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Comment by jmckib | Hacker News Reader

> The union would do what unions always do--shift some of the economic surplus that the company is currently enjoying (paying less for the bus service than the value it provides) to the workers.

One thing worth mentioning here: if prices are determined by the free market they can serve as a valuable signal to increase or decrease supply in response to demand. It may well be that in the future these bus drivers could serve a more useful purpose elsewhere in society, but the signal to do that would be dampened by artificially high wages to bus drivers. Price signals are the reason our society is relatively efficient compared to, say, the Soviet Union.

In conclusion, I think OP is right, if these bus drivers don't like the compensation they're getting they should look for work somewhere else, just like the rest of us.

http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/InformationandPrices.html

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> In conclusion, I think OP is right, if these bus drivers don't like the compensation they're getting they should look for work somewhere else, just like the rest of us.

Well, Facebook can go and relocate their workers and facilities to places with a lower standard of living and less necessity for private transportation services, right?

It works both ways.

No, it doesn't. You ignored the part about price signals and how valuable they are.

the labor market is not a free market (mainly for the high cost of switching, lack of information, and lack of jobs). Treating it like such is dangerous.

Of course the labor market isn't perfectly free, but it is approximately free, especially in the long run. Price signals do exist. A silly example but it demonstrates the point: if everybody suddenly decided they wanted a massage every day, don't you think the wages for masseuses would go up, ultimately attracting more people to pursue that career? Isn't that a good thing?

> Of course the labor market isn't perfectly free, but it is approximately free

Bullshit, try going to economies that have suffered periods of extended unemployed labor to see how that impacts 5 and 10 years down the line.

Employment is most certainly a social issue and as such is well within the bounds of reasonable regulations, much more so than any commodity.

> Well, Facebook can go and relocate their workers and facilities to places with a lower standard of living and less necessity for private transportation services, right?

They already do.

Facebook has offices in London, New York, Tel-Aviv and (I would assume) other cities as well; it is not because they like the accents - it is because they exhausted their available CA talent pool AT THE PRICE THEY ARE WILLING TO PAY, and therefore have to tap other pools.

I don't understand your argument.

If Facebook locates offices in areas with a high cost of living they need to factor that high cost of living across all their employees - including cleaners, security guards, admin clerks, and other low pay workers. Facebook can't just use national average wage for the type of job for those jobs, Facebook needs to pay for the increased cost of living for all those people.

That is built in to how the world works: They cannot pay middle-of-nowhere-china salaries of $5/day to cleaners and security guards, even though those middle-of-nowhere-china residents are willing to take it because they cannot commute there to do the work (for transportation, legal and other reasons).

If facebook is paying wages that are too low, they will not find employees.

While I definitely agree with the sentiment that jobs should provide a living wage, and I suspect that driving a bus for facebook might not provide that - I think singling out companies that are doing well financially (like Facebook and Google) and asking them to increase pay is hypocritical. If the pay needs to be higher, that should be codified by law.

I would oppose a protest asking Bill Gates (whom I do not particularly like, btw) to pay more at the grocery store for same services as anyone else just because he can, regardless of whether the person at the register is making a living wage or not. And facebook paying drivers more is similar.

But if Bill Gates wnted to empty the grocery store of other customers before he went shopping you would charge him more.

Facebook don't want Muni buses and Muni uus drivers, they want exclusive buses and that creates extra costs which they need to pay for. Here the extra costs come from exclusivity and split shifts.

I don't understand the relevance. They are not monopolizing muni busses and muni drivers. On the contrary, they are creating more venues (Bill Gates would pay someone to run his own private grocery in this awfully-stretched-and-no-longer-fitting analogy).

They are happy to pay for the extra costs - but not more than they need to. Now, the question is "how much do they need to pay for that" - and historically, this answer is reached by matching supply and demand subject to regulations.

The bus drivers might want to increase the price (by reducing supply - that is, in fact, a union's leverage). Facebook might counter by hiring a different bus company.

If the wage is not livable, they will not find drivers because those drivers need to eat. If the wage is livable and there are willing employees - why should they pay more? "Because they can" is an answer I personally find unacceptable.

Anything hinting at free association that isn't a direct propaganda line of statism will get you hellbanned on HN. Beware.

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