Hacker News Reader

Comment by lthornberry | Hacker News Reader

Even if it's not bad planning, the business is the more appropriate party to bear the risk of unexpected slow times than the employee. The employee has already reserved the time in her schedule because she's been told that she will be working then. Even if it turns out her works is not needed, she should be paid for those hours.

View on HN

Except that there are plenty of people who are willing to work for these terms.

I own several retail stores. Labor is by far the largest manageable cost and whether or not we make any profit is often a direct result of managing our labor cost.

Re: being the one who should bear the risk, I am also the one who bears the responsibility to make sure they have a job tomorrow. If we don't make money then there is no job.

Of course, the alternative is that we could raise prices so that we don't have to be ruthlessly efficient. But then, the market doesn't tend to like that.

I appreciate your position as a business owner but I take issue with your assertion that it's okay to dismiss workers because 'there are plenty of people who are willing to work for' those terms.

There are also other practices that people might be allowed to perform but which are prohibited - consider, for example, young children working for businesses outside the home. I don't think the willingness of labor is a reasonable metric to gauge the fairness of a business practice.

In general, I think it's the government's responsibility to make sure that pro-business positions (even understandable ones like what you're mentioning) don't unfairly hurt workers - to be fair, 'flexible' hours have been mentioned by the Obama administration multiple times this summer.

The option isn't between a job with irregular hours and a job with regular hours. The option is between a job with irregular hours and no job.

With all of the talk about raising the minimum wage drastically (small increments are fine), or something like requiring a certain minimum shift length, it will push small business owners towards non-human workers faster (automation and robots).

That sounds really good. The only possible way that would be bad is if we insist on keeping society in a state where not having a job is not an acceptable state. But why would we insist on everyone working, once we can automate most of what people do?

In general, I think it's the government's responsibility to make sure that pro-business positions (even understandable ones like what you're mentioning) don't unfairly hurt workers

And a lot of us think the government should have nothing to do with regulating based on some vague notion of "fairness". As long as no one is being compelled to take any action, or make any choice, through coercive violence/force, the government - IMO - ought to stay out of it.

What about non-coercive force?

If someone scams your aging parents/grandparents into selling their house unfairly, do you think the government should stay out of it? After all, your parents/grandparents are the ones who willingly went ahead with the scam.

Do you consider monopolies a coercive force? If a local cable company (say, Comcast) holds a de facto monopoly over local internet, imposing high fees and bad service on customers, do you think the government should stay out of it? After all, no one is being compelled to buy internet; it's everyone's choice not to.

Yeah, I was over-simplifying in the name of space. I generally lump force and fraud together in the category of things where use of force, in the name of self-defense, is acceptable.

Do you consider monopolies a coercive force?

Not as a rule, no.

So you're against the government regulating against anti-competition, anti-trust collusion in the marketplace?

Yes.

Except that there are plenty of people who are willing to work for these terms.

Doesn't make it OK. We're not machines. We're not robots. We're not fungible resource. We're people, and we object to creating a society in which the rich and powerful play off the less fortunate against each other, creating a race to the bottom until every employee is scratching out a bare existence in the knowledge that if they so much as ask for a five minute break they'll be fired and replaced with someone slightly more timid. Obviously the rich don't generally object to this.

But then, the market doesn't tend to like that.

Which is why we have government and unions. "The market" is meant to be a tool that serves people and makes life better. It's not perfect, it's not magic, and applied excessively it makes people miserable; there is very definitely a time to tell the religious caste in society that worships "the market" to get bent.

I didn't see your reply when I wrote my comment above. You are right that you are not robots. Currently irregular shift workers are cheaper than robots, but that will not be true forever and the more expensive we make workers, the cheaper robots become.

>Except that there are plenty of people who are willing to work for these terms

That's not an excuse. In early 20th century there were kids of 10-14 years old, "willing" to work in coal mines, as "breaker boys" (and other worse jobs).

https://www.google.com/search?q=breaker+boys&tbm=isch

Most advanced countries still outlawed it. You are only "chosing" to do a job if you're not directly pressed by starving or being homeless. When you can chose between job X or job Y.

When you're hard pressed to do whatever comes your way, you're not "willing", you're forced.

Not to mention that if you do have an unusually busy shift and you're run off your feet, management doesn't generally say "hey everyone, here's a cut from the takings because today was good". I have heard it happen very occasionally in small places, but it certainly doesn't happen at McDonalds.

That my friend is the other side of the coin. American business expect to have their cake it eat it to. When it's slow workers absorb the costs, when its busy the shareholders reap the rewards.

in the fast food places i worked, i can count on one hand the times we were able to call people in to work to handle an extra busy shift. By the time you got ahold of someone, and they could actually get to the building, the rush was almost always over. mgt/owners would almost never even try to get more people in - they'd just muddle through.

I worked at applebees for a little over a month. I was out to dinner with my girlfriend at the time and we had just ordered food, I got a phone call demanding that I come in. I refused, the week after they only put me on the schedule for 3 hours. I have no pity for these types of people.

Here in the UK, there are people who've been forced to miss their friends' weddings and their own holiday trips due to the same tactics by employers, despite having booked the time off well in advance. Yet our business lobbying organisations have the gall to claim that the zero-hour contracts which make this possible are good for employees because they offer the employees flexibility.

I just luckly made my way into IT (A lifetime dream of mine) but previously I worked at a plastics factory(QC tech). They would demand you work overtime with 24 hours notice. They get orders 2 - 3 weeks in advance at minimum. After a while you have to consider that this might be intentional, its hard to set up a job interview when you have to change your schedule with 24 hours notice. So its not just fast food that does this, though it's new to me that this happens in the UK.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com