3 ms·

There should be no cutoff. it's either paid for all (as it should be) or for none. How can you say that some people have less rights because they earn more?

by cowl 10y ago

coldtea 10y ago
>How can you say that some people have less rights because they earn more? The same way we say that people must have less stuff, including health care, college for their kids, etc., because they earn less.
edblarney 10y ago
"How can you say that some people have less rights because they earn more?" It's not that they have 'less rights' - it's that the expectations of the job are different. You're a CEO, you're going to have to 'work a ton of hours' for your massive paycheque, it just goes with the job. You don't want it - stay VP or Director, or manager. CEO's, doctors etc. are not commodities. For hourly unskilled workers, 'labour' etc - there always have to be protections. Without them - we head back to 19th century oppression. I understand that's it's nuanced, and I agree that 'some salary' is a really, really crude way to define it ... but something needs to be there, or else you get 1/3 of Americans working 80 hours a week for de-facto $4/hour. Make no mistake - the 'free market wage' for 1/3 of Americans who's skills are commoditized, but who nevertheless to 'valuable work' is basically 1% above 'survival'. Well below poverty. You could argue the 'free market' decides how much value they actually provide, but I would argue that the rate is entirely a function of relative power disparity between the two parties (employee v. big corp) and nothing more. It's why 'minimum wage' laws exist in most places. 'Free markets' work when actors have agency, and some power ... when actors don't have some degree of power-parity, 99% of the surpluses go into the hands of one side of the equation.
oddlyaromatic 10y ago
You got a good long answer, but more simply: An expected level of occasional 40+ hour weeks is often baked into to the salary at a higher level. When I switched to a salaried manager position, my new rate of pay was better than my old hourly, including the overtime I used to work. Now I know the check that will come every two weeks is the same, if I can do my work in under 40 hours nobody cares. It is much better for me to focus on my job and not worry about the exact number of hours I work.
- hga 10y ago
  And having been exempt salaried but working in D.C. for a dozen years where so much is done by government accounting rules, it's a total pain in the posterior to make sure your Official worked hours add up to exactly 40. One of the few nice things about working for Lucent in its dreadful calendar year 2001 was that I could just focus on getting the job done The only time I ever liked doing that was when it was a tool to keep a company owner from cheating the salesmen by charging them too much for the labor we put into building the systems we'd together, almost always, sold to someone (and that company eventually died, you can't keep cheating all your salaried employees and expect to survive, we all walked away with 4-5 figures of bonuses or commissions formally owed to us).
schrodinger 10y ago
I think another consideration is higher earning jobs typically have more of a gray area around what constitutes work. E.g. It's clear that a cashier isn't working anymore when they clock out. But as a developer, I certainly have times when I come up with an idea at home and start working on it, an idea in the shower, etc.
dennisgorelik 10y ago
Higher earners are smart enough to figure out that rules that penalize employers for overtime - effectively hurt workers. So higher earners protect their rights to have job and overtime by blocking that overtime rule at their level. Lower earners (collectively) are not able to figure out the unintended consequences and happily support that populist rule.

There should be no cutoff. it's either paid for all (as it should be) or for none. How can you say that some people have less rights because they earn more?

by cowl 10y ago

There should be no cutoff. it's either paid for all (as it should be) or for none. How can you say that some people have less rights because they earn more?

coldtea 10y ago

>How can you say that some people have less rights because they earn more? The same way we say that people must have less stuff, including health care, college for their kids, etc., because they earn less.

edblarney 10y ago

"How can you say that some people have less rights because they earn more?" It's not that they have 'less rights' - it's that the expectations of the job are different. You're a CEO, you're going to have to 'work a ton of hours' for your massive paycheque, it just goes with the job. You don't want it - stay VP or Director, or manager. CEO's, doctors etc. are not commodities. For hourly unskilled workers, 'labour' etc - there always have to be protections. Without them - we head back to 19th century oppression. I understand that's it's nuanced, and I agree that 'some salary' is a really, really crude way to define it ... but something needs to be there, or else you get 1/3 of Americans working 80 hours a week for de-facto $4/hour. Make no mistake - the 'free market wage' for 1/3 of Americans who's skills are commoditized, but who nevertheless to 'valuable work' is basically 1% above 'survival'. Well below poverty. You could argue the 'free market' decides how much value they actually provide, but I would argue that the rate is entirely a function of relative power disparity between the two parties (employee v. big corp) and nothing more. It's why 'minimum wage' laws exist in most places. 'Free markets' work when actors have agency, and some power ... when actors don't have some degree of power-parity, 99% of the surpluses go into the hands of one side of the equation.

oddlyaromatic 10y ago

You got a good long answer, but more simply: An expected level of occasional 40+ hour weeks is often baked into to the salary at a higher level. When I switched to a salaried manager position, my new rate of pay was better than my old hourly, including the overtime I used to work. Now I know the check that will come every two weeks is the same, if I can do my work in under 40 hours nobody cares. It is much better for me to focus on my job and not worry about the exact number of hours I work.

hga 10y ago
And having been exempt salaried but working in D.C. for a dozen years where so much is done by government accounting rules, it's a total pain in the posterior to make sure your Official worked hours add up to exactly 40. One of the few nice things about working for Lucent in its dreadful calendar year 2001 was that I could just focus on getting the job done The only time I ever liked doing that was when it was a tool to keep a company owner from cheating the salesmen by charging them too much for the labor we put into building the systems we'd together, almost always, sold to someone (and that company eventually died, you can't keep cheating all your salaried employees and expect to survive, we all walked away with 4-5 figures of bonuses or commissions formally owed to us).

schrodinger 10y ago

I think another consideration is higher earning jobs typically have more of a gray area around what constitutes work. E.g. It's clear that a cashier isn't working anymore when they clock out. But as a developer, I certainly have times when I come up with an idea at home and start working on it, an idea in the shower, etc.

dennisgorelik 10y ago

Higher earners are smart enough to figure out that rules that penalize employers for overtime - effectively hurt workers. So higher earners protect their rights to have job and overtime by blocking that overtime rule at their level. Lower earners (collectively) are not able to figure out the unintended consequences and happily support that populist rule.