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Because business owners and politicians working for the economy decide that. It’s fun to come up with rules that would fix imbalance but curious how you think s

Because business owners and politicians working for the economy decide that. It’s fun to come up with rules that would fix imbalance but curious how you think such rules can happen without deeper (however achievable) changes to society predicating them outside current norms (eg voting and waiting; maybe organizing around getting more people to vote and wait with you)

crazygringo 3y ago
Voters decide things too. But that's not just a hot-button issue for any voter I've ever met. Why not? It actually wouldn't be too hard to implement without wage theft in either direction -- mandate some kind of escrow functionality by law, built into direct deposit. In other words, if you work daily, the money is deposited in "escrow mode" at the start of your shift, and you can verify it in your banking app. But it's not released until you clock out. Or if your salary is every two weeks, it's deposited in escrow mode at the start of the period. At the end of the business day each day, a day's proportion is automatically released unless the bank is informed that your employment has been terminated. But the point is that businesses could never try to save money by not paying their employees, because they couldn't get the money back anyways. If your boss doesn't approve that you completed the day's work when you actually did, the money stays in escrow until it gets settled by a court. So I don't buy that it's just because business owners and politicians "decide" things. If voters wanted what I just described, it could easily happen. But I just came up with this proposal on my own -- I've never heard it described by anyone. It's not something voters seem to care about. Why not?
- wahnfrieden 3y ago
  Voters are also disenfranchised from other forms of coordinated action (which have historically caused many of the nice things we enjoy today) by the unresolved tension of belief in voting’s power and its routinely disappointing results
- jodrellblank 3y ago
  > "If your boss doesn't approve that you completed the day's work when you actually did, the money stays in escrow until it gets settled by a court." Boss: "Your court hearing will be in 2-6 months, you'll need to take time off work to go to court and I'll get the company lawyer to argue our side so you'll need to pay for a lawyer to argue your side. You'll need to risk losing and being lumbered with court costs on top, and extra time and costs for a retrial. Or ... you could stay an extra hour tomorrow and I'll approve today's salary release. What do you say, low-wage labourer?"
  - crazygringo 3y ago
    That's a separate issue, which is trying to skimp on overtime on an individual basis. My point is regarding companies that simply don't pay for whole weeks' or months' worth of payroll, for whole teams of people, to try to get out of paying wages entirely. Which happens for businesses that hire people for single projects and then let them go (like construction), or businesses that wind up going out of business but where the owner can at least lose less money (common in restaurants, cafes).

crazygringo 3y ago

Voters decide things too. But that's not just a hot-button issue for any voter I've ever met. Why not? It actually wouldn't be too hard to implement without wage theft in either direction -- mandate some kind of escrow functionality by law, built into direct deposit. In other words, if you work daily, the money is deposited in "escrow mode" at the start of your shift, and you can verify it in your banking app. But it's not released until you clock out. Or if your salary is every two weeks, it's deposited in escrow mode at the start of the period. At the end of the business day each day, a day's proportion is automatically released unless the bank is informed that your employment has been terminated. But the point is that businesses could never try to save money by not paying their employees, because they couldn't get the money back anyways. If your boss doesn't approve that you completed the day's work when you actually did, the money stays in escrow until it gets settled by a court. So I don't buy that it's just because business owners and politicians "decide" things. If voters wanted what I just described, it could easily happen. But I just came up with this proposal on my own -- I've never heard it described by anyone. It's not something voters seem to care about. Why not?

wahnfrieden 3y ago
Voters are also disenfranchised from other forms of coordinated action (which have historically caused many of the nice things we enjoy today) by the unresolved tension of belief in voting’s power and its routinely disappointing results
jodrellblank 3y ago
> "If your boss doesn't approve that you completed the day's work when you actually did, the money stays in escrow until it gets settled by a court." Boss: "Your court hearing will be in 2-6 months, you'll need to take time off work to go to court and I'll get the company lawyer to argue our side so you'll need to pay for a lawyer to argue your side. You'll need to risk losing and being lumbered with court costs on top, and extra time and costs for a retrial. Or ... you could stay an extra hour tomorrow and I'll approve today's salary release. What do you say, low-wage labourer?"
- crazygringo 3y ago
  That's a separate issue, which is trying to skimp on overtime on an individual basis. My point is regarding companies that simply don't pay for whole weeks' or months' worth of payroll, for whole teams of people, to try to get out of paying wages entirely. Which happens for businesses that hire people for single projects and then let them go (like construction), or businesses that wind up going out of business but where the owner can at least lose less money (common in restaurants, cafes).