Comment by Supply5411 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Supply5411 | Hacker News Reader

I don't agree with criminalizing long commutes, nor do I agree with the minimum wage, which is a similar overstep from the government into employer-employee relationships. However, I agree with the spirit of both (protecting a worker), and think that an employment contract should be required to state the value of each party's consideration (what they're exchanging).

In other words, an employer should be required to state the forecasted value (measured in profit, updated annually) of the labor they are purchasing. As it stands, very few workers know their value to the company, which severely harms their ability to negotiate. An employee should know how exactly how much a company is profiting from their labor. If this information asymmetry is resolved, I don't think there would be a need for many employment regulations, including minimum wages, or hypothetical restrictions on long commutes, because workers will automatically have a far better negotiating position.

> nor do I agree with the minimum wage, which is a similar overstep from the government into employer-employee relationships.

Read up on the history of the minimum wage in the US. It was demanded by striking workers who were tired of working in sweatshops for terrible pay.[0]

By the way, the 40-hour workweek also came about due to worker strikes. Would you prefer we all go back to working 7 days a week?

0: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_in_the_United_S...

Maybe workers will strike for... more detailed information about each worker's individual profit margin?

And it demonstrably costs jobs and shuts down businesses so there are fewer jobs.

Just because you don't like basic supply and demand market forces doesn't mean you can just wave your hand and make them disappear.

I think you're having a kneejerk reaction to the first sentence. Read the rest of the post, where I propose how workers could be protected by less controlling laws.

Yeah, it’s an interesting idea but I still don’t think it’s viable because this already done in some industries and comes with its own problems.

One high-profile example is “Hollywood” accounting for residuals paid out to actors and staff on projects. Peter Jackson sued New Line cinema because they argued that they lost millions making Lord of the Rings and therefore didn’t have any money to pay his residual, blatant manipulation and this happens all the time. Companies are good at moving cash around the world to avoid paying taxes, this same mechanism could easily be used to show workers a manipulated version of their value. Who really trusts their employer to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

There is much more freedom when they don't have to work to support a lie though. I'd rather a dishonest person or company have to put in a lot of work to defraud someone, than to have no scrutiny whatsoever.

I agree that we need more transparency on pay and how it impacts the bottom line, even just being able to publicly post total comp on all employees would dramatically change the tone of the conversation.

That said, I don’t think there’s anything dishonest about forcing employers to pay living wages, particularly with inflation as it’s been.

What about positions that are considered negative value usually called "cost centers".

What about the fact that higher educated skilled workers are going to require bigger slices of the pie that will enviably reduce the money available to lower skilled workers? Even though this happens everywhere all the time people tend to act poorly when it is brought attention to.

I've found in my life that low skilled/entry people often are surprisingly unaware of just how much lower paid they are than people with college degrees/skills/experience. Usually when they find out they either quit or silent quit and have to be fired.

Not 100% disagreeing or anything, just pointing out its more complicated than it seems.

Yeah these are good points, and I think a lot of the complicated details would need to be worked out in practice.

>What about positions that are considered negative value usually called "cost centers".

I think if finance people can get together to determine FMV of a company's private shares, they can determine how much employees in a cost center contribute to profit. There would be models and assumptions that would be generally correct to make the numbers add up.

>What about the fact that higher educated skilled workers are going to require bigger slices of the pie that will enviably reduce the money available to lower skilled workers?

No idea, but my gut says that this is a correction.

And if I could breath underwater I wouldn't need a scuba tank.

Is your point that having a new consideration clause to enforceable employment contracts is as impossible as a person breathing underwater? Not that you think it's a bad idea, just that it can't be done?

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