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So the factory is opening back up and he is saying that he will not be paying people who do not show up to work. I understand there is a pandemic but I do not

by nscalf 6y ago

So the factory is opening back up and he is saying that he will not be paying people who do not show up to work. I understand there is a pandemic but I do not understand why it is on the company to pay people who are not working. The whole premise of a company is that individual work is used collectively to get higher returns than the individuals contribute, if you're not contributing to that collective you don't deserve your portion of the pay from that company. I agree the government needs to step in and help, but the company should not be responsible for paying individuals out of pocket. The real story here to me is that, depending on your state, you are required to go to a work environment you believe to be unsafe because you'll be kicked off unemployment otherwise. Living in a red state, it seems like we are going to be taking the herd immunity route. Personally, I think we should be supporting high risk individuals and have them quarantine while the rest of society goes back to a quasi-normal. This is based off the rate of asymptomatic individuals being so large that the mortality rate is at least an order of magnitude smaller than previously believed.

ashtonkem 6y ago
A direct of mine a while ago said something very simple that blew my mind a bit: > "Minimum wage is a privatized social safety net". America's social structures are designed around a presumption that one should be working, and if one is not working you better be in a group "deserving" of aid. This is a concept that you can trace back to at least the Elizabethan poor law (1601), which aimed to provide poor houses for the infirm, work for the able bodied, and threatened to imprison the "idle" poor.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> I understand there is a pandemic but I do not understand why it is on the company to pay people who are not working. The issue is not the Tesla is obligated to pay people who are not working, it is that (1) violating the shelter-in-place order is a crime, and (2) paying someone to commit a crime is also generally unlawful, and also (3) imposing adverse employment consequences, including reduced pay, for refusing to commit a crime is generally also unlawful. (Of course, Tesla itself is violating the order and committing a crime by reopening, but #3 particularly is an avenue by which individual workers, as opposed to just public authorities, may have a claim against Tesla based on their unlawful acts.)
- nscalf 6y ago
  My understanding was that this is not a law, but a policy. This comment actually had me read up a bit on this, here's an interesting article[1] (I have no idea how credible the source is, but at a glance it seems to be relatively unbiased). The take away I have is that there is some debate over this, but we don't seem to have quarantine laws in place to handle large scale quarantine. [1] https://californiaglobe.com/section-2/does-gov-newsom-have-the-power-to-shut-down-private-businesses-because-of-coronavirus/ https://californiaglobe.com/section-2/does-gov-newsom-have-t...

by nscalf 6y ago

ashtonkem 6y ago

A direct of mine a while ago said something very simple that blew my mind a bit: > "Minimum wage is a privatized social safety net". America's social structures are designed around a presumption that one should be working, and if one is not working you better be in a group "deserving" of aid. This is a concept that you can trace back to at least the Elizabethan poor law (1601), which aimed to provide poor houses for the infirm, work for the able bodied, and threatened to imprison the "idle" poor.

dragonwriter 6y ago

> I understand there is a pandemic but I do not understand why it is on the company to pay people who are not working. The issue is not the Tesla is obligated to pay people who are not working, it is that (1) violating the shelter-in-place order is a crime, and (2) paying someone to commit a crime is also generally unlawful, and also (3) imposing adverse employment consequences, including reduced pay, for refusing to commit a crime is generally also unlawful. (Of course, Tesla itself is violating the order and committing a crime by reopening, but #3 particularly is an avenue by which individual workers, as opposed to just public authorities, may have a claim against Tesla based on their unlawful acts.)

nscalf 6y ago
My understanding was that this is not a law, but a policy. This comment actually had me read up a bit on this, here's an interesting article[1] (I have no idea how credible the source is, but at a glance it seems to be relatively unbiased). The take away I have is that there is some debate over this, but we don't seem to have quarantine laws in place to handle large scale quarantine. [1] https://californiaglobe.com/section-2/does-gov-newsom-have-the-power-to-shut-down-private-businesses-because-of-coronavirus/ https://californiaglobe.com/section-2/does-gov-newsom-have-t...