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> Home care workers were working by mutual agreement with their respective employers. "The country" had nothing to do with it. "The country" can force someone

> Home care workers were working by mutual agreement with their respective employers. "The country" had nothing to do with it. "The country" can force someone into accepting the "best" bad deal ("by mutual agreement") if all the other options are worse. It's an error to stop your analysis at the agreement without considering the full context in which it was made.

oconnor663 9y ago
That's true, but it casts the solution here in a weird light. If all of someone's options are bad, removing one of them doesn't help anything. In the minimum wage debate in general, the response is that demand for workers is kind of inelastic, and that removing low wage jobs will create higher wage jobs. At least in this specific case, it doesn't sound like that is happening? (Though the details matter a lot, and I don't know them.)
- bmmayer1 9y ago
  What really seems to be happening is the jobs continue to exist as before, but they are driven under the table which is certainly not where we want most people to be working if we truly care about workers' rights. Keep in mind the true incentive of unions like the SEIU which pushed for this change is to improve the wages of their members, even if it comes at the expense of other workers who are 1) willing to work for less, 2) not represented in the union for whatever reason 3) economic progress/productivity on the whole
  - Chaebixi 9y ago
    > Keep in mind the true incentive of unions like the SEIU which pushed for this change is to improve the wages of their members, even if it comes at the expense of other workers who are 1) willing to work for less This kind of rhetoric is classic divide-and-conquer, which oddly seems to be applied more to labor than employers. I've never heard a company criticized for working in its own best interest and not for the benefit of all employers. And honestly, I have the least concern for protecting the labor right to work-for-less than the other guy, especially if "less" is a pittance with no benefits.

oconnor663 9y ago

That's true, but it casts the solution here in a weird light. If all of someone's options are bad, removing one of them doesn't help anything. In the minimum wage debate in general, the response is that demand for workers is kind of inelastic, and that removing low wage jobs will create higher wage jobs. At least in this specific case, it doesn't sound like that is happening? (Though the details matter a lot, and I don't know them.)

bmmayer1 9y ago
What really seems to be happening is the jobs continue to exist as before, but they are driven under the table which is certainly not where we want most people to be working if we truly care about workers' rights. Keep in mind the true incentive of unions like the SEIU which pushed for this change is to improve the wages of their members, even if it comes at the expense of other workers who are 1) willing to work for less, 2) not represented in the union for whatever reason 3) economic progress/productivity on the whole
- Chaebixi 9y ago
  > Keep in mind the true incentive of unions like the SEIU which pushed for this change is to improve the wages of their members, even if it comes at the expense of other workers who are 1) willing to work for less This kind of rhetoric is classic divide-and-conquer, which oddly seems to be applied more to labor than employers. I've never heard a company criticized for working in its own best interest and not for the benefit of all employers. And honestly, I have the least concern for protecting the labor right to work-for-less than the other guy, especially if "less" is a pittance with no benefits.