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By that logic we should abandon all minimum wage and employee rights laws. People wouldn't do the jobs unless the pay and conditions were acceptable, so it woul

by mreome 7y ago

By that logic we should abandon all minimum wage and employee rights laws. People wouldn't do the jobs unless the pay and conditions were acceptable, so it would resolve itself one way or the other right? The unfortunate reality is that many people have little to no real choice in where they work or what they make. They live paycheck-to-paycheck and do jobs that do not come with any bargaining power. If they quit there will be 100 applicants to replace them the next day. And as the money continues to localize into major metro areas, the only available jobs are more and more often in those metro areas. If you work-to-live then you have to have a job, if the only jobs are in the city you have to commute in, and if all the jobs pay $X you have to try to live on $X.

paulddraper 7y ago
> By that logic we should abandon all minimum wage and employee rights laws. Yes.
magduf 7y ago
>By that logic we should abandon all minimum wage and employee rights laws. No, that's not the logic at all. Remember, this problem is entirely local, and can't really be solved because the local politics are locked up by the local wealthy homeowners. Minimum wage and employee rights laws are usually either state or federal (or both). But the state and federal governments here have little power to fix the Bay Area's problems, because of the way the governmental systems are structured. Personally, I think minimum wage should be raised, and employee rights laws should be strengthened. That's government's job, to fix problems like this which hurt the lower classes. But for the Bay Area, I think they should just provide grants to help lower-income people move out of the area and relocate to cheaper places, leaving the Bay Area without any lower-class people. Then let's see how they function without any janitors or teachers.
- mreome 7y ago
  Fair enough. I was extending your argument to the National level, as this same issue is playing out with slight variations in many of the major metro areas in the US. I’m on the East Coast, so I’m not familiar with the particulars of the local government structures in California and how that effects who and how those decisions get made. So, I withdraw my specific criticisms here. On the national scale, my issue with “let the chips fall where they will” is because of how I’ve seen this issue play out in some of the places I’ve live here in the North-East. People in the position to demand that their wages match the cost of living do so, but those who work the kind of jobs that afford no barging power (office cleaning crews for example) can’t. This exacerbates the income divide, as the people who have/make more money are the ones in the positions to demand the largest increases to account for the local cost-of-living. If the job pool starts to dry up, local businesses start busing people in and/or push local governments to subsidize public transportation. People need jobs, the jobs are in the city, so you end up with an entire economic class taking hour long bus/car trips to and from work every day. Nobody with means ever ends up inconvenienced. You then end up with an entire economic class who doesn’t get compensated for the time spent commuting, incurs other associated expenses and complications (miss the bus and you don’t get paid), and ends up segregated to lower-cost-of-living areas outside the metro, which always see less funding for schools, parks, hospitals, public works, etc.
  - magduf 7y ago
    I'm completely in favor of a law which requires employers to compensate employees for commute time over a certain amount. I'm sure higher levels of government could use some creative laws like this to put the squeeze on municipalities which refuse to build affordable housing for their service workers.

by mreome 7y ago

paulddraper 7y ago

> By that logic we should abandon all minimum wage and employee rights laws. Yes.

magduf 7y ago

>By that logic we should abandon all minimum wage and employee rights laws. No, that's not the logic at all. Remember, this problem is entirely local, and can't really be solved because the local politics are locked up by the local wealthy homeowners. Minimum wage and employee rights laws are usually either state or federal (or both). But the state and federal governments here have little power to fix the Bay Area's problems, because of the way the governmental systems are structured. Personally, I think minimum wage should be raised, and employee rights laws should be strengthened. That's government's job, to fix problems like this which hurt the lower classes. But for the Bay Area, I think they should just provide grants to help lower-income people move out of the area and relocate to cheaper places, leaving the Bay Area without any lower-class people. Then let's see how they function without any janitors or teachers.

mreome 7y ago
Fair enough. I was extending your argument to the National level, as this same issue is playing out with slight variations in many of the major metro areas in the US. I’m on the East Coast, so I’m not familiar with the particulars of the local government structures in California and how that effects who and how those decisions get made. So, I withdraw my specific criticisms here. On the national scale, my issue with “let the chips fall where they will” is because of how I’ve seen this issue play out in some of the places I’ve live here in the North-East. People in the position to demand that their wages match the cost of living do so, but those who work the kind of jobs that afford no barging power (office cleaning crews for example) can’t. This exacerbates the income divide, as the people who have/make more money are the ones in the positions to demand the largest increases to account for the local cost-of-living. If the job pool starts to dry up, local businesses start busing people in and/or push local governments to subsidize public transportation. People need jobs, the jobs are in the city, so you end up with an entire economic class taking hour long bus/car trips to and from work every day. Nobody with means ever ends up inconvenienced. You then end up with an entire economic class who doesn’t get compensated for the time spent commuting, incurs other associated expenses and complications (miss the bus and you don’t get paid), and ends up segregated to lower-cost-of-living areas outside the metro, which always see less funding for schools, parks, hospitals, public works, etc.
- magduf 7y ago
  I'm completely in favor of a law which requires employers to compensate employees for commute time over a certain amount. I'm sure higher levels of government could use some creative laws like this to put the squeeze on municipalities which refuse to build affordable housing for their service workers.