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Comment by viraptor | Hacker News Reader

I feel like it's a weird situation when the pay is low, but there is overtime available and there's pressure to work fast. Why wouldn't a company raise prices, increase pay and slow down if there's more than a standard day of work available and customers ready/waiting? Is it more of industry issue or that specific company issue then?

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Because business is a market. If your competitors are offering cheaper, faster jobs why would they pick you? As long as the corner cutting doesn't affect the customer, the latter is a better deal. The cynical reality is that safety violations affecting workers don't really matter to most customers, the end result and the cost of obtain it do.

The more realistic scenario is less pay in exchange for slower hours.

> your competitors are offering cheaper, faster jobs why would they pick you?

Quality and availability. Fewer better paid jobs in the pipeline means they can decide to pay extra for less waiting and a not-rushed job.

Non-rushed means more waiting, not less. Why would I pay extra for that?

You're missing the part where higher cost reduces your backlog, so there's lower waiting time overall. (I'm assuming there's backlog if the company is trying to rush jobs and allowing overtime)

As a client, I don't care if a contractor has one or a hundred jobs. If one contractor is providing the same quality job at the same price in shorter time, that's strictly better. There has to be a reason to justify higher costs. If that's not either higher quality, or faster time to completion, there is no reason to command a premium.

Because the business can use overtime to remain flexible with labor costs.

For example; for two weeks they need 60 hours each, the next three week only 40.

It's cheaper to have one employee with overtime then hire two employees.

Why is a market behaving in an efficient manner a weird situation to you? Lower prices for consumers and faster job completion is good for everyone. Use regulation to fix the safety issues and protect workers from exploitation.

Low barrier to entry means if prices rise, more people join the industry and drive prices down again. When overtime and overworking becomes too much, people exit or don't join and prices rise.

In practice I see difference in prices between local companies and there are reasons to not go for the cheapest price. It doesn't make market inefficient if you say you do a better job and will charge more than competition. Some people won't choose you, but then it's about setting the correct pricing/demand point. If there's more demand than can be fulfilled, the prices can raise - that's as market-efficient as it gets.

For a short time I worked as a machine operator in a production company, automotive industry. The CEO used to yell during meetings on the production floor that "the production must be high quality, fast, and cheap; there is no 'choose two' nonsense".

Yes, the CEO was going down to yell on the blue collar workers making pennies.

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