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Employees are negotiating from a vulnerable position when the options are "take pay cut or good luck finding a new job".

by Adirael 13y ago

mattstreet 13y ago
Add to that the "American Dream" of owning a house and therefore being more likely to be stuck looking for work in only one area.
pdonis 13y ago
You left out an option: start your own business. What the Reuters article tells me is that there is a large pool of available labor for new businesses to use. Why aren't more people taking advantage of this opportunity?
- unclebucknasty 13y ago
  Funny that you post that question on a forum full of people who know well from first-hand experience how difficult it is to start a successful business.
  - pdonis 13y ago
    I didn't say it wasn't difficult. Of course if the choice is between having a steady, reliable job and starting your own business, it's a lot easier to choose the steady, reliable job. But the whole point of the article in Reuters is that the job is not steady and reliable any more; that changes the relative risks involved. Also, to the extent that it's hard to start a business because of government regulation (which is a large extent), the obvious response is to remove the regulations that make it hard to start a business. That would mean more people starting businesses, hence more new jobs available for other people who are currently out of work. Funny how the Reuters article doesn't mention that.
    - unclebucknasty 13y ago
      >the whole point of the article in Reuters is that the job is not steady and reliable any more That's circular reasoning where this thread is concerned. People are saying here that corporations should be sharing the upside with employees. You are saying that since they are not, people should start businesses. You're changing the subject and giving the corporations a pass. >to the extent that it's hard to start a business because of government regulation (which is a large extent), the obvious response is to remove the regulations that make it hard to start a business. Sorry about the delay. Took me a while to wipe the vomit from keyboard. Seriously, while these regulatory complaints are something that we tend to hear from people with certain political affiliations, I challenge you to cite references to actual regulations that are to any "large extent" preventing actual small businesses from starting. In fact, the implication in the Reuter's article is that businesses are doing just fine in the current regulatory environment. They are more profitable than ever at the expense of the worker. And, I think the HN populace exemplifies the actual difficulty in starting successful businesses. I doubt many here will cite regulations as a key challenge. Instead, it's actual business problems, such as product development, finding market-fit, competition, marketing, lack of capital, inability to scale, etc.
      - unclebucknasty 13y ago
        Hmm. Downvoted, but no one actually refuted my assertions. Nice.
        alpeb 13y ago
        >Sorry about the delay. Took me a while to wipe the vomit from keyboard Not nice.
        unclebucknasty 13y ago
        Ah. Style points. I get it.
      - pdonis 13y ago
        People are saying here that corporations should be sharing the upside with employees. You are saying that since they are not, people should start businesses. That's part of what I'm saying, but not all. Another part of what I'm saying is that, if the premise is that current corporations are not sharing enough upside with employees, then one obvious response is to start a business that does share upside with employees. If that's really as big a deal as people are claiming, employees should flock to such a business. Only some of those who are now dissatisfied would actually have to start such businesses; the rest could simply choose to work for them because they treat employees better. I challenge you to cite references to actual regulations that are to any "large extent" preventing actual small businesses from starting. First of all, it's not just starting but growing businesses that should be less impeded by regulation. Sure, start a business with only a few employees and the burden might not be too bad (depending on what kind of business it is--see below); but hit a fairly small threshold number of employees and all of a sudden you have regulations galore that you have to comply with or a dozen government agencies will come after you. As for regulatory barriers to starting businesses, here are a few off the top of my head: professional licensing, even for professions like hairdressing where any putative benefit to the customer is far outweighed by the costs of the barrier to entry; zoning laws that clearly go way beyond any public benefit; government sweetheart deals for companies like cable providers, which prevent all kinds of competition in the ISP arena. That's just from a few minutes of brainstorming; I'm sure there are plenty more examples. the implication in the Reuter's article is that businesses are doing just fine in the current regulatory environment. That's because they (i.e., existing businesses) paid good money for the current regulatory environment. That does not at all imply that said environment is good for potential competitors of those existing businesses; if it were, they'd be complaining to their politicians that they weren't getting their money's worth. I doubt many here will cite regulations as a key challenge. Instead, it's actual business problems, such as product development, finding market-fit, competition, marketing, lack of capital, inability to scale, etc. But all of these business problems are also faced by existing businesses. Markets are not static; a product-market fit that worked fine yesterday might not work fine today, and businesses that serve their customers well often have to reinvent themselves. The response of many existing businesses (the music and movie industries being two outstanding examples), instead of reinventing themselves, is to try to outlaw their competition. The fact that those businesses continue to make profits even though there are obvious ways in which they are not serving their customers well (let alone their employees) indicates that their political efforts to get the playing field tilted in their favor have been successful.

Employees are negotiating from a vulnerable position when the options are "take pay cut or good luck finding a new job".

by Adirael 13y ago

Employees are negotiating from a vulnerable position when the options are "take pay cut or good luck finding a new job".

mattstreet 13y ago

Add to that the "American Dream" of owning a house and therefore being more likely to be stuck looking for work in only one area.

pdonis 13y ago

You left out an option: start your own business. What the Reuters article tells me is that there is a large pool of available labor for new businesses to use. Why aren't more people taking advantage of this opportunity?

unclebucknasty 13y ago
Funny that you post that question on a forum full of people who know well from first-hand experience how difficult it is to start a successful business.
- pdonis 13y ago
  I didn't say it wasn't difficult. Of course if the choice is between having a steady, reliable job and starting your own business, it's a lot easier to choose the steady, reliable job. But the whole point of the article in Reuters is that the job is not steady and reliable any more; that changes the relative risks involved. Also, to the extent that it's hard to start a business because of government regulation (which is a large extent), the obvious response is to remove the regulations that make it hard to start a business. That would mean more people starting businesses, hence more new jobs available for other people who are currently out of work. Funny how the Reuters article doesn't mention that.
  - unclebucknasty 13y ago
    >the whole point of the article in Reuters is that the job is not steady and reliable any more That's circular reasoning where this thread is concerned. People are saying here that corporations should be sharing the upside with employees. You are saying that since they are not, people should start businesses. You're changing the subject and giving the corporations a pass. >to the extent that it's hard to start a business because of government regulation (which is a large extent), the obvious response is to remove the regulations that make it hard to start a business. Sorry about the delay. Took me a while to wipe the vomit from keyboard. Seriously, while these regulatory complaints are something that we tend to hear from people with certain political affiliations, I challenge you to cite references to actual regulations that are to any "large extent" preventing actual small businesses from starting. In fact, the implication in the Reuter's article is that businesses are doing just fine in the current regulatory environment. They are more profitable than ever at the expense of the worker. And, I think the HN populace exemplifies the actual difficulty in starting successful businesses. I doubt many here will cite regulations as a key challenge. Instead, it's actual business problems, such as product development, finding market-fit, competition, marketing, lack of capital, inability to scale, etc.
    - unclebucknasty 13y ago
      Hmm. Downvoted, but no one actually refuted my assertions. Nice.
      - alpeb 13y ago
        >Sorry about the delay. Took me a while to wipe the vomit from keyboard Not nice.
        unclebucknasty 13y ago
        Ah. Style points. I get it.
    - pdonis 13y ago
      People are saying here that corporations should be sharing the upside with employees. You are saying that since they are not, people should start businesses. That's part of what I'm saying, but not all. Another part of what I'm saying is that, if the premise is that current corporations are not sharing enough upside with employees, then one obvious response is to start a business that does share upside with employees. If that's really as big a deal as people are claiming, employees should flock to such a business. Only some of those who are now dissatisfied would actually have to start such businesses; the rest could simply choose to work for them because they treat employees better. I challenge you to cite references to actual regulations that are to any "large extent" preventing actual small businesses from starting. First of all, it's not just starting but growing businesses that should be less impeded by regulation. Sure, start a business with only a few employees and the burden might not be too bad (depending on what kind of business it is--see below); but hit a fairly small threshold number of employees and all of a sudden you have regulations galore that you have to comply with or a dozen government agencies will come after you. As for regulatory barriers to starting businesses, here are a few off the top of my head: professional licensing, even for professions like hairdressing where any putative benefit to the customer is far outweighed by the costs of the barrier to entry; zoning laws that clearly go way beyond any public benefit; government sweetheart deals for companies like cable providers, which prevent all kinds of competition in the ISP arena. That's just from a few minutes of brainstorming; I'm sure there are plenty more examples. the implication in the Reuter's article is that businesses are doing just fine in the current regulatory environment. That's because they (i.e., existing businesses) paid good money for the current regulatory environment. That does not at all imply that said environment is good for potential competitors of those existing businesses; if it were, they'd be complaining to their politicians that they weren't getting their money's worth. I doubt many here will cite regulations as a key challenge. Instead, it's actual business problems, such as product development, finding market-fit, competition, marketing, lack of capital, inability to scale, etc. But all of these business problems are also faced by existing businesses. Markets are not static; a product-market fit that worked fine yesterday might not work fine today, and businesses that serve their customers well often have to reinvent themselves. The response of many existing businesses (the music and movie industries being two outstanding examples), instead of reinventing themselves, is to try to outlaw their competition. The fact that those businesses continue to make profits even though there are obvious ways in which they are not serving their customers well (let alone their employees) indicates that their political efforts to get the playing field tilted in their favor have been successful.