5 ms·

There are a lot of comments like this in this thread, the gist of which being "people who don't demand overtime pay are deluded/stupid/victims of false consciou

by toehead2000 12y ago

There are a lot of comments like this in this thread, the gist of which being "people who don't demand overtime pay are deluded/stupid/victims of false consciousness/act against their own interest." Pretty much everyone is an at will employee, free to go find another job. Since these exempt positions tend to be high skill, the logic behind these laws is that these kinds of employees don't need this extra layer of government protection between them and their paycheck. They have the wherewithal to go find another employer if they feel they're being treated unfairly. The left wing side of this argument is certainly getting a hearing, but coming to a different conclusion doesn't make you a deluded member of the under class (if I'm interpreting your claptrap correctly).

johnward 12y ago
You are free to go find another position that also will not pay you for overtime.
- cpwright 12y ago
  Or if you think that getting paid overtime is important, you are free to work in a field that pays overtime. I am fairly certain that even if you include work outside of the 40 hours, my hourly rate is better than I would do otherwise. On top of that, I can probably continue at this career for the next 35 years without a significant physical toll on my body. If I thought otherwise, I would probably want to be an electrician; where if I owned my own business I still end up as an exempt employee.
  - johnward 12y ago
    The physical toll is there for many in this career but it's damage from a lack of physicality vs the damage from being over physical such as construction. Almost all of my family are pipefitters and I often envy them for doing something physical but it has also taken a toll on my father. They also get paid time and 1/2 and double time as required. They make about what I make in this industry but tend to work more paid hours to do it. I understand you are taking the "free market" side of the argument but at a certain point employers hold too much power and employees start fight back. Things like that are why unions exist which are also a part of the free market.
incision 12y ago
>'They have the wherewithal to go find another employer if they feel they're being treated unfairly.' That completely misses the point. The parent is observing a behavior in the industry as a whole, not a specific employer. Argue that the industry doesn't evidence this or argue that programmers should become plumbers, but boiling it down to 'go find another job' is nonsense in the context of an entire industry demonstrating the issue you mean to avoid.
- toehead2000 12y ago
  I really don't understand the point you're trying to make here. The parent says that tech industry workers are "deluded" because they think of themselves as part of the "ownership class" rather than the "working class," thus allowing the "fruits of their labor" to be "stolen," so clearly he's talking about the behavior of individuals, albeit en masse. Because they're deluded, they're acting irrationally. All I'm saying that given the job fluidity within the tech industry as a whole, it is unlikely that individuals are going to allow themselves to be compensated at rates very much less than the value they provide. Having the government force employers and employees to account for their work on an hourly basis, so that their labor is not "stolen," is a restriction on their respective individual freedom. So the other side to the parents argument is that maybe the tech industry as a whole is not deluded, maybe it just wants this freedom.
  - incision 12y ago
    >'All I'm saying that given the job fluidity within the tech industry as a whole, it is unlikely that individuals are going to allow themselves to be compensated at rates very much less than the value they provide.' The industry is not necessarily fluid [1] and more importantly any intra-industry fluidity there might be is irrelevant in the context of an entire industry demonstrating the issue you mean to avoid. >'So the other side to the parents argument is that maybe the tech industry as a whole is not deluded, maybe it just wants this freedom.' I'd hardly call that 'the other side'. A possibility, sure and if you personally feel that way, fine. To suggest that the industry as a whole would or does consciously trade an considerable amount of pay for that 'freedom' is absurd. Also, please stop selectively quoting the grandparent (neatly avoiding the predicating 'partially' of course) in these responses as if you didn't just sum up and summarily dismiss an entire side of this discussion with 'go find another job' in the intervening posts. 1: http://pando.com/2014/03/22/revealed-apple-and-googles-wage-fixing-cartel-involved-dozens-more-companies-over-one-million-employees/ http://pando.com/2014/03/22/revealed-apple-and-googles-wage-... - Note: 1M people is a enormous number in relation to an industry the BLS sizes at ~4M, plenty large enough to be worth considering as capable of characterizing an entire industry.
Iftheshoefits 12y ago
You missed the point entirely and then went off on a rant about the "left wing" which is unsupported by any evidence or even coherent argument in your comment. Implicit in your comment is an assumption that there is no information asymmetry and that power (real power--the social, political, and economic ability to actually assert oneself) is shared relatively equally between the owners of capital and laborers. I stopped being surprised that people actually believe such "claptrap" long ago, but am still amused by it.
- toehead2000 12y ago
  The main point of the parent is this: "people who don't demand overtime pay are deluded/stupid/victims of false consciousness/act against their own interest" right? This is was I took him gnu8 to mean when he said "... the startup culture stock option lottery deludes them into thinking they are a part of the ownership class rather than the working class. Thus, they allow basically all of the fruits of their labor to be stolen from them." What other point am I missing? I think my post and the follow up make a pretty coherent argument that no, in fact, mass delusion on the part of tech industry workers is not the best explanation. The delusion argument is an argument from the "left wing," especially when given in terms of capital and labor and conflict between classes and so forth. That's just a positive statement, not a normative one, so I don't understand how that can constitute a "rant." What I think might be illuminating to Europeans who are incredulous about how our workers would allow the "fruits of their labor to be stolen," would be to hear why they might not consider working unpaid overtime to be being stolen from.
  - gnu8 12y ago
    You understood my comment correctly. False consciousness is a good explanation because of the fact that tech workers accept such a meager proportion of the profits generated by their work without complaint. Why would anyone knowingly accept less money than they're worth? They wouldn't, knowingly. It must be unknowingly. They must not know they're being exploited because there is no significant organization. Instead they all act as "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" and try to increase their wealth incrementally, by competing amongst themselves for promotions and raises, working 100 hour weeks at startups for equity, and so on. You suggest that they look elsewhere for a better deal, as if the free market price for their labor is by definition a fair price, but it is not, because of the power differential between capital and labor. It's not that all business collude consciously against labor(1), it's simply that the exception in the law for tech workers drives the price down, because it's purely good management not to pay any more than necessary for labor. I'm not suggesting mass strikes, labor unions, and Marxist claptrap as a solution. Removing the loophole would be an entirely reasonable starting point. I've never seen anything approaching a rational justification for the tech worker exemption. (1) Except when they do, like with the recent wage fixing scandal amongst a subset of well known companies.

johnward 12y ago

You are free to go find another position that also will not pay you for overtime.

cpwright 12y ago
Or if you think that getting paid overtime is important, you are free to work in a field that pays overtime. I am fairly certain that even if you include work outside of the 40 hours, my hourly rate is better than I would do otherwise. On top of that, I can probably continue at this career for the next 35 years without a significant physical toll on my body. If I thought otherwise, I would probably want to be an electrician; where if I owned my own business I still end up as an exempt employee.
- johnward 12y ago
  The physical toll is there for many in this career but it's damage from a lack of physicality vs the damage from being over physical such as construction. Almost all of my family are pipefitters and I often envy them for doing something physical but it has also taken a toll on my father. They also get paid time and 1/2 and double time as required. They make about what I make in this industry but tend to work more paid hours to do it. I understand you are taking the "free market" side of the argument but at a certain point employers hold too much power and employees start fight back. Things like that are why unions exist which are also a part of the free market.

incision 12y ago

>'They have the wherewithal to go find another employer if they feel they're being treated unfairly.' That completely misses the point. The parent is observing a behavior in the industry as a whole, not a specific employer. Argue that the industry doesn't evidence this or argue that programmers should become plumbers, but boiling it down to 'go find another job' is nonsense in the context of an entire industry demonstrating the issue you mean to avoid.

toehead2000 12y ago
I really don't understand the point you're trying to make here. The parent says that tech industry workers are "deluded" because they think of themselves as part of the "ownership class" rather than the "working class," thus allowing the "fruits of their labor" to be "stolen," so clearly he's talking about the behavior of individuals, albeit en masse. Because they're deluded, they're acting irrationally. All I'm saying that given the job fluidity within the tech industry as a whole, it is unlikely that individuals are going to allow themselves to be compensated at rates very much less than the value they provide. Having the government force employers and employees to account for their work on an hourly basis, so that their labor is not "stolen," is a restriction on their respective individual freedom. So the other side to the parents argument is that maybe the tech industry as a whole is not deluded, maybe it just wants this freedom.
- incision 12y ago
  >'All I'm saying that given the job fluidity within the tech industry as a whole, it is unlikely that individuals are going to allow themselves to be compensated at rates very much less than the value they provide.' The industry is not necessarily fluid [1] and more importantly any intra-industry fluidity there might be is irrelevant in the context of an entire industry demonstrating the issue you mean to avoid. >'So the other side to the parents argument is that maybe the tech industry as a whole is not deluded, maybe it just wants this freedom.' I'd hardly call that 'the other side'. A possibility, sure and if you personally feel that way, fine. To suggest that the industry as a whole would or does consciously trade an considerable amount of pay for that 'freedom' is absurd. Also, please stop selectively quoting the grandparent (neatly avoiding the predicating 'partially' of course) in these responses as if you didn't just sum up and summarily dismiss an entire side of this discussion with 'go find another job' in the intervening posts. 1: http://pando.com/2014/03/22/revealed-apple-and-googles-wage-fixing-cartel-involved-dozens-more-companies-over-one-million-employees/ http://pando.com/2014/03/22/revealed-apple-and-googles-wage-... - Note: 1M people is a enormous number in relation to an industry the BLS sizes at ~4M, plenty large enough to be worth considering as capable of characterizing an entire industry.

Iftheshoefits 12y ago

You missed the point entirely and then went off on a rant about the "left wing" which is unsupported by any evidence or even coherent argument in your comment. Implicit in your comment is an assumption that there is no information asymmetry and that power (real power--the social, political, and economic ability to actually assert oneself) is shared relatively equally between the owners of capital and laborers. I stopped being surprised that people actually believe such "claptrap" long ago, but am still amused by it.

toehead2000 12y ago
The main point of the parent is this: "people who don't demand overtime pay are deluded/stupid/victims of false consciousness/act against their own interest" right? This is was I took him gnu8 to mean when he said "... the startup culture stock option lottery deludes them into thinking they are a part of the ownership class rather than the working class. Thus, they allow basically all of the fruits of their labor to be stolen from them." What other point am I missing? I think my post and the follow up make a pretty coherent argument that no, in fact, mass delusion on the part of tech industry workers is not the best explanation. The delusion argument is an argument from the "left wing," especially when given in terms of capital and labor and conflict between classes and so forth. That's just a positive statement, not a normative one, so I don't understand how that can constitute a "rant." What I think might be illuminating to Europeans who are incredulous about how our workers would allow the "fruits of their labor to be stolen," would be to hear why they might not consider working unpaid overtime to be being stolen from.
- gnu8 12y ago
  You understood my comment correctly. False consciousness is a good explanation because of the fact that tech workers accept such a meager proportion of the profits generated by their work without complaint. Why would anyone knowingly accept less money than they're worth? They wouldn't, knowingly. It must be unknowingly. They must not know they're being exploited because there is no significant organization. Instead they all act as "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" and try to increase their wealth incrementally, by competing amongst themselves for promotions and raises, working 100 hour weeks at startups for equity, and so on. You suggest that they look elsewhere for a better deal, as if the free market price for their labor is by definition a fair price, but it is not, because of the power differential between capital and labor. It's not that all business collude consciously against labor(1), it's simply that the exception in the law for tech workers drives the price down, because it's purely good management not to pay any more than necessary for labor. I'm not suggesting mass strikes, labor unions, and Marxist claptrap as a solution. Removing the loophole would be an entirely reasonable starting point. I've never seen anything approaching a rational justification for the tech worker exemption. (1) Except when they do, like with the recent wage fixing scandal amongst a subset of well known companies.