🎓 Dr. Freemo 🇳🇱 @freemo@social.cleverlibre.org

@trinsec

Companies arent charities.. if you dont provide the value of minimum wage no company should be obligated to donate charity to you so you can have a living wage...

For starters, no we wont "always be a job needing cleaners"... we are very quickly getting to a world where low-skill labour will not exist in a few decades

Two I have no issue with jobs existing that dont provide enough value to make a living wage. Those jobs should be stepping stone jobs.. they should be done as an extra job on the side, or by children who dont have skills yet, or to temporarily suppliment welfare while one goes to school... A no-skill job should **never** be a life long career, and the government should provide the means to make sure that is the case fairly by giving the means to obtain better skills.

@jimvernon

@trinsec

> (Big) Companies have a lot of power already. Individual workers have considerably less power. Them working together (and forming an union) protects them against the power of companies. Especially big companies.

Actually no, they have far less power than individuals... they cant vote, they get taxed double, they dont have human rights and protections, there is no concept of minimum wage where a company is garunteed to make a minimum amount of money at their venture.... overall large companies have far less rights and powers than individuals.

> You’re talking about antitrust and such, but how does that protect the workers? Will they even bother with the individual workers? A sole worker doesn’t have an army of lawyers behind them to do what is right. An union does.

Antitrust protects the worker because it makes it illegal for companies to "unionize" and fix worker wages. If it werent for anti-trust laws companies could create a coalition and all companies could agree to never pay any of its employees more than minimum wage. Since its a coalition a worker cant just go and quit and work somewhere else, since all companies "unionized" in this scenario and the wage would be the same... It stops wage competition... anti-trust laws make this illegal.

> I only have to look at the USA and see how things are shit for the workers in anti-Union states. How would that get fixed anytime soon? Individual workers can hardly demand improvements like an union can. They just get fired and other victims get hired.

There are no "anti-union" states.. unions are legal in all states.

> No, somehow I’m really not convinced by your arguments. We’ve already got running examples of what you think should have been, and we can see it’s not really an improvement to those workers there.

Examples? I know of no place that has what I suggest which is 1) Strong and enforced anti-trust laws 2) Unions are likewise illegal

Unions are currently legal in all states, and anti-trust laws are enforced minimally at best. So no where I know of has these 2 qualities.

@jimvernon

The what now... They are paid less because minimum wage makes it impossible to hire them at the value they provide. Companies arent charities, they will only hire a person if they provide enough value to pay for themselves and then some. It isnt greed to want people to pull their own weight, nor is it greed to pay someone what their work is worth.

Now there is an issue that there are poor people being paid so low, that is no doubt. But that issue isnt the fault of companies, its the government's for not providing easy access to skill-development for those people. free education would be a nice start, but welfare and other support channels need to be engaged to ensure those people can invest the time into education at all.

@trinsec

@trinsec The idea is the same even when you talk about other features... and it works the same on the flip-side with antitrust... companies might not create coalitions just to price-fix, maybe they want to sell their product at the same price but be allowed to use all sorts of dangerous chemicals, or build it with cheap parts.. The concept is the same even beyond price-fixing, its just easier to talk in price fixing terms.

@SteelFolk Yes they have a wider role in the UK, netherlands, and much of the world... In fact I had the UK in mind when I started to realize maybe I should be anti-union afterall.

@trinsec You wont have strikes, strikes shouldnt be allowed, that is price-fixing and would be no different than companies organizing together and refusing to give their services at the market price...

Now you CAN have protests, and those get organized all the time. So nothing stopping people from protesting these issues still.

@freepeoplesfreepress I'd argue unions arent needed due to a failure of the USA to "reign in big business"... all that means is we need to start enforcing anti-trust laws. Otherwise we get into the flip side where if unions are allowed than companies are completely justified in what they do as well.

@trinsec

> *Giggles* Self-checkout machines are starting to fall in disfavor around here because theft is hugely on the rise due to inflation. Those companies aren't saving anything, just as a funny aside.

Thats the thing there are plenty of downsides to self-checkout... which is why many store owners might be resistant to it. But the more you price-fix the cost of labour with minimum wage the more those down-sides are worth it since there is a point where the costs balance out.

When there is a shortage of workers you dont need unions, thats the point, market pressures increase your pay as is since companies now need to compete to hire you aware... So there really is no good argument for needing unions in that scenario.

@kst There are issues around poverty and people not making enough.. but those are problems that should be solved outside of the mechanics we discuss here.

@trinsec No its pretty universal in the world... It isnt the result of high-education people getting hired for low skilled jobs. It is instead the fact that high-education positions that automate low-skilled jobs emerge. People are hired to build self-chekout machines and to maintain them, and the cashiers loose their job entierly. As minimum wage increases this accelerates.

@trinsec Because minimum wage is well known to cause unemployment shifts towards the poor... Higher minimum wage means hiring shifts so that fewer poor/low-educated people are hired and more higher-education people are hired. Minimum wage effectively increases unemployment amongst the group of people that you are trying to help (the poor) doing more harm than good.

@LWFlouisa Well that would be consistent at least.

@trinsec Everyone wants more, everyone thinks they arent treated fair. Companies think they pay too much for employees and may just as well view themselves as the one not getting fair treatment.

The anti-trust laws on companies is specifically there to ensure fair market value (no price fixing), so thats already how they get fair treatment.

I am also against minimum wage, it has caused enormous harm to the poor.

@jtb No its not, but other aspects dont need unions, you can organize for other purposes, thats fine.

I have always been a big supporter of #unions but lately I have been second-guessing that and debating with myself if I might actually change my views to be against unions....

My thinking is simple.. I am a huge supporter of anti-trust laws. Essentially I dont think companies should be allowed to create coalitions with the intention of price-fixing the market. This makes sense to me, companies **must** compete or else they can become too powerful.

If i believe in that logic then I should, by similar logic, be against unions. Unions are effectively large groups of people getting together to carry out price-fixing of their labour.

@jerry I own the docker hub organization for this, its even free as an open-source plan... I really need to find the dev so I can transfer it to him.

@admitsWrongIfProven Appreciate it.

@admitsWrongIfProven Its not a feature, its totally unrelated to us.

@admitsWrongIfProven nope :)