These things happen and people have to leave and find a new place, staying and litigating is not going to make any difference"
That is the most wishy washy way to wave away theft that I've ever heard. It basically sounds like you're saying, "It's going to happen, so just accept it, and don't try to change it."
"and a union cannot spring money out of nowhere, they ould have the exact same issues."
Except the companies doing this are benefitting from it, at the expense of their employees.
A union where joining is a costly-optionality will have no members. Thus any union that has any strength whatsoever will be able to restrict work one way or another.
> That is the most wishy washy way to wave away theft that I've ever heard. It basically sounds like you're saying, "It's going to happen, so just accept it, and don't try to change it."
More like suing the cow for spilt milk. If a company is going brankrupt in a disorderly manner (fast and in a short period of time) there is no justice.
> Except the companies doing this are benefitting from it, at the expense of their employees.
Yes but now the unions will join in on the pillage!
Organizing doesn't mean forming an official legal union, or joining an already established union (in some cases this might make sense but not always). You can organize mutual aid networks that do things like share salary data and talk about their problems.