Regulating indoor tanning?

[Broomstick]

What is this "employment contract" of which you speak? Until you get to upper executive (VP or higher) this does not exist in the US. That is a very small percentage of the population.

Admittedly I'm not familiar with the US legal system, but if there is no contract then your employer can't oblige you to work, and isn't obliged to pay your wages. So I really doubt that.

You are incorrect. Trust me, I've been working in the the US for 30 years now in a variety of occupations. The Federal and State governments obligate the employer to pay the employee for work performed. No contract is required to compel this, as labor law compels it. Thus, most employers do NOT sign an employment contract with their employees, and in fact when you are hired for a job just about every piece of paperwork you receive explicitly states that you do not have any form of employment contract, explicit or implied.

Since employment is "at will" by both parties you need not show up to work if you don't want to. You can't be forced to work. If you just don't show up there is no breach of contract. However, since you did not work for that time you will not be paid for it, and your employer is not obliged to continuing employing you, either.

Of course, with next to no social safety net almost no one will just up and quit a job. You need to work if you don't want to be sleeping on the sidewalk and eating out of trashpiles behind restaurants.

For the vast majority of people in the US the employer dictates the terms of employment and you take it or leave it. Most states are "at will" employment states, meaning your employer can terminate your job at any time for any lawful reason - pretty much anything other than religion, gender, certain age limits, and race/ethnicity.

No, it's a just a supply/demand function like any other. If the employer could "dictate" terms of employment they wouldn't pay you anything at all, and you would be a slave.

Simon Jester explained this sufficiently.

[Serafina]

*sigh* Pure supply/demand doesn't work everywhere. It doesn't work in health care, but more importantly it doesn't work on the employment market either.
Why?
Because the employer (nearly) always has more power than the employee. If the employee does not want to work, then he has no money and therefore no food, housing etc. - and the employer just has to look for someone else.
The odds of an employer finding someone else to work for him are generally much better than the odds of the employee finding another job.
Supply/demand/market economoy is based on the ability to choose. The employer has it, the employee doesn't - if he does not work, he wil starve etc.

And if the employers just stick together, they can keep things like wages, healthcare or work security low. Since keeping those low is in their own interest, they are quite likely to do it - unless they have to offer incentives to get more employees, but that's rare.

That's why you need laws, contracts and labour unions to strenghten the power of the employees. Apparenlty, if i am understanding Broomstick correctly, the USA have very little of those.

[PeZook]

I still have no idea what Broomstick means by "there's no contract". How can you take your employer to court if he, say, decides he won't pay you for three months, if there's no written contract?

Does it mean there's no negotiable agreement, so the employee just signs in and is considered employed on "Set of rules for state X", or that in most states you just come to work and don't sign an agreement at all?

[Serafina]

I still have no idea what Broomstick means by "there's no contract". How can you take your employer to court if he, say, decides he won't pay you for three months, if there's no written contract?

Apparently because there is a law that demands that he pays for work done.

Does it mean there's no negotiable agreement, so the employee just signs in and is considered employed on "Set of rules for state X", or that in most states you just come to work and don't sign an agreement at all?

Apparently, something like that. Perhaps it's not even a written contract, just an oral one. But i think Broomstick can clarify this - i would love to learn more about this.

[PeZook]

Apparently because there is a law that demands that he pays for work done.

Well, yeah. It's just that...how do you prove you agreed did the work? All the employer has to do is not document it

In Poland you have to have an agreement in writing. Lots of employers (especially in seasonal work and the like) flagrantly abuse their employees by promising them an agreement, and then just letting them go after a month or so. Whoops! Can't prove you ever agreed to work there!

Of course many see requirements such as written contracts, etc to be stifling to business, but whatever.

Apparently, something like that. Perhaps it's not even a written contract, just an oral one. But i think Broomstick can clarify this - i would love to learn more about this.

If all you need is an oral agreement, it's virtually certain there's rampant abuse going on throughout the American economy.

[Simon_Jester]

*sigh* Pure supply/demand doesn't work everywhere. It doesn't work in health care, but more importantly it doesn't work on the employment market either.

Well.

It could work in situations where economists treated supply and demand the way physicists treat, say, interactions between gas molecules. In physics, chemistry, and so forth, when we see interesting "not as planned" behaviors, we take an interest, analyze what's going on, and try to come up with a model for the deviations from the original model. We're forced to do that, because the hard sciences deal with things that obstinately refuse to obey simplistic models. We can't pretend our models work and then blame people for ignoring our advice.

Now, it may well be that professional economists do the same thing. That they actually sit down and do the hard work of finding the fringe cases where their model fails and adding new ideas to it, making it more complicated but more accurate. That would be good.

But the sort of economics knowledge we so often get around here, from people like Conk, doesn't. Instead, we get people who insist that even the most rudimentary, simplistic economic models have so much predictive power that they don't need to refine their models; pure supply/demand curves explain everything.

That strikes me as a bit odd. It takes five or six years' worth of college courses to add enough layers of sophistication for a person to understand subjects like quantum mechanics or relativity fully: the ones that really explain how the world works. Why should it only take one or two years of economics courses to explain The True Secrets of Economics? Why shouldn't there be problems in economics that cannot be modeled by a pure supply/demand curve, variables that distort the curve?

Why do people like Conk seem to have so much vested interest in denying that anything could distort market forces, other than government interventions to screw up the market?

That's why you need laws, contracts and labour unions to strenghten the power of the employees. Apparenlty, if i am understanding Broomstick correctly, the USA have very little of those.

We have a lot compared to, say, 1830 Britain, but not a lot compared to, say, Germany.

[Broomstick]

That's why you need laws, contracts and labour unions to strenghten the power of the employees. Apparenlty, if i am understanding Broomstick correctly, the USA have very little of those.

There are several layers of labor laws in the US. There are Federal laws which, of course, take precedence over all others. These are generally obeyed, even feared, by employers because they actually are enforced and failure to comply can, and has, resulted in violators going to jail.

There are also state level laws, and local laws.

As an example of this - currently the Federal minimum wage is $7.25 so in any state you must pay your employees at least that amount per hour (there are a couple exceptions, but we'll ignore them for the moment). If a state does not have its own minimum wage law, then the Federal one applies. As an examples, Mississippi and Alabama do not have minium wage laws, so in those states the minimum is set by the Federal government. Oregon, however, has a minimum wage of $8.40 per hour. Alaska's minimum wage is always $0.50 above the Federal level. Here is a list with a little bit of explanation in spots for those who may be interested.

Federal laws also regulate things like minium break time and overtime.

We do have labor unions, but they are not nearly as strong as in Europe. In some areas they actually predominate, such as primary education, but there the employees do not sign individual contracts, they bargain and sign collectively. This again puts the individual in the situation of take it or leave it. I don't want to get into the history of unions in the US (which is quite bloody, actually) but suffice to say that not only are they not terribly powerful (desptie management whining to the contrary) but entire categories of workers are forbidden to join unions.

I still have no idea what Broomstick means by "there's no contract". How can you take your employer to court if he, say, decides he won't pay you for three months, if there's no written contract?

Does it mean there's no negotiable agreement, so the employee just signs in and is considered employed on "Set of rules for state X", or that in most states you just come to work and don't sign an agreement at all?

THERE IS NO CONTRACT. I realize this is hard for some of you to uderstand but no, there is no contract, neither written nor oral. Yes, we do things differently here.

You can take an employer to court if he/she hasn't paid you because the LAW says you must pay peope for work performed and you must comply with the minimum wage laws. This is not a contract, it's the law. It is enforced. In fact, illegal aliens have even taken employers to court for non-payment of wages and won their case (this is rare, of course, because they also will typically be deported back home as well. Sometimes these cases go to court after deportation procedures have started). Of course, you must prove the work was performed by you, but this is possible and has been done.

The closest thing to a contract is typically a letter offering you the job which, among other things, states your wage. This is not a contract however. It is not signed by you, the employee and typically not signed by anyone at the company, either. It states that you will be paid X for any work performed, but in no way guarantees you will ever be called upon to work.

So yes, in ALL states the typical employee never signs a contract, they just come to work. Hours of work are documented, and the employer issues a paycheck.

For that matter, when I worked for the Federal government (which I've done twice now) there was no contract either.

Well, yeah. It's just that...how do you prove you agreed did the work? All the employer has to do is not document it

An employee's own documentation of hours is admissable as evidence in court. Failure to comply with labor law is a criminal matter. It will be investigated as a criminal matter, and evidence collected. Evidence can include eyewitness testimony of people working, for example.

In Poland you have to have an agreement in writing. Lots of employers (especially in seasonal work and the like) flagrantly abuse their employees by promising them an agreement, and then just letting them go after a month or so. Whoops! Can't prove you ever agreed to work there!

'
This has happened here. It's rare, but it has happened (most frequently with illegal aliens). If it goes to court and the employer is found guilty the penalties are severe. Believe it or not, this really does tend to discourage such practices.

Apparently, something like that. Perhaps it's not even a written contract, just an oral one. But i think Broomstick can clarify this - i would love to learn more about this.

If all you need is an oral agreement, it's virtually certain there's rampant abuse going on throughout the American economy.

Of course there's abuse. As you pointed out, even where contracts are required there is abuse. As I mentioned, such abuse is most commonly found in employers using illegal aliens, but it's been known to occur otherwise.

Why isn't it "rampant"? Because employers actually do need employees. Since, really, all a worker is getting from this arrangement is money, if there is no money forthcoming said worker walks And talks. Even a delay in payment can trigger this. I worked at a clinic once where, due to non-payment for services by the state of Illinois for eight months the boss had to sit us down one day and explain that we'd be paid Monday instead of Friday because if he paid us Friday the checks would bounce whereas by Monday he'd have a loan secured to cover it. Five people got up and walked out right then - and there wasn't a damn thing the boss could do to stop them. By the end of the day, haff the staff announced they were quitting, collected their personal stuff, and were never seen again., Not a damn thing the boss could do about it. Everyone has a right to quit with no notice. Hell, if we had not gotten our paychecks Monday I would have done the same thing. You can't run a business with no employees. Hiring replacement staff was a bitch, because word does get around. A lot of people didn't want to work for the clinic once they heard what had happened. Mind you, we had only a delay. Actual non-payment would be a much more serious matter and definitely would have wound up in court.

I also recall a situation where a manager attempted to withhold wages from a subordinate as punishment for some infraction. The manager was fired on the spot - there is NEVER a reason not to pay wages for work aready performed. The manager was about to break the law. The company was then very thorough at interviewing all the subordinates and making sure everyone had received every dime coming to them. That way, if it DID wind up in court the company could prove that the wrong doing was strictly on the part of the manager in question, not the company as a whole. Companies will let a lot of things go to shit in order to make payroll. If you don't pay your vendors mostly you'll just get harassment, maybe a civil lawsuit way down the line, but if you don't pay your employees you not only get fined you go to jail.

You know the reputation American jails have - would you want to go there? Also, it's a Federal offense. The Federal government is not noted for kindness or mercy or even sympathetic understanding.

Here's a final example: When I worked for the Feds they make it VERY clear that my group was NEVER to work overtime. NEVER. If you worked overtime it was a firing offense. They also were quick to explain that yes, if you worked overtime you'd be paid time and half for that overtime, in compliance with the law, even though it was flagrant disobeidience. And then you would be fired. I actually saw it happen to two people. Yep, they go ttheir overtime pay and their "pink slip" at the same time. Even when an employee disobeys the rules, the employer must pay for work performed.

The laws regarding payment of wages are probably the strongest protections an employee has in the US, even above work safety regulations.

[PeZook]

I suppose it's only logical: if you have relaxed requirements to enter a labor agreement, you need to come down like a ton of bricks on anyone trying to use it to his/her advantage, otherwise society will suffer. Interestingly, I've done a few deals with Americans a long while back and you guys seem to do the "informal, at-will" thing a lot. Like, say, I just send them a letter stating the amount of good solds and their price and they pay and voila, while in Poland the documents are formally standardized.

It seems this is one place where american "sue happy" culture is a boon: in Poland, most of these little seasonal employers get away with screwing people over because the employees aren't willing to go to court/are afraid word will get around and they won't get a job. Americans are not so afraid of suing people.

Even a delay in payment can trigger this. I worked at a clinic once where, due to non-payment for services by the state of Illinois for eight months the boss had to sit us down one day and explain that we'd be paid Monday instead of Friday because if he paid us Friday the checks would bounce whereas by Monday he'd have a loan secured to cover it. Five people got up and walked out right then - and there wasn't a damn thing the boss could do to stop them. By the end of the day, haff the staff announced they were quitting, collected their personal stuff, and were never seen again., Not a damn thing the boss could do about it.

Heh...this is kind of funny, too. Our law secures the employer, too: an employee can't just get up and walk out if he signed an agreement (if he did, he'd be ground for disciplinary dismissal: no severance pay and a black mark on his record), he needs to hand in a notice well ahead of time. So in the above situation the employer would also be protected, though he'd have to pay out interest on the delayed wage. Of course, it leads to more stable employment but also makes it more difficult to get a job during a crisis.

It's funny because mostly in Poland it's the businesses that whine about labor laws, when they could very well start seeing stuff like you just described if we had an Americanized labor code

[Broomstick]

I suppose it's only logical: if you have relaxed requirements to enter a labor agreement, you need to come down like a ton of bricks on anyone trying to use it to his/her advantage, otherwise society will suffer. Interestingly, I've done a few deals with Americans a long while back and you guys seem to do the "informal, at-will" thing a lot. Like, say, I just send them a letter stating the amount of good solds and their price and they pay and voila, while in Poland the documents are formally standardized.

Yes, well, in America the "informal" agreements will be backed up by the law and government. Thus, no need for a contract in a lot of situations. It does make for a surprising level of trust. That's why Americans can do business with nothing more than a handshake to seal the deal - the custom of making good on one's commitment is enshrined in law. When Americans do business outside the country the need for more formal agreements can come as a shock, as it's foreign to our culture.

Which is not to say either system is inherently superior - they're just different, with different problems, protections, and pitfalls. The US system does allow an employer to easily hire someone for a very short period of time (such as seasonal work, or temporary employment, or day labor) but as you note provides the employer less protection from employee actions such as a spontaneous walk-out which, needless to say, can stop a business cold.

It seems this is one place where american "sue happy" culture is a boon: in Poland, most of these little seasonal employers get away with screwing people over because the employees aren't willing to go to court/are afraid word will get around and they won't get a job. Americans are not so afraid of suing people.

I just want to clarify - this is not a matter of an employee suing an employer (though such suits be brought simultaneously). Failure to pay wages is a criminal matter in the US, and as such is handled by the local prosecutor's office. The matter winds up in court whether or not the employee takes any action. It is certainly on par with embezzling (a form of theft, after all), tax evasion, fraud, and other felonies. It goes to the Federal court system, not the civil system. A conviction on this matter is a criminal felony. It can really screw up your life.

[PeZook]

Which is not to say either system is inherently superior - they're just different, with different problems, protections, and pitfalls. The US system does allow an employer to easily hire someone for a very short period of time (such as seasonal work, or temporary employment, or day labor) but as you note provides the employer less protection from employee actions such as a spontaneous walk-out which, needless to say, can stop a business cold.

I never said one system was superior, I just enjoy comparing the way stuff are done. Sometimes it comes out comical (American Exceptionalism ahoy! ) but sometimes it's just interesting in a detached sort of way.

I just want to clarify - this is not a matter of an employee suing an employer (though such suits be brought simultaneously). Failure to pay wages is a criminal matter in the US, and as such is handled by the local prosecutor's office. The matter winds up in court whether or not the employee takes any action. It is certainly on par with embezzling (a form of theft, after all), tax evasion, fraud, and other felonies. It goes to the Federal court system, not the civil system. A conviction on this matter is a criminal felony. It can really screw up your life.

Ah, I didn't quite understand it, then. It seems harsh, but it's hard to say that kind of system isn't fair. Poland has specialized "labor courts" where you go to solve these kinds of disputes, and it's considered a kind of hybrid civil/state matter.

I suppose one advantage of the Polish system is the ease of evidence: you have the agreement in writing, the employer has to prove he paid you the money with signed receipts. If he can't, he's screwed. Simple and fast. It can become a criminal case if it turns out, say, that the guy employs people "without agreement", but then it becomes longer. And, of course, if somebody is skilled in navigating the system, he can game it, like those small-time employers (they hide behind cell phone numbers and fake names, so it's practically impossible to report them) I mentioned, since you're usually expected to get everything in writing. And, of course, it's a pain in the ass.

On the other hand, the American system seems to hit dishonest employers really damn hard. Can't say I don't like it, on the other hand, it leads to major issues in the big picture like stress and poor health care...

[Broomstick]

Employers in the US are usually very careful to document when and how they pay their workers, simply because the penalties for not doing so are so harsh. After all, they want to be able to answer any accusations promptly for their own self-interest. Most employers will only pay with checks or direct deposit, not cash, and have strict rules about reporting lost paychecks. Even if you don't report them, if such checks aren't cashed they might well make inquiries.

As you mention, it's pretty damn hard on the employers if they get called into court, but given our system it's a very important part of the whole.

[TimothyC]

Employers in the US are usually very careful to document when and how they pay their workers, simply because the penalties for not doing so are so harsh. After all, they want to be able to answer any accusations promptly for their own self-interest.

And Documentation rules vary from State to State. In Ohio for instance the Rule is that an employer has to keep records on hours worked for either the past 10 or 15 years, and keep them for 3 years after employment ends. I could have my exact figures wrong, but that is the core of the current Ohio law. Employers also have to be able to provide the records at a reasonable cost to employees, ex-employees, and their representatives.

[Simon_Jester]

Which is not to say either system is inherently superior - they're just different, with different problems, protections, and pitfalls. The US system does allow an employer to easily hire someone for a very short period of time (such as seasonal work, or temporary employment, or day labor) but as you note provides the employer less protection from employee actions such as a spontaneous walk-out which, needless to say, can stop a business cold.

Though, in turn, it probably also leaves the employees more vulnerable when employers start migrating towards offering their employees fewer benefits: there's no contract saying anything about the terms of the company health care plan any more than there's one saying when you must come to work.

[sciguy]

You are incorrect. Trust me, I've been working in the the US for 30 years now in a variety of occupations. The Federal and State governments obligate the employer to pay the employee for work performed. No contract is required to compel this, as labor law compels it. Thus, most employers do NOT sign an employment contract with their employees, and in fact when you are hired for a job just about every piece of paperwork you receive explicitly states that you do not have any form of employment contract, explicit or implied.

About the closest you can usually get is the employee handbook or other published company policy guidelines. State courts have occasionally found those to create de facto employment contracts that are enforceable, sometimes even in the face of "this is not a contract" statements.

[Surlethe]

*sigh* Pure supply/demand doesn't work everywhere. It doesn't work in health care, but more importantly it doesn't work on the employment market either.

Well.

It could work in situations where economists treated supply and demand the way physicists treat, say, interactions between gas molecules. In physics, chemistry, and so forth, when we see interesting "not as planned" behaviors, we take an interest, analyze what's going on, and try to come up with a model for the deviations from the original model. We're forced to do that, because the hard sciences deal with things that obstinately refuse to obey simplistic models. We can't pretend our models work and then blame people for ignoring our advice.

Now, it may well be that professional economists do the same thing. That they actually sit down and do the hard work of finding the fringe cases where their model fails and adding new ideas to it, making it more complicated but more accurate. That would be good.

But the sort of economics knowledge we so often get around here, from people like Conk, doesn't. Instead, we get people who insist that even the most rudimentary, simplistic economic models have so much predictive power that they don't need to refine their models; pure supply/demand curves explain everything.

Supply-demand curves are very useful and descriptive qualitative models. The real issue with economics, as with other social sciences, is that it is very, very hard to falsify models because the phenomena economists study is so fucking complicated. It is therefore very difficult to pinpoint the conditions under which simple models, like sufficiently wealthy rational agents acting with perfect information and zero transaction costs in a free market, fail to describe observed phenomena. It is also very difficult to extend static models (such as the economy sitting in equilibrium until an exogenous shock moves a curve, at which point it instantaneously adjusts) to predictive dynamic models, which would better explain the humming, buzzing, active world we see around us.

Nonetheless, as you suppose, professional economists do sit down and work to extend their models. There are entire fields beyond what the typical undergraduate economics student sees; one that comes to mind is behavioral economics, seeking to understand what happens when you relax the assumption of rational actors in the market (alternatively, trying to model and pinpoint utility curves). Can you enhance your models' predictive power by treating people as psychological entities, rather than utility-maximizers (if 'utility maximization' is even meaningful, which is questionable)? Other fields look at (I'm sure) the effects of introducing frictions into markets, transaction costs, costly information, and so forth. Another example -austrian economics, for instance, adds a dynamic component by looking at the intertemporal structure of capital and how interest rates affect it (along with a lot of ideological baggage you have to separate out, but whatever).

This is all tremendously difficult because again, it is very hard (and often unethical) to test the predictions of these models --- physicists have no problem sticking electrons in boxes and poking them to see what happens, but it's rather immoral to do the same to people.

[Simon_Jester]

True, Surlethe. What bothers me is that you get people whose knowledge of economics stops at the supply-demand curve and such, who make no serious examination of the underlying axioms to see where they might stop applying... but who insist on using their model to describe everything that could possibly happen, as if it were bulletproof. And who interpret anything that deviates from their model as a sign that someone screwed up real life, not their model.

It's as absurd as hearing people who took a couple of physics courses in college whining that the ergosphere of a rotating black hole "can't happen" because that would contradict Newtonian mechanics.

The only answer is "Of course it does you bloody idiot, that's because you just tripped over the limits of your own model of how the system works without having the wit to realize it!"