"When I hear the phrase “workplace coercion,” the first thing I think of is employee theft, estimated by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce at over $50 billion a year."
Tyler Cowen, economics professor at the George Mason University
American libertarians scarcely need to be caricatured.
(via multiheaded1793)
seriously????
What the fuck is “employee theft”? Do they mean headhunting, possibly with a Molochy side of getting other companies to do your training for you?
This is like those ur-SJWs who call everything except shooting people “violence”.
(via thathopeyetlives)
Here’s a longer quote:
I am not comfortable with the mood affiliation of the piece. How about a simple mention of the massive magnitude of employee theft in the United States, perhaps in the context of a boss wishing to search an employee?
When I was seventeen, I had a job in the produce department of a grocery store. They made me wear a tie. They did not let me curse. Even if there was no work at the moment, I could not appear to be obviously slacking for fear of setting a bad example. They had the right to search me, including for illegal drugs. I suspect that “contract indeterminacies” gave them other rights too.
The company kept each and every one of its promises to me and they paid me on time every two weeks. The company also taught me a lot. I honor that company to this day. I also did my best to keep each and every promise to them.
What I did observe was massive employee shirking, rampant drug use including what appeared to be on the job, regular rule-breaking, and a significant level of employee theft, sometimes in cahoots with customers.
I understand full well that’s only one anecdote and only one side of the picture, and yes the company did fire vulnerable workers and quite possibly not always with just cause. Still I get uncomfortable when this other side of the story is ignored. When I hear the phrase “workplace coercion,” the first thing I think of is employee theft, estimated by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce at over $50 billion a year.
Charming, huh? Those dirty fucking proles don’t need any fucking “workplace freedom”, and should in fact be just grateful to their betters, his point is.
I mean, very little fucking surprise here - It Is Known, and my outrage would look positively stupid… but this was in the context of someone asking why more social justice supporting people aren’t embracing a libertarian identity. Because non-left libertarianism looks, sounds and acts like cackling villainy, that’s why. Walmart employees: the real problem with society!
(via multiheaded1793)
If these findings in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles are generalizable to the rest of the U.S. low-wage workforce of 30 million, wage theft is costing workers more than $50 billion a year.
Libertarianism seriously needs to stop being rich white men’s identity politics club. They might be correct on many things, but they won’t get anywhere if they always feel the need to point out that “hey, we still hate the poor, or at least don’t care if a lot of people perfectly justifiably interpret us that way”.
1 and 6 are (partially) valid arguments, and the whole issue is caused by the lack of the workers’ bargaining power when the supply of employment is artificially constrained and they have only the theoretical, not the practical, freedom to switch to someone who doesn’t expose them to such indignities.
People are assholes, so it’s not a surprise that those controlling the capital other people’s livelihoods depend on use their power in assholish ways, and the linked article contains a massive number of things that can best be described as “egregious contract violations facilitated by inequal power and material deprivation”. A set of default contracts that can be deviated from with mutual informed consent might help with this, so the employer would have to specify “you’ll work for me, but you’ll also not have freedom of speech or bathroom breaks” explicitly and see how long they last against PR and unions-as-intended, but ultimately the solution needs to involve reducing people’s material dependency on the boss.
And even if not having workplace regulations is a desirable goal, setting priorities doing things in the right order is kind of relevant for the outcome. Abolishing oppressive policing, coercive requirements for welfare, harmful regulations and corporate subsidies are far more important concerns than whether or not people can “freely” contract away their bathroom breaks.
(via multiheaded1793)
3 months ago · tagged #with allies like these #the irony it hurts · 39 notes · source: multiheaded1793 · .permalink
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