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

@JonKramer

We already know from expiernce that doesnt work. We created anti-trust laws with very good reason, because when they are allowed to coordinate and price fix the markets collapse.

@trinsec

@JonKramer

No one is forced to work against their will, you can quit anytime, you can walk out anytime, you can threaten not to work until your demands are met.. this is all well and good. As long as you dont do it as a union (coordinated and organized).

Same on the anti-trust side.. companies are free to charge higher than market value on any product they want. But the second companies create coalitions and agree to fix the price for all the coalitions mutual benefit, it becomes illegal.

@trinsec

@JonKramer

No higher minimum wage does not put more money into the economy. At best it doesnt really effect the market much, at worse it harms it.

@trinsec

@JonKramer By that logic you should throw away anti-trust laws for the same reason.

Company coalitions and price-fixing would have competition with other coalitions. I can choose to buy from one coalition or another. I as a worker can choose to take their 1$/hr offer or not and always go somewhere else. The coalition provides a service, the means of production, if the buyer doesnt like it they can pay a different company, etc etc...

Sadly that doesnt work in reality because coalitions, like unions, can grow to encompass a whole geographic region and therefore eliminate any real competition.

Unions, like coalitions, are a sign of an unregulated market.. not a sign of a free market, these are different things. The market has been hijacked and the free market pressures have been price-fixed in both cases.

@freepeoplesfreepress

Different laws but more closely related than you may think.

Without anti-trust laws companies could have created coalitions which then could have been used to prevent the worker protection laws from every coming to light. The anti-trust laws are what stop companies from gaining complete control and power and in turn are why we can function to keep them in check at all.

@trinsec

The difference is we already have the tech, its already proven it can be done and its already out int he field doing what it does... so its not speculation, it is reality, and it is here. The only step left is mass production and refinement.

We already have robots that can walk around, open doors, manipulate objects.. they are a hair away from being as capable as humans.

Hell even in the netherlands you have 100% automated cleaning locations that dont need robots either. For example there are bathrooms that **never** need anyone to clean them because they fully automate their own cleaning.

@jimvernon

@jimvernon

It doesnt get rid of labour it shifts it to higher-skilled labour.

We have had automation for thousands of years as part of each step in technology.. Thousands of years ago plumbing was invented, for example, and that was automation very similar to todays.. It put an entire domain of work out of business and replaced it with more skilled people who made pipes, assembled them, fixed and cleaning them, etc. Yes one person can now do the work of 100 its true, but this increased productivity meant people were free to invent new things with new workers.. Its no surprise that despite that automation there was no utopia where no one worked, not then, not now... despite popular beleif it isnt going to eliminate jobs, it will just shift the type of jobs.

@trinsec

@freepeoplesfreepress Of course the laws protect them...if they are enforced... they do nothing when not enforced.... therein lies the problem.

@trinsec

> There are plenty of people who will never have the intellectual capacity to grow beyond a cleaner's job. You're kinda telling them to fuck off here.

Nah, there is no one who is incapable of skills. Technical knowledge is only one very narrow type of skill. There are social skills, artistic skills, wood working skills, tons of skills. Anyone who is truly incapable of acquiring any skills of any kind would be too incapable to even do a cleaning job. I cant tell you how many people who were very low in IQ and do beautiful art.

This is a cop-out I just cant agree with, its out of touch with the reality of their abilities... As for those jobs in a few decades... I think you may be out of touch with just how far robotics has come, a decade will be MORE than enough for robots to have the dexterity and capabilty of humans enough to be able to fully automate cleaning tasks. Hell we are surprisingly close now.

@jimvernon

@trinsec The assumption is that we are obligated to have a competent government... If we assume the government isnt competent then why bother with laws at all.

> And examples.. well I’ve read about the work conditions of Amazon workers, for example. How can that even exist? It’d not be doable here. Not legally.

There are plenty of issues you could find... but again unions are legal in every state so the issues are out of band for this discussion, but agreed they need addressing.

Similarly I couldnt support myself off a Dutch wage, I got paid 1/3 the market value int he netherlands... now its closer to 1/10th... So there are some pretty glaring issues in a highly unionized country too.

@voidabyss I dont think clean safe work should have anything to do with unions. The govt should ensure that.

> Corporations could be involved in wage-fixing the labor market in their favor as well.

If they did this would be illegal and against anti-trust laws.

@VoxDei

People can refuse to work.. as long as

1) It isnt unionized (done through organized coordination)
2) The company is free to fire you for not coming to work

Since i am mirroring this with anti-trust laws that I support thats like saying "price-fixing is just companies choosing to charge more or pay less".. and like the above example this is true.. and yes companies can set whatever prices they want.. but again they arent allowed to 1) organize with other companies to set prices 2) you are free to buy from competition

@trinsec

@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.