If you are in favor of someoen being able to work for starvation wages if they will agree to it, why not repeal the child labor laws too? Employers used to like having child employees; they were easier to intimidate and small fingers were better able to perform many factory tasks. The effect on the child did not enter into the equation.
Dana
>This is an interesting question. Why shouldn't someone work for next to
>nothing if they are willing to?
>
>A minimum wage in America is a 20th century idea, and one that was
>sorely fought for and won. The essential logic behind it is that society
>benefits from having large numbers of low and middle class people buying
>goods and services in the region where they live, and that poverty and
>mass privation are very costly to the Nation in terms of defense, social
>welfare, and the economy.
>
>Prior to the existance of a minimum wage, employers would seek to reduce
>the cost of labor to as close to 0 as possible through any one of a
>number of means all aimed at having more people available for a job then
>there were jobs. They could encourage immigration to specific
>localities, they could hire 10 people at .5 a day to do the work of 1
>person at 1.00 a day, they could fire anyone for the slightest reason
>(such as asking for a raise or talking about organizing the workers)
>without cause. The best narriative account of these situations I have
>read is 'The Jungle', which recounts real life conditions in Chicago in
>the early 1900s.
>
>Now, ask yourself if you enjoy driving a car, if you enjoy being able to
>feed your children a well balanced diet, if you enjoy being able to go
>to the doctor when you are sick, if you enjoy being able to go to the
>movies more than once every 6 months. Were it not for a minimum wage,
>regardless of how well off you think you are, you would have none of
>these. There would not have been a market to support the mass production
>of automobiles, there would not be enough people able to afford
>supermarkets, there would not be physicians or hospitals as you know
>them, and entertainment would not be affordable to society in general.
>
>Think about it: In California and New York, there are large numbers of
>people taking developer positions for minimum wage or below (in the case
>of people willing to intern while the recession keeps on rolling along).
>Do you think the people offering these positions feel some sort of a
>moral obligation to pay people at minimum wage? Probably not, they would
>just as soon cut salaries down to $1 a day if they could, and see about
>hiring some undocumented illegal immigrants to do the job for less if
>possible.
>
>The bottom line is: Employers should be barred from employing people at
>poverty wages. Be glad there is a minimum wage, it protects you from the
>savages of the marketplace, and feel privledged to have grown up in a
>society that respects the working man enough to say there is a limit to
>how poorly he can be treated. Having large numbers of undocumented
>illegals working anywhere in the U.S. is a bad sign of things to come,
>both for the American worker and society as a whole.
>
>M
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Heald, Tim [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Sent: Wednesday, January 07, 2004 9:02 AM
>To: CF-Community
>Subject: RE: More Breaking News
>
>
>... If a person is willing to work for next to nothing, should they not
>be able to?
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