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Comment by gilrain | Hacker News Reader

You’re right. Billion dollar companies doubtless ruin many more lives, but systemically rather than directly.

Is this how you operate? You just make nonsensical blanket statements to latch on to some anti-capitalist cred? Please tell me how Burlington Coat Factory, or J.B. Hunt, or Ulta Beauty are ruining lives. And these are not billion-dollar companies, but 10+ billion. And then, please - with a straight face - explain how their choice of Oracle ERP vs SAP vs Workday vs ServiceNow "ruins" someone's life comparable to being raped or murdered.

I love low-hanging fruit in the morning.

You managed to pick three companies with documented histories involving violations or enforcement actions concerning workers’ schedules and safety, religious & racial discrimination, hazardous waste, and multimillion-dollar wage disputes. Burlington is particularly funny as an example because the government was literally ordering it to return more than $1.3 million to workers just last year.

So fundamentally, your argument is that employing people ruins their lives. $1.3 million across how many hundreds or thousands of employees is not all that much each. Yes - they have every right to justice and to pursue what they were owed. And the company should be penalized. But still, they collected what, 97 or 98% of their rightful wage? And contributions to Social Security, and most likely some healthcare benefits. Would they have better off not being employed at all? Or work somewhere else for less money?

How on earth did you get there? My argument is that corporations should operate in the framework of the law (though evidently that is pretty fungible in the US). Are you saying you’re OK with your employer cropping 2-3% of your paycheck? The Social Security and healthcare point is even more bizarre. You make it sound like a charitable donation. That the victims of wage theft had to put up an exorbitant legal battle to collect…well, most of of what they were owed could probably be called “life-changing” for some of the victims.

You’re partially right though, a couple mil here and there is a drop in the bucket against most corporate earnings. Sort of makes you wonder if the system is operating like that purposefully, as in, a systemic attribute.

You didn’t even attempt to touch Ulta’s toxic waste problem lol

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