5 ms·

The idea that there can be a labour shortage in an industry that does not require specialized skills, at a time in history where capital has more power than eve

The idea that there can be a labour shortage in an industry that does not require specialized skills, at a time in history where capital has more power than ever is a total joke.

postingawayonhn 5y ago
If there is a shortage of labour surely it is to be expected that employees will have more bargaining power and move into higher paying and more 'respectable' jobs?
- relax88 5y ago
  Not if you use the prison population and lobby Congress to import more cheap foreign labour so that you don’t have to increase wages. Which is entirely my point.
pessimizer 5y ago
People still can't afford to work jobs that won't pay for their food and shelter. Prisoners, or any other slaves, are a great solution.
- tux3 5y ago
  Has slavery not been abolished in Northern America? If not, shouldn't slavery be a pretty hot political issue? Wikipedia says things like the death penalty still exists in half of US states, but I don't know the numbers for states using captive workers.
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    Slavery as a punishment for a crime is legal federally, ie, in all of the US.
  - tantalor 5y ago
    Slavery is still allowed in US as punishment for crime. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteenth_Amendment_to_the_Un...
  - danShumway 5y ago
    > If not, shouldn't slavery be a pretty hot political issue? :) You'd think, right? It's not exactly a niche issue, there are plenty of people talking about it. But once you get fully into the mainstream, the issue seems to just fall off completely. There's a real apathy in America about how our prison system works, and not just apathy on the Right, mainstream Democrats talk about modern-day slavery in prison way less than I would expect them to. I'm not sure if it's a messaging thing, or if culturally we're just primed not to care. But yeah, America never fully ended slavery, it's still allowed if you've been convicted of a crime.
    - jhcxfjnv 5y ago
      There's plenty of political will for prison reform, even on "the right" (I consider myself a conservative, God forbid) and the state of US prisons is embarrassing But the Democrats' solution is to defund local PDs, which will leave a vacuum that can be filled by Federal agents that are more loyal to Washington than local cops Naturally, this "defund the police" message takes the air out of serious criminal justice reform. If "the Left," was serious about reforming our prisons, step one would be legalizing marijuana and everybody knows it. Schumer keeps saying they're going to do it this session but instead the Democrats are pushing through huge spending bills and arguing over which unarmed rioter proves the Reichstag Fire, er, I mean, 1/6 "Insurrection," justifies their rhetoric and attempts to federalize elections So yeah, actually, despite my argumentative tone I think I agree with everything you said and this is just additional context
      - mjburgess 5y ago
        >But the Democrats' solution is to defund local PDs I think you should distinguish "democrats" the vast vast vast majority of which are conservative (in the sense of conserve), from far-left radicals. Even among the far-left, the idea of actually defunding police is essentially offered only by a fraction of pseudo-revolutionaries.
        loves_mangoes 5y ago
        If I may play devil's public relation for a second, >Even among the far-left, the idea of actually defunding police is essentially offered only by a fraction of pseudo-revolutionaries. My twitter feed paints a different picture, I have a swath of people who would interpret the "defund the police" slogan as: "funding mental health, local services, and so on, through cuts to the police budget, military-style equipment, and such", and much less of the "abolish the police" anarchistic far-left sentiment you've perceived. Their movement seems to have a hard time distancing themselves from their more extreme members, and that is a plentiful source of people talking past each other, which does little to elevate the level of debate. Love.
  - ggggtez 5y ago
    Prison labor is the rule rather than the exception. In many states, prisons are also run by for-profit companies. Occasionally it's mentioned on some show like Jon Oliver, but there isn't the political willpower to solve this clear abuse since it would cost more money.
    - vb6sp6 5y ago
      Less than 10% of inmates are held in private prisons. Biden seems to want to change this: https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-race-and-ethnicity-prisons-coronavirus-pandemic-c8c246f00695f37ef2afb1dd3a5f115e https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-race-and-ethnicity-pris...
gruez 5y ago
>at a time in history where capital has more power than ever is a total joke. If you're talking about the last decade, maybe. In the current month/year? No, because the government is currently paying people to stay at home at rates competitive to employment[1]. With that taken into account labor's power is arguably stronger than ever. [1] The median US hourly wage is $15.35 (https://www.statista.com/statistics/185335/median-hourly-earnings-of-wage-and-salary-workers/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/185335/median-hourly-ear...). With the $300/week subsidy from the federal government and 50% of hourly wage from unemployment, that works out to $15.18 for staying at home.
- relax88 5y ago
  https://www.atlantafed.org/chcs/wage-growth-tracker https://www.atlantafed.org/chcs/wage-growth-tracker https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/inflation-cpi https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/inflation-cpi https://www.epi.org/publication/swa-wages-2019/ https://www.epi.org/publication/swa-wages-2019/
  - gruez 5y ago
    Dumping a bunch of a links with no accompanying analysis/commentary makes for a low quality comment.
    - relax88 5y ago
      Read the links. Wage growth has barely moved when adjusted for inflation and this year is hardly different.
      - gruez 5y ago
        It's not exactly clear how that statement relates to my prior comment, but I'll presume you're making the argument that "well if workers actually had any power wages would be going up". My response to that would be: maybe that shows that businesses don't has as much free cash for wage increases as you thought? Otherwise I don't see why businesses would rather miss out on business than pay their employees more. For instance, let's say a business has trouble finding employees at $12/hr, but each employee provides $30/hr of value to the business. If they could afford it, why wouldn't they raise wages to $15, or even $20 an hour? The business would still be making money either way. Maybe the answer is that due to covid (recession, lockdowns), business is down so they can't justify paying each employee $15, because that's close to the value that they provide?

The idea that there can be a labour shortage in an industry that does not require specialized skills, at a time in history where capital has more power than ever is a total joke.

postingawayonhn 5y ago

If there is a shortage of labour surely it is to be expected that employees will have more bargaining power and move into higher paying and more 'respectable' jobs?

relax88 5y ago
Not if you use the prison population and lobby Congress to import more cheap foreign labour so that you don’t have to increase wages. Which is entirely my point.

pessimizer 5y ago

People still can't afford to work jobs that won't pay for their food and shelter. Prisoners, or any other slaves, are a great solution.

tux3 5y ago
Has slavery not been abolished in Northern America? If not, shouldn't slavery be a pretty hot political issue? Wikipedia says things like the death penalty still exists in half of US states, but I don't know the numbers for states using captive workers.
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  Slavery as a punishment for a crime is legal federally, ie, in all of the US.
- tantalor 5y ago
  Slavery is still allowed in US as punishment for crime. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteenth_Amendment_to_the_Un...
- danShumway 5y ago
  > If not, shouldn't slavery be a pretty hot political issue? :) You'd think, right? It's not exactly a niche issue, there are plenty of people talking about it. But once you get fully into the mainstream, the issue seems to just fall off completely. There's a real apathy in America about how our prison system works, and not just apathy on the Right, mainstream Democrats talk about modern-day slavery in prison way less than I would expect them to. I'm not sure if it's a messaging thing, or if culturally we're just primed not to care. But yeah, America never fully ended slavery, it's still allowed if you've been convicted of a crime.
  - jhcxfjnv 5y ago
    There's plenty of political will for prison reform, even on "the right" (I consider myself a conservative, God forbid) and the state of US prisons is embarrassing But the Democrats' solution is to defund local PDs, which will leave a vacuum that can be filled by Federal agents that are more loyal to Washington than local cops Naturally, this "defund the police" message takes the air out of serious criminal justice reform. If "the Left," was serious about reforming our prisons, step one would be legalizing marijuana and everybody knows it. Schumer keeps saying they're going to do it this session but instead the Democrats are pushing through huge spending bills and arguing over which unarmed rioter proves the Reichstag Fire, er, I mean, 1/6 "Insurrection," justifies their rhetoric and attempts to federalize elections So yeah, actually, despite my argumentative tone I think I agree with everything you said and this is just additional context
    - mjburgess 5y ago
      >But the Democrats' solution is to defund local PDs I think you should distinguish "democrats" the vast vast vast majority of which are conservative (in the sense of conserve), from far-left radicals. Even among the far-left, the idea of actually defunding police is essentially offered only by a fraction of pseudo-revolutionaries.
      - loves_mangoes 5y ago
        If I may play devil's public relation for a second, >Even among the far-left, the idea of actually defunding police is essentially offered only by a fraction of pseudo-revolutionaries. My twitter feed paints a different picture, I have a swath of people who would interpret the "defund the police" slogan as: "funding mental health, local services, and so on, through cuts to the police budget, military-style equipment, and such", and much less of the "abolish the police" anarchistic far-left sentiment you've perceived. Their movement seems to have a hard time distancing themselves from their more extreme members, and that is a plentiful source of people talking past each other, which does little to elevate the level of debate. Love.
- ggggtez 5y ago
  Prison labor is the rule rather than the exception. In many states, prisons are also run by for-profit companies. Occasionally it's mentioned on some show like Jon Oliver, but there isn't the political willpower to solve this clear abuse since it would cost more money.
  - vb6sp6 5y ago
    Less than 10% of inmates are held in private prisons. Biden seems to want to change this: https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-race-and-ethnicity-prisons-coronavirus-pandemic-c8c246f00695f37ef2afb1dd3a5f115e https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-race-and-ethnicity-pris...

gruez 5y ago

>at a time in history where capital has more power than ever is a total joke. If you're talking about the last decade, maybe. In the current month/year? No, because the government is currently paying people to stay at home at rates competitive to employment[1]. With that taken into account labor's power is arguably stronger than ever. [1] The median US hourly wage is $15.35 (https://www.statista.com/statistics/185335/median-hourly-earnings-of-wage-and-salary-workers/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/185335/median-hourly-ear...). With the $300/week subsidy from the federal government and 50% of hourly wage from unemployment, that works out to $15.18 for staying at home.

relax88 5y ago
https://www.atlantafed.org/chcs/wage-growth-tracker https://www.atlantafed.org/chcs/wage-growth-tracker https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/inflation-cpi https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/inflation-cpi https://www.epi.org/publication/swa-wages-2019/ https://www.epi.org/publication/swa-wages-2019/
- gruez 5y ago
  Dumping a bunch of a links with no accompanying analysis/commentary makes for a low quality comment.
  - relax88 5y ago
    Read the links. Wage growth has barely moved when adjusted for inflation and this year is hardly different.
    - gruez 5y ago
      It's not exactly clear how that statement relates to my prior comment, but I'll presume you're making the argument that "well if workers actually had any power wages would be going up". My response to that would be: maybe that shows that businesses don't has as much free cash for wage increases as you thought? Otherwise I don't see why businesses would rather miss out on business than pay their employees more. For instance, let's say a business has trouble finding employees at $12/hr, but each employee provides $30/hr of value to the business. If they could afford it, why wouldn't they raise wages to $15, or even $20 an hour? The business would still be making money either way. Maybe the answer is that due to covid (recession, lockdowns), business is down so they can't justify paying each employee $15, because that's close to the value that they provide?