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> It's unfair competition though, so it's really important that this doesn't happen. A restaurant that wants do to the right thing shouldn't have to worry about

> It's unfair competition though, so it's really important that this doesn't happen. A restaurant that wants do to the right thing shouldn't have to worry about a few % worse competitiveness on wages because the asshat across the street has his staff work for free. The true crime is as always the impact on businesses.

lupire 3y ago
The Honest Employers Guild should sponsor investigations and lawsuits against the criminals to drive them out of business, like that company that buys anti-Tesla Super Bowl ads.
vundercind 3y ago
I think it’s worth calling out that failing to enforce regulations corrodes entire industries to the point that it’s impossible to compete in many sectors of it without breaking the law and screwing over workers (and maybe also customers!) It’s a way in which this is bad that folks may not immediately connect to it.
RHSeeger 3y ago
> The true crime is as always the impact on businesses It's hard to tell if you meant this as sarcasm or not, but... it really is a big deal. If all your competitors are screwing their employees in order to increase their margins, that means they can out-compete your on price. Which means you can either screw _your_ employees.. or risk going out of business. And eventually, the only players left are the ones that are screwing their employees. So yes, if you want to look out for employees, then you need to look out for businesses by making sure everyone is following the same rules. That doesn't mean the businesses themselves are more important, just that their health is vital to the well-being of the employees.
- avgcorrection 3y ago
  I’m absolutely being sarcastic. The context is that the OP complained about one business colluding with others by way of informal no-hire lists for employees that don’t tolerate this wage theft. The response to that is to focus on how other businesses that don’t collude will get out-competed… And yeah I’m pretty sick of this framing. It’s an anecdote where employees are direct victims, and then the focus gets shifted to hypothetical and indirect victims (businesses). Even in my own social democratic place of residence there seems to be dominant narrative of “job creators” and how we need to “create jobs”, the outcome of which is to sacrifice things in order to directly benefit businesses in order to (ostensibly, in rhetoric) benefit workers. This was concretely demonstrated when, during the pandemic, the right-wing government was very insistent on giving handouts to failing businesses that obviously were going to have a hard time (like the travel industry) under the guise of “protecting jobs”. Meanwhile, the government proposed that we should temporarily make it easier for employers to put employees on temporary leave (whatever the English/American term is) in order for them to not just die. Which is fine in itself… except they wanted tax payers and workers to dis-proportionally pay for this temporary measure. What’s the only thing that made them “change their minds”? Labor groups and other such organizations. And then there was inflation, a predictable outcome of the spending-spree during the pandemic. So the central bank raised the rent. And again. And again. And the acknowledged consequence of that was that the poorest among us would struggle to make ends meet. But that’s not a problem at all—that a predictable outcome of a previous spending spree on businesses would impact regular people and make some people have to choose between mortgage/rent or food; not a problem. That’s just Economics. What’s the problem with corrupt politicians? On one hand you can simply say that the problem is that corrupt politicians corrupt the political system. On the other hand you can frame it as the outing of corrupt politicians causes “political distrust” and a “crisis of legitimacy” among the (stupid) voters. So you re-frame the issue as a few bad apples (politicians) which causes the real problem of voters/regular people becoming (justifiably) cynical and distrustful of the whole system. That’s the power of framing. And that’s why I don’t buy into the framing of helping businesses in order to (pinky swear) really helping workers. Yeah, those hand-out to businesses? Oh would you look at that—a “profit party” half a year later for the shareholders. Who woulda thunk it. But too bad about that inflation, though. Guess you should rethink owning a car or having hobbies other than taking walks in the park.
  - RHSeeger 3y ago
    > And yeah I’m pretty sick of this framing. It’s an anecdote where employees are direct victims, and then the focus gets shifted to hypothetical and indirect victims (businesses). No, the focus gets shifted to > We need to make sure that businesses that _do_ treat their employees well are able to succeed. And, to do that, we make sure that treating their employees well isn't turned into a penalty. We make sure that all companies are playing by the same rules. The thread went like this >>> Businesses should not be able to steal wages from their employees, and we should punish them harshly >> Yes, if businesses can get away with that, then the ones that treat workers well will go out of business > (you) Stop making this about the business being a victim here Seriously, what the heck. Everything about that bit of the thread was about making sure it's better for businesses to treat employees well.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - avgcorrection 3y ago
      Then nothing I say is gonna make you understand.

lupire 3y ago

The Honest Employers Guild should sponsor investigations and lawsuits against the criminals to drive them out of business, like that company that buys anti-Tesla Super Bowl ads.

vundercind 3y ago

I think it’s worth calling out that failing to enforce regulations corrodes entire industries to the point that it’s impossible to compete in many sectors of it without breaking the law and screwing over workers (and maybe also customers!) It’s a way in which this is bad that folks may not immediately connect to it.

RHSeeger 3y ago

> The true crime is as always the impact on businesses It's hard to tell if you meant this as sarcasm or not, but... it really is a big deal. If all your competitors are screwing their employees in order to increase their margins, that means they can out-compete your on price. Which means you can either screw _your_ employees.. or risk going out of business. And eventually, the only players left are the ones that are screwing their employees. So yes, if you want to look out for employees, then you need to look out for businesses by making sure everyone is following the same rules. That doesn't mean the businesses themselves are more important, just that their health is vital to the well-being of the employees.

avgcorrection 3y ago
I’m absolutely being sarcastic. The context is that the OP complained about one business colluding with others by way of informal no-hire lists for employees that don’t tolerate this wage theft. The response to that is to focus on how other businesses that don’t collude will get out-competed… And yeah I’m pretty sick of this framing. It’s an anecdote where employees are direct victims, and then the focus gets shifted to hypothetical and indirect victims (businesses). Even in my own social democratic place of residence there seems to be dominant narrative of “job creators” and how we need to “create jobs”, the outcome of which is to sacrifice things in order to directly benefit businesses in order to (ostensibly, in rhetoric) benefit workers. This was concretely demonstrated when, during the pandemic, the right-wing government was very insistent on giving handouts to failing businesses that obviously were going to have a hard time (like the travel industry) under the guise of “protecting jobs”. Meanwhile, the government proposed that we should temporarily make it easier for employers to put employees on temporary leave (whatever the English/American term is) in order for them to not just die. Which is fine in itself… except they wanted tax payers and workers to dis-proportionally pay for this temporary measure. What’s the only thing that made them “change their minds”? Labor groups and other such organizations. And then there was inflation, a predictable outcome of the spending-spree during the pandemic. So the central bank raised the rent. And again. And again. And the acknowledged consequence of that was that the poorest among us would struggle to make ends meet. But that’s not a problem at all—that a predictable outcome of a previous spending spree on businesses would impact regular people and make some people have to choose between mortgage/rent or food; not a problem. That’s just Economics. What’s the problem with corrupt politicians? On one hand you can simply say that the problem is that corrupt politicians corrupt the political system. On the other hand you can frame it as the outing of corrupt politicians causes “political distrust” and a “crisis of legitimacy” among the (stupid) voters. So you re-frame the issue as a few bad apples (politicians) which causes the real problem of voters/regular people becoming (justifiably) cynical and distrustful of the whole system. That’s the power of framing. And that’s why I don’t buy into the framing of helping businesses in order to (pinky swear) really helping workers. Yeah, those hand-out to businesses? Oh would you look at that—a “profit party” half a year later for the shareholders. Who woulda thunk it. But too bad about that inflation, though. Guess you should rethink owning a car or having hobbies other than taking walks in the park.
- RHSeeger 3y ago
  > And yeah I’m pretty sick of this framing. It’s an anecdote where employees are direct victims, and then the focus gets shifted to hypothetical and indirect victims (businesses). No, the focus gets shifted to > We need to make sure that businesses that _do_ treat their employees well are able to succeed. And, to do that, we make sure that treating their employees well isn't turned into a penalty. We make sure that all companies are playing by the same rules. The thread went like this >>> Businesses should not be able to steal wages from their employees, and we should punish them harshly >> Yes, if businesses can get away with that, then the ones that treat workers well will go out of business > (you) Stop making this about the business being a victim here Seriously, what the heck. Everything about that bit of the thread was about making sure it's better for businesses to treat employees well.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - avgcorrection 3y ago
    Then nothing I say is gonna make you understand.