piscator wrote:Seth wrote:piscator wrote:Seth wrote:rEvolutionist wrote:
I'm simply rebutting your idiotic claim that employers aren't in a position of power over potential employees. Learn to fucking read.
So what if they are? It's their company. They invested the money, time and talent to create it, it's their time, money and talent that's at risk, and it's their right to run it as they please..
The employees have also invested their time, money, and talent. It's their business too.
No, it's not. They are paid the price they agreed on for every quantum of labor they input, off the top, guaranteed by law. They have absolutely no ownership interest at all, unless the owner offers it to them, and they take no risks because their wages must be paid no matter what.
If they worked without being paid a wage under a contract that provided them with a percentage of ownership, then they would be part owners.
Part owners of what? Without employees, you have no chicken plant, just truckloads of live cluckers arriving every day.
Exactly! Very good, you got it very quickly, I'm impressed. You've just described the power of the labor class quite succinctly.
Labor is a marketplace, just like any other commodity. Supply and demand drive value and competition is more fierce the more complex the task to be accomplished because a smaller pool of workers are qualified to do that work.
When there is a glut of unskilled workers, some will go without work. That's actually a good thing because it keeps the market balanced. When unemployment drops below about 5%, the demand exceeds the supply and the price for the supply goes up, sometimes substantially, and employers will hire unqualified people in order to try to get the work done. The classic case is the fast-food labor market. When demand for workers is high, more and more unqualified entry-level workers are hired as the employer tries to keep the doors open. That's when you get shitty service, sullen attitudes and lugis in your taco. When the labor market is glutted with low-wage employees, bad or marginal employees can be fired and better employees hired, which improves service, which improves profits, which allows the employer to pay his skilled employees more.
When you impose a minimum wage in a glutted labor market, those with lesser skills lose out because there are so many more qualified applicants available.
And as you note, no business can operate if it has no employees working, which means that the employer is obliged, out of his own rational self-interest, to pay a wage that will satisfy his workers and prevent them from quitting or going on strike. This is where collective bargaining keeps the "rapaciousness" of employers in check. Treat employees badly and pay them inadequately and they quit working for you and seek employment elsewhere.
But when the demands for increased wages reach the point that the employer can no longer make a profit or pay his bills, then labor has to compromise or face dissolution of the company and loss of ALL income.
It's a dynamic balance created by supply and demand, just like any other commodity in a free market environment.
Does this mean that some employees won't make as much as they like? Of course it does. But that's their fault, not the employer's fault. They need to make themselves more valuable to the labor market in order to command higher wages.
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