Talia Jane Writes Na Open letter to Her CEO

[Purple]

You can enact some laws to try and keep things balanced, but push too far, and the company will simply relocate to somewhere that's more advantageous to them. The other approach to make is to better educate young people on how, when, and where to try and start out on their own, while allowing them to simultaneously build up their own wealth and experience/skill set.

This argument really does not work well at all. Most minimum wage jobs aren't high technology or heavy industry or anything like that. They are going to be grocery stores and fast food chains and all sorts of other things that exist in any community and that in turn any community constantly provides a demand for. And a constant demand means a constant supply of customers and money. So no matter how hard you push someone is going to step up and fill that demand. It is very unrealistic to assume that all the grocery stores in a city are going to close down if you force them to triple employees wages because of the fact that they'll still make a profit and a huge one at that.

[salm]

There's a fundamental disconnect here - I personally do not feel that a person, working at an entry level job outside of their are of expertise/education, should be making enough to live alone in an expensive area.

And I feel that if a company wants to be located in an expensive area they damn well should pay to be in this expensive area. Why should the expensive area argument only count for employees? If you want your company to be located in a prestigous area like the Bay Area you should be prepared to pay higher wages.

You need to work that job, while sharing expenses and saving up, until you get enough experience to get a better job or move up in the company. Then, once you have that experience and a little cash saved up, you venture out on your own. I see this person as trying to jump several steps, then complaining when she falls flat on her face.

Here we fundamentally disagree, indeed. I think that if you don´t get compensated enough you should simply leave the company and live on unemployment benefits if possible until you find something adequat.

If she is complaining about not being able to afford heat and only eating rice, then this only serves to show that her priorities are screwed up. I'd be very interested to see an exact breakdown of her expenses. I've had to live on nothing but dollar store items before, and I can almost guarantee that we're not getting the full story.

People can cry that it's all the evil corporation's fault, and while I'm no fan, I don't think that's who is totally at fault, here.

To me it seems like the company payed for the liquor as it was for some event organized by the company.
Do you think Yelp is so stingy that they don´t even pay for company events like that? I wouldn´t put it beyond it as I´ve heard similarily bad things from christmas staff parties where the "party" consisted of a consultant giving a power point presentation about the new time-tracking system and the staff who were there in their free time as it was an evening event had to pay for drinks and food.

[biostem]

You can enact some laws to try and keep things balanced, but push too far, and the company will simply relocate to somewhere that's more advantageous to them. The other approach to make is to better educate young people on how, when, and where to try and start out on their own, while allowing them to simultaneously build up their own wealth and experience/skill set.

This argument really does not work well at all. Most minimum wage jobs aren't high technology or heavy industry or anything like that. They are going to be grocery stores and fast food chains and all sorts of other things that exist in any community and that in turn any community constantly provides a demand for. And a constant demand means a constant supply of customers and money. So no matter how hard you push someone is going to step up and fill that demand. It is very unrealistic to assume that all the grocery stores in a city are going to close down if you force them to triple employees wages because of the fact that they'll still make a profit and a huge one at that.

Yes - but with only 1/3rd the employees, (or less employees, anyway). Higher pay to the workers means higher prices to the customer, which means fewer customers - so you lay off some people to compensate and to keep your prices down. The CEO may be making a lot of money, but I can assure you that the supervisors and managers only make a little more than the regular employees, and you MUST have at least one or both of those per shift. Heck, many business take to having one of them fill in for employees that are either absent or had to be let go due to budgetary reasons.

[biostem]

Here we fundamentally disagree, indeed. I think that if you don´t get compensated enough you should simply leave the company and live on unemployment benefits if possible until you find something adequat.

So you advocate being a drain on the economy because you aren't willing to take a lesser job in an area closer to where you live? Look, I fully recognize that programs designed to help people live need to be revamped, but advocating simply going on unemployment because you can't find a job you like is selfish, IMO. To me, unemployment is for people who truly cannot find work or are otherwise incapable of working. Unless the company you were working for terminated you through no fault of your own, then you need to suck it up and wash dishes if you have to.

If I am misunderstanding your position, I apologize.

To me it seems like the company payed for the liquor as it was for some event organized by the company.
Do you think Yelp is so stingy that they don´t even pay for company events like that?

Companies do not typically ask some random phone reps to order liquor for their events - they usually have the HR person or supervisor/manager handle any ordering/catering for events, so no, I do not think the company paid for the liquor.

[Purple]

Yes - but with only 1/3rd the employees, (or less employees, anyway). Higher pay to the workers means higher prices to the customer, which means fewer customers - so you lay off some people to compensate and to keep your prices down. The CEO may be making a lot of money, but I can assure you that the supervisors and managers only make a little more than the regular employees, and you MUST have at least one or both of those per shift. Heck, many business take to having one of them fill in for employees that are either absent or had to be let go due to budgetary reasons.

Which is a symptom of a badly regulated, or rather not regulated enough economy. Minimum wage laws work just fine in the entire rest of the world. Where I am from grocery stores do not feel the need to close up, hike prices up or fire half their employees. Or rather they absolutely positively feel the need to do so but are not allowed to either through law or for cultural reasons.

[biostem]

Yes - but with only 1/3rd the employees, (or less employees, anyway). Higher pay to the workers means higher prices to the customer, which means fewer customers - so you lay off some people to compensate and to keep your prices down. The CEO may be making a lot of money, but I can assure you that the supervisors and managers only make a little more than the regular employees, and you MUST have at least one or both of those per shift. Heck, many business take to having one of them fill in for employees that are either absent or had to be let go due to budgetary reasons.

Which is a symptom of a badly regulated, or rather not regulated enough economy. Minimum wage laws work just fine in the entire rest of the world. Where I am from grocery stores do not feel the need to close up, hike prices up or fire half their employees. Or rather they absolutely positively feel the need to do so but are not allowed to either through law or for cultural reasons.

Really? How much does a basic loaf of bread cost where you are? What is the tax rate? Is the cost of basic necessities subsidized by the government? Just how many grocery stores do you have to choose from? Do you think the prices would be lower or higher if there was more competition among said markets?

We can tell anecdotes back and forth till we're both blue in the face. The fact of the matter is that people want lower prices, and when there are many people vying for the same job, you can offer less pay. It stinks, I know, but the answer is to get those people better skill sets and training, so they can work the better paying jobs. The low-end jobs are for those people that are just starting out. You shouldn't be working fast-food as a career, (except for maybe a shift or store manager).

No, I think a revamp of the educational system, like bringing back trade schools and offering free higher education for those that excel in grade school, is the answer.

[salm]

So you advocate being a drain on the economy because you aren't willing to take a lesser job in an area closer to where you live? Look, I fully recognize that programs designed to help people live need to be revamped, but advocating simply going on unemployment because you can't find a job you like is selfish, IMO. To me, unemployment is for people who truly cannot find work or are otherwise incapable of working. Unless the company you were working for terminated you through no fault of your own, then you need to suck it up and wash dishes if you have to.

If I am misunderstanding your position, I apologize.

If enough people work for exploitative companies these practices can survive. If enough people quit the job these practices will end. In the long run quitting the job and living on unemployment benefits is a lesser drain on society than asshole business practices.
Also note that I didn´t say a job "you like" but an "adequat" job, meaning a job that pays the bills in a decent work environment.

Companies do not typically ask some random phone reps to order liquor for their events - they usually have the HR person or supervisor/manager handle any ordering/catering for events, so no, I do not think the company paid for the liquor.

I don´t know It was for a baking contest so it could very well be that each participant bought the stuff they needed and were compensated later.
We´ll probably never find out but it´s not really that important in my opinion.

[Civil War Man]

Yeah, no, I don't think anybody will say that people deserve to be stuck in poverty because of bad decisions (well, anybody *reasonable*). I'm certainly not trying to say that or I wouldn't be thinking of the various options that could be available to people in similar situations.

The way I see it though, ignoring the way she got into that situation in the first place is ignoring that she shares some of the responsibility for getting into it herself. And her open letter seems to indicate that either she doesn't see it that way or she's simply not aware of that. Instead, she states it as "I'm screwed because my employer doesn't pay me enough". No mention of trying to find a different place to live, no mention of looking for a different job, no comment about trying to find assistance.

There is social responsibility-- and I agree that her employer seems to be in abrogation of that responsibility by not paying its employees a living wage-- but there is also a certain degree of personal responsibility involved here.

Now that that's said, yeah, she certainly doesn't deserve to be stuck in a perpetual cycle of poverty. There are very few people who deserve that. And she's hopefully young enough to make a fresh start. It's just going to take a lot of time and work, and/or alternatively, good fortune.

I wasn't saying that you personally were advocating that she live in poverty, but that the amount of responsibility she bears for her current situation is only relevant when trying to assign blame for it.

And the thing is, there is a compulsion in a lot of people to try to find a way to blame a poor person for their poverty in order to give themselves permission to not care about it. Because if they can define someone's poverty as some kind of moral failing, then they don't need to examine the societal structures that conspire to keep that person in poverty.

It's why you often see the problem described in a vacuum without consideration of outside factors. They say "They should just get a better job" or "They should just get a second job", when in some cases that job might not exist (or, like in Broomstick's example, actually result in them having less money than if they had no job at all). "They should move to a cheaper area" they say, assuming that cheaper accommodations a) exist, b) have no upfront relocation costs, and c) do not increase the length of the commute to the point where the increase in travel costs are greater than the reduction in rent.

It's why you see poor people who speak up have their expenses audited with a fine tooth comb, with every penny spent that went towards something that could be defined as a luxury used as evidence that they are not really poor, or that their poverty is entirely their fault. Much in the same way that someone who claims to have been raped has their entire sexual past dredged up so people can point at a past consensual act and try to use it as evidence that they are lying. In extreme cases, you have instances like a Fox News talking head that claimed the poor were not poor because most of them had a refrigerator or a microwave.

And the most insidious line of argument is the one where people go "B-but what about the poor company's profits?" Because in that case, the working poor are not even people. They are resources to be used at the company's whim. And in today's disposable economy, that means labor is like a toaster. You buy it cheap, use it until it can no longer function, and then throw it in the trash.

[biostem]

If enough people work for exploitative companies these practices can survive. If enough people quit the job these practices will end. In the long run quitting the job and living on unemployment benefits is a lesser drain on society than asshole business practices.
Also note that I didn´t say a job "you like" but an "adequat" job, meaning a job that pays the bills in a decent work environment.

We are talking about what amounts to unskilled labor, here. These are entry-level positions, and given that this person had no experience and is working in a field other than what she has her degree in, I'm assuming that most, if not all of the training is provided by the company, and that the employees are paid for it.

I do not think that such positions warrant you making enough to live in your own apartment in an expensive area. Unless I'm misunderstanding things, it appears to me that this person sought out this job as a "resume-builder", and got upset when she couldn't be totally self-sufficient with just that. I didn't see mention of her looking for a roommate, or even that she looked into any sort of financial aid or living assistance programs.

[General Zod]

Fat lot trade schools are going to do when all the trade jobs have gone overseas.

[biostem]

Much in the same way that someone who claims to have been raped has their entire sexual past dredged up so people can point at a past consensual act and try to use it as evidence that they are lying.

Four words - "Innocent until proven guilty" - I have no doubt that there are many rapes that go unreported, or that there are instances where a rapist gets away scot-free. It sucks, but unless you can prove that a rape occurred, then there's nothing you can do. It is the defense's job to provide the best case for their client, and sometimes that means tearing down the accuser's credibility. Unless, of course, you'd prefer we start treating people as guilty until proven innocent...

And the most insidious line of argument is the one where people go "B-but what about the poor company's profits?" Because in that case, the working poor are not even people. They are resources to be used at the company's whim. And in today's disposable economy, that means labor is like a toaster. You buy it cheap, use it until it can no longer function, and then throw it in the trash.

You understand that "labor" is a commodity, right? It's not dehumanizing to realize that people provide skills, and the more common those skills, the less they are worth to a company. You have to be objective here. Companies do not function under good will and happy thoughts - if they don't earn money, then they shut down, and everyone loses their job. You, as a worker, have to prove that you are worth more than what the company is paying you, if you want that raise.

[salm]

We are talking about what amounts to unskilled labor, here. These are entry-level positions, and given that this person had no experience and is working in a field other than what she has her degree in, I'm assuming that most, if not all of the training is provided by the company, and that the employees are paid for it.

I do not think that such positions warrant you making enough to live in your own apartment in an expensive area. Unless I'm misunderstanding things, it appears to me that this person sought out this job as a "resume-builder", and got upset when she couldn't be totally self-sufficient with just that. I didn't see mention of her looking for a roommate, or even that she looked into any sort of financial aid or living assistance programs.

And I do not think that merely being a company warrants you finding people to work for peanuts in an expensive area.
It´s an expensive area after all. Workforce in expensive areas is expensive. Or it should be.
If you want cheap labor go to cheap areas. Or buy robots.

[biostem]

We are talking about what amounts to unskilled labor, here. These are entry-level positions, and given that this person had no experience and is working in a field other than what she has her degree in, I'm assuming that most, if not all of the training is provided by the company, and that the employees are paid for it.

I do not think that such positions warrant you making enough to live in your own apartment in an expensive area. Unless I'm misunderstanding things, it appears to me that this person sought out this job as a "resume-builder", and got upset when she couldn't be totally self-sufficient with just that. I didn't see mention of her looking for a roommate, or even that she looked into any sort of financial aid or living assistance programs.

And I do not think that merely being a company warrants you finding people to work for peanuts in an expensive area.
It´s an expensive area after all. Workforce in expensive areas is expensive. Or it should be.
If you want cheap labor go to cheap areas. Or buy robots.

No. A company can damn-well open a facility wherever they please. The cost to live in that area has no bearing on what the skills of the workers that you are looking for are worth.

Why is it so hard to grasp that it is the rarity of the skill or skills that determines their worth?

[salm]

Companies do not function under good will and happy thoughts - if they don't earn money, then they shut down, and everyone loses their job. You, as a worker, have to prove that you are worth more than what the company is paying you, if you want that raise.

No, no, Asshole companies don´t function under good will and happy thoughts.
Good companies function very well under good will and happy thoughts.

[salm]

We are talking about what amounts to unskilled labor, here. These are entry-level positions, and given that this person had no experience and is working in a field other than what she has her degree in, I'm assuming that most, if not all of the training is provided by the company, and that the employees are paid for it.

I do not think that such positions warrant you making enough to live in your own apartment in an expensive area. Unless I'm misunderstanding things, it appears to me that this person sought out this job as a "resume-builder", and got upset when she couldn't be totally self-sufficient with just that. I didn't see mention of her looking for a roommate, or even that she looked into any sort of financial aid or living assistance programs.

And I do not think that merely being a company warrants you finding people to work for peanuts in an expensive area.
It´s an expensive area after all. Workforce in expensive areas is expensive. Or it should be.
If you want cheap labor go to cheap areas. Or buy robots.

No. A company can damn-well open a facility wherever they please. The cost to live in that area has no bearing on what the skills of the workers that you are looking for are worth.

Like mentioned a gazillion times before it obviously and unfortunately is a functioning business strategy to exploit employees. But you´re still an asshole company wheras other companies are not asshole comapanies.

[General Zod]

Let's use my own situation as an example using some hypothetical numbers.

Suppose I pay $800 a month in rent for a room in Brooklyn. Could I find one cheaper? Well, let's see. Maybe I could get a room somewhere out in Long Island for $600. The downside? It adds another hour to my commute and I'd have to pay for a LIRR card which could add an additional $150 to $200 to my expenses for my commute.

So what about Jersey? Well, in Jersey they have a separate transit system from the Metro. If I'm lucky enough to find a room in Jersey for $600, I'd have to add on the cost of a PATH card, which is about $120 a month additional. So I've just added at least a half hour onto my commute for a savings of $80. Maybe I move a little further out in Jersey and find somewhere for $500. Now I have to contend with the light-rail system which doesn't have a monthly pass and costs $2.25 per trip. To make it even better it shuts down after 11pm.

As much as people like to say "lol just move dipshit" I think that's just an excuse so they can make themselves feel better about shitting all over someone.

[Kingmaker]

Do you really think nuking every job that fails to meet this criterion is going to be a net benefit to the people working them? This seems like the dumbest possible solution to the problem.

If you have an alternative solution feel free to share.

Doing literally nothing would be a superior solution, since taking away the apparent near-best of a collection of shitty choices is not going to be welfare improving for the people involved. I'm still not really clear on what the point of this would be beyond punishing corporations for employing cheap labor. It's certainly not helping anyone.

A more proactive option would be improving EITC or (implementing a NIT, if you're really ambitious). Getting major cities to implement sane housing policies wouldn't hurt either. Or just bite the bullet and accept that it's probably not worth paying Americans to do certain jobs and you're better off letting the Indians do it and handing out TAA to the American call center workers.

[General Zod]

Do you really think nuking every job that fails to meet this criterion is going to be a net benefit to the people working them? This seems like the dumbest possible solution to the problem.

If you have an alternative solution feel free to share.

Doing literally nothing would be a superior solution, since taking away the apparent near-best of a collection of shitty choices is not going to be welfare improving for the people involved. I'm still not really clear on what the point of this would be beyond punishing corporations for employing cheap labor. It's certainly not helping anyone.

A more proactive option would be improving EITC or (implementing a NIT, if you're really ambitious). Getting major cities to implement sane housing policies wouldn't hurt either. Or just bite the bullet and accept that it's probably not worth paying Americans to do certain jobs and you're better off letting the Indians do it and handing out TAA to the American call center workers.

I actually agree about the housing problem. I think that if you do anything to improve people's wages landlords are just going to jack up their rates in order to price gouge people more and we'll be right back where we started. But nobody in this thread seemed willing to touch on the housing issue because it's easier to shit all over people for making bad choices.

[amigocabal]

I'm not talking about the choices that got her there, I'm talking about acting like she has a choice of going anywhere else. I mean it's pretty clear she already tried to escape one bad situation and wound up in a shittier? Just as shitty? situation.

OK, misread that.

Well. Frankly, yeah, staying in that situation *is* a choice. There's not much detail given, but assuming that she's single, has a decent relationship with at least SOME family, and her income is at the level stated (though she has apparently been fired so yeah)... there are options. She can ask to move in with family or friends (her father lives nearby, apparently). She could file unemployment and apply for food stamps and any other welfare programs available in California, Section 8 or some such for rent assistance. She can browse Craigslist and whatever other online directories there are for people seeking roommates or cheaper apartments. She could sell that car that apparently she's not getting much use out of anyway for junk and get a couple hundred dollars out of it if she needs cash to move.

There are always options, up to and including couch-surfing. Are they always good/easy/fun? Hell no. But you do what you have to when you have to survive.

Honestly, at the end of the day I simply don't care about the choices that got her there. Employers are able to get away with paying slave wages because people like you are more than happy to make excuses for them.

Here is the thing.

So many people want to get the best deal for their money whenever they buy things, from potatoes to wine to automobiles, and yes, when they hire contractors.

How could those same people point the finger at employers for doing exactly what they themselves do?

[General Zod]

Here is the thing.

So many people want to get the best deal for their money whenever they buy things, from potatoes to wine to automobiles, and yes, when they hire contractors.

How could those same people point the finger at employers for doing exactly what they themselves do?

There's a difference between wanting to get the best deal you can afford, and being a penny pinching cheapskate.

[Simon_Jester]

I do care that there are so many companies that underpay their employees, because even if this Talia person did not have to take the job there are other people who might have had to take them. And simply stating that they should all just get a second job is absurd. A job is supposed to house and feed people. You´re not supposed to need two jobs.

It's not unreasonable as such for a given individual to work two jobs.

What is unreasonable is when this becomes a normative, common expectation for the lower class in our whole society. There are three problems with that...

1) This can pose literally impossible problems of the "cannot serve two masters" kind. For instance, Yelp runs its call center 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Some of their employees no doubt work unusual hours. This may make it difficult if not impossible to find a second employer willing to hire them in a schedule that is compatible both with the existing Yelp job and with getting regular sleep.

2) Done on a large scale, the practice of taking two jobs destroys the vaunted 'job creation' of a modern economy. If you create five million jobs, but force five million members of the lower classes to work two jobs each, you haven't actually created any jobs or done anything about unemployment.

3) This becomes a stealthy way to ask the lower class to work longer hours than the law would allow. People who work seventy hours a week at one job get paid major overtime, and rightly so- because seventy hours a week is a punishing schedule that allows no time for anything other than work, sleep, and personal maintenance. It is not just 7/4 times as burdensome as working a mere forty hours.

But people who work seventy hours at two or three jobs make no overtime. They hit diminishing returns at some point, in that they have to neglect themselves physically or mentally in order to work another hour of work... and another... and another. This is very prejudicial to the well-being of the lower class.

If we expect the poor to work sixty or seventy hours a week as a routine condition of their existence, the way we did in the Gilded Age, then we should at least have the decency to say so openly.

Funny, isn't it - when a wealthy person or business rejects something that would result in a net loss they're hailed as wise and making a good fiscal decision. If a poor person does the same they're a horrible loathsome scumbug or something.

My paranoid side thinks this has been done deliberately to provide an exploitable underclass for cheap labor and sucking off money/profits but I don't really think there's a cabal of evil businessmen making these decisions, not really. That's just a nightmare I have when worried about how to pay the bills.

There's a cabal of evil businessmen quietly encouraging it, but they didn't invent it and it doesn't take much effort to push it. Because it ties into fairly basic human tendencies. Monkeys like to fling poo at designated outcast pariah monkeys. And our evolution into modern humans did nothing to discourage that habit. And in a society where only 10-20% of the community is dirt poor, the dirt poor will become the outcast pariah primates.

There's a fundamental disconnect here - I personally do not feel that a person, working at an entry level job outside of their are of expertise/education, should be making enough to live alone in an expensive area.

So only people with five years' experience, working inside their area of expertise, should be able to live in such areas?

Who's going to clean toilets in those areas? Who staffs the grocery stores? When people graduate from college in such areas, they should not be able to live independently? Is Ms. Jane's mistake that she should have rushed into a marriage with a nice man who was willing to support her, like she would have needed to do to make ends meet back in the '50s?

Moreover, there's a separate problem, which is that empirically, the minimum wage jobs are NOT occupied solely by people "just starting" their lives. They are occupied by thirtysomethings and fortysomethings in considerable numbers. They are occupied by sixtysomethings who can't afford to retire. If "the plan" is for minimum wage jobs to be stepping-stones for people who can still afford to live on ramen noodles in an unventilated garret somewhere, the plan isn't working.

In which case we cannot set a (low) minimum wage on the assumption that the plan is working.

Yes - but with only 1/3rd the employees, (or less employees, anyway). Higher pay to the workers means higher prices to the customer, which means fewer customers - so you lay off some people to compensate and to keep your prices down. The CEO may be making a lot of money, but I can assure you that the supervisors and managers only make a little more than the regular employees, and you MUST have at least one or both of those per shift. Heck, many business take to having one of them fill in for employees that are either absent or had to be let go due to budgetary reasons.

When one business does this, that's a supply-demand issue, and you do indeed get situations where tripling the workers' pay means you have to raise prices and cut staff dramatically.

That's because no individual merchant can significantly change the supply-demand curve for labor in an entire economy.

When the local or national government steps in and legislates changes in the price of labor (that is to say, changes the minimum wage), this can alter supply-demand curves. A significant fraction of all workers in the area have just become significantly wealthier, increasing demand for goods. People who were already making considerably more money than that will comparatively be worse off as a direct result- but there can be indirect benefits to this anyway.

I mean, that is literally the entire story of the Industrial Revolution and its twentieth century aftermath. Rising economic productivity permitted wider consumption of goods, which in turn motivated production of goods.

There's very little market for goods other than subsistence items in an economy where everyone except the aristocrats is dirt poor. Conversely, a thriving economy will necessarily be one that supplies the great bulk of its citizens with a living wage.

It's why you see poor people who speak up have their expenses audited with a fine tooth comb, with every penny spent that went towards something that could be defined as a luxury used as evidence that they are not really poor, or that their poverty is entirely their fault. Much in the same way that someone who claims to have been raped has their entire sexual past dredged up so people can point at a past consensual act and try to use it as evidence that they are lying. In extreme cases, you have instances like a Fox News talking head that claimed the poor were not poor because most of them had a refrigerator or a microwave.

Huh. That analogy occurred to me too...

Much in the same way that someone who claims to have been raped has their entire sexual past dredged up so people can point at a past consensual act and try to use it as evidence that they are lying.

Four words - "Innocent until proven guilty" - I have no doubt that there are many rapes that go unreported, or that there are instances where a rapist gets away scot-free. It sucks, but unless you can prove that a rape occurred, then there's nothing you can do. It is the defense's job to provide the best case for their client, and sometimes that means tearing down the accuser's credibility. Unless, of course, you'd prefer we start treating people as guilty until proven innocent...

...Because this argument is disingenuous.

The problem here isn't just that lawyers do this in court. It's when the same thing is being done in the court of public opinion.

The only purpose served by taking the plaintiffs in rape cases and trying to slut-shame them in public is to deter women from reporting rapes, and to discourage listeners from taking such reports seriously.

The only purpose served by taking people who complain about their sub-living wages and trying to WELFAREQUEEN-shame them in public is to deter people from complaining about being poor. And to discourage listeners from taking such complaints seriously.

It does not serve the long-term interests of American civilization to deter the poor from complaining about their lot in life. And it certainly doesn't serve the long-term interests of American civilization to discourage the rest of Americans from hearing what the poor have to say about their lot in life.

And the most insidious line of argument is the one where people go "B-but what about the poor company's profits?" Because in that case, the working poor are not even people. They are resources to be used at the company's whim. And in today's disposable economy, that means labor is like a toaster. You buy it cheap, use it until it can no longer function, and then throw it in the trash.

You understand that "labor" is a commodity, right? It's not dehumanizing to realize that people provide skills, and the more common those skills, the less they are worth to a company. You have to be objective here. Companies do not function under good will and happy thoughts - if they don't earn money, then they shut down, and everyone loses their job. You, as a worker, have to prove that you are worth more than what the company is paying you, if you want that raise.

Labor is a commodity, but labor is a unique commodity in that it represents the livelihood of actual humans.

Melting down steel that no longer serves your needs is called recycling.
Melting down a corporate structure that no longer serves your needs is called good financial sense.
Melting down laborers that no longer serve your needs is an atrocity.

Commodities that reflect on the basic quality of life for all humans (clean air and water, the protection of organized military and police forces, and yes, labor) are different than commodities which some humans can choose not to use, or can choose to use differently. It can be fully appropriate to regulate these 'markets' for the public good, in ways that other markets are not regulated.

[salm]

It's not unreasonable as such for a given individual to work two jobs.

What is unreasonable is when this becomes a normative, common expectation for the lower class in our whole society. There are three problems with that...

Yes, I agree.

[Civil War Man]

Four words - "Innocent until proven guilty" - I have no doubt that there are many rapes that go unreported, or that there are instances where a rapist gets away scot-free. It sucks, but unless you can prove that a rape occurred, then there's nothing you can do. It is the defense's job to provide the best case for their client, and sometimes that means tearing down the accuser's credibility. Unless, of course, you'd prefer we start treating people as guilty until proven innocent...

There's a difference between "innocent until proven guilty" and "let's throw whatever shit we can at the accuser in hopes of poisoning the well against them." Who someone had sex with a year ago has no relevance on whether they were raped last week, and a poor person doesn't become somehow less poor because their situation is a result of a mistake they made.

Going more into the whole rape thing is a bit of a tangent, though. I only brought it up because there's the same pattern of conducting a smear campaign against the person who speaks out in order to try to poison the well.

You understand that "labor" is a commodity, right? It's not dehumanizing to realize that people provide skills, and the more common those skills, the less they are worth to a company. You have to be objective here. Companies do not function under good will and happy thoughts - if they don't earn money, then they shut down, and everyone loses their job. You, as a worker, have to prove that you are worth more than what the company is paying you, if you want that raise.

Ah yes, the old "labor is a commodity" argument, where a worker's value is derived from how much profit can be extracted from their labor. How could that possibly be dehumanizing?

You might not want to jump down that rabbit hole so quickly, because it goes to some very dark places.

Also, the idea that a company should be pursuing profit at all costs is pretty twisted. When you start with that mindset, money is no longer a resource to be used to advance society as a whole, but an end in and of itself. It leads to the sort of neo-Calvinist social Darwinist mindset that views wealth as a virtue, and by contrast views poverty as a moral failing on the part of the poor person.

No. A company can damn-well open a facility wherever they please. The cost to live in that area has no bearing on what the skills of the workers that you are looking for are worth.

Why is it so hard to grasp that it is the rarity of the skill or skills that determines their worth?

The reason an area has a higher cost of living is typically due to the infrastructure and amenities that are present there. By saying that a company has no obligation to support the ability of their workers to actually survive, you are arguing that they should be allowed to reap all of the benefits of operating there, but be exempted from supporting the infrastructure that makes their profits possible.

[His Divine Shadow]

Well they are the true parasites on society after all.

[Broomstick]

I am reminded of one my unemployment episodes from a couple years back. A fellow poster on another message board offered me some work on his property for minimum wage. I added up the cost of driving there and back, and found that even if I slept in my car and ate minimally I'd lose money by taking that job. It would cost me more to get there and back than I would earn.

So I thanked him for his offer and declined.

Cue shitstorm: I was lazy, grasping, greedy, stupid, etc. etc. because I wouldn't take a job that would cost me money. Huh, so I wasn't desperate and therefore didn't deserve help or sympathy! It got personal and ugly.

Funny, isn't it - when a wealthy person or business rejects something that would result in a net loss they're hailed as wise and making a good fiscal decision. If a poor person does the same they're a horrible loathsome scumbug or something.

So I'm assuming you immediately hit the pavement and scoured the local area for a job, and took the first one that would hire you, then?

Oh, sure - I'd been hitting the pavement (and the internet) looking for work for quite some time before and after that, too. Did a lot of odd jobs, temp jobs, scavenged pop cans alongside the road...

I took jobs that would hire me and net a profit for me. No one can afford to work at a loss.

You're correct we're not getting the whole story with Ms. Jane... but I also think people are way too quick to judge, too.