4 ms·

This commentary seems very out of touch with what the reality of farms. > "I can't hold my employees to 40 hours, because it's just not enough to live on." It

This commentary seems very out of touch with what the reality of farms. > "I can't hold my employees to 40 hours, because it's just not enough to live on." It doesn’t mean farms pay less money, quite the opposite actually. Skilled farm labor is very valuable and gets paid more than your regular blue collar worker driving an Uber or working a fast food kitchen. The problem with farms is that work doesn’t fit your 9-5 M-F 40 hour work week. Most of the year, you need very little work, and on specific stretches, you need round the clock work. What the comment means is that 40 hours won’t work for the workers because they don’t get 40 hours all the time. Specific seasons are the time for the workers to work longer hours and make more money for the rest of the year. And if the law forces people to work only 40 hours during the season where they make bulk of their money by working longer hours, workers won’t have sufficient for the rest of the year.

cxr 3y ago
This always happens in these discussions: > if the law forces people to work only 40 hours The law isn't forcing them to work only 40 hours. It's forcing Schreiber to pay them more if they do.
- darth_avocado 3y ago
  > Just pay them more It doesn’t work because of you know, math. Not only are you suggesting that people only work 40 hours, but also get paid more for those 40 hours. So now farmers not only hire 2 people instead of 1 because you still have more than 40 hours of work, but now also compensate 2 workers for the lost wages they otherwise would have made working longer hours for a short duration of time. It’s like instead of working 8 hours M-F, I work 10 hours M-Th and take the Friday off because of how my industry works, the law now forces employers to pay me overtime for 2 hours every day. So employers have to restrict me to 8 hours per day to avoid overtime and hire someone else along with me to get the same amount of work done. But then also pay both of us the lost wages for Friday.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - cxr 3y ago
    > > Just pay them more > [...] Not only are you suggesting Please don't do false quotes[1]. I'm the one who said, "Just pay them more"—and I'm not sure that anyone did, it seems like it's something that you just... made up (and decided to attribute to me...?). And I didn't suggest anything other than that your choice to phrase it as "the law forces people to work only 40 hours" was untrue—that you were exaggerating—a sort of motte and bailey. Your approach of responding to this with another (albeit this time less forgivable) instance of exaggeration is in a word unkind. I don't know what you hoped this would result in, but I'm not going to respond to you further here. <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13602947 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13602947>
    - cxr 3y ago
      > I'm the one who said, "Just pay them more" I'm _not_ the one who said it, rather.

cxr 3y ago

This always happens in these discussions: > if the law forces people to work only 40 hours The law isn't forcing them to work only 40 hours. It's forcing Schreiber to pay them more if they do.

darth_avocado 3y ago
> Just pay them more It doesn’t work because of you know, math. Not only are you suggesting that people only work 40 hours, but also get paid more for those 40 hours. So now farmers not only hire 2 people instead of 1 because you still have more than 40 hours of work, but now also compensate 2 workers for the lost wages they otherwise would have made working longer hours for a short duration of time. It’s like instead of working 8 hours M-F, I work 10 hours M-Th and take the Friday off because of how my industry works, the law now forces employers to pay me overtime for 2 hours every day. So employers have to restrict me to 8 hours per day to avoid overtime and hire someone else along with me to get the same amount of work done. But then also pay both of us the lost wages for Friday.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- cxr 3y ago
  > > Just pay them more > [...] Not only are you suggesting Please don't do false quotes[1]. I'm the one who said, "Just pay them more"—and I'm not sure that anyone did, it seems like it's something that you just... made up (and decided to attribute to me...?). And I didn't suggest anything other than that your choice to phrase it as "the law forces people to work only 40 hours" was untrue—that you were exaggerating—a sort of motte and bailey. Your approach of responding to this with another (albeit this time less forgivable) instance of exaggeration is in a word unkind. I don't know what you hoped this would result in, but I'm not going to respond to you further here. <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13602947 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13602947>
  - cxr 3y ago
    > I'm the one who said, "Just pay them more" I'm _not_ the one who said it, rather.