To be clear, a small moonlighting gig that's in keeping with business rules is fine. A second full-time job is almost certainly not.
If I am laid off (company doesn't give a shit about me), will you give me part of your salary? No right? So why the f should I care if my actions (assuming they are legal) affect you? 2 salaries? Yay, I will get to retirement in half (or less even) time. Have a problem? Well change companies or do it the same. If your company punishes everyone for a couple individual actions, they don't know how to manage people or even who is working two jobs, just a suspicion. Change jobs, but let the people that can and prefer to work 2/3 jobs, finally had an opportunity to get ahead alone. It is your problem, not theirs
It's about integrity, something many people lack here in America today. And I very much doubt they are producing enough. They are likely working 10 hours a week per job. Being both an employee and a business owner that has employees, integrity is critical to any type business relationship. It may not seem like it, but trust me, it is paramount.
They're almost certainly not.
The popsci figure for how much a human can concentrate during a day is six hours. A standard 5-day 40-hour workweek already consumes that and more. I can virtually guarantee you that people working more than a single (knowledge work) job are significantly shortchanging one or both of their employers.
[1] unless your employment agreement also specifices some sort of exclusivity.
What "free market principles"? The wikipedia article for "free market" says:
>In economics, a free market is an idealized system in which the prices for goods and services are determined by the open market and consumers, in which the laws and forces of supply and demand are free from any intervention by a government, price-setting monopoly, or other authority.
In this case, two parties (employers and employees) are voluntarily entering into a contract without government coercion. I fail to see how that's against "free market principles".
And who uses "free market" to mean the definition you just proposed?
>For example, if the owners of all the food production refused (on their own accord) to sell to certain groups because of their ethnicity, that wouldn't be a free market.
1. While I agree the example you gave is undesirable, the unclear whether the badness stems from "buyers can only buy from certain sellers" or something else. An easy test of this would be: if I refuse to buy widgets from Acme Co. because they also make cluster munitions, does that mean I'm violating free market principles?
2. how does exclusivity agreements play into this? Are they all against your definition of "free market"?
>So 'voluntarily ' here has the same meaning as voluntarily giving your wallet to mugger pointing a gun at you. In this analogy the gun is potential homelessness and starvation.
This is a terrible analogy because homelessness and starvation is the natural state of things, but the same can't be said of a bullet traveling towards your head at 300 m/s.
'Natural state of things' would only apply in the absence of all society and civilization, but since there are land owners and employers, its not a natural state but a man-made one, just like a gun. A bullet and homeless/starvation can be both deadly and/or cause severe bodily harm, just at different rates.
Where I am in Canada, I've had exclusivity required for an employment contract but only within the employer's niche and for pay well above industry norms.
The problem over here comes when the work is structured as a contractor/client arrangement.
If someone is set up as contractor, even with a registered company, they can be considered a de facto employee and have all the protections given to regular employees. Additionally the client, as the de facto employer can get in trouble for not making and remitting payroll deductions.
Even incorporating won't save you. There are several criteria but, if you're the sole employee of a corporation, you're considered a personal services business. It makes you ineligible for any corporate tax reductions, an additional 5% tax, and virtually no deductions are allowed outside of payroll expenses; even supplies and directors' action payments.