Ciro Alessandro Sacco wrote: > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > >>Curses upon the government then. >> > > Perhaps I'm specializing in making 'off topic' comments, but just > imagine if a company (not WotC, ANY company) could use workers of any > type under the guise of 'volunteers' - an excellent supply of low wage > and no guarantees people that are easy to fire and can't complain > because they have no rights and no better alternatives. If you think > this is going too far, just imagine about the working conditions in the > sweatshops of the US (yes, you have a lot of them, not just Mexico or > Latin America) or southern Italy (where a month's wage is around 500 > dollars, you work for ten-twelve hours a day and all the workers are, > probably, 'volunteers' too). >
Unfortunately for your theory, the *reality* of the "no volunteers" law has been a collapse in customer service in many areas, most noticeably online services and games. It USED to be that online services were staffed almost entirely by volunteers, people who felt they were part of a community and wanted to give something back. Then, someone decided to make a big stink about being "exploited" (by *choosing* to work for free -- totally free -- no promises of future paid employment, no minimum wage, nothing which could remotely be considered a real job) and the online volunteers vanished, hundreds of committed individuals replaced by a handful of underpaid, non-volunteer, grunts who didn't care about the community and didn't consider themselves part of it. Your argument is one in favor of minimum wage laws, not one against allowing volunteers to work for for-profit coporations. Hell, it's MY life, MY time, MY work -- if I wish to give it away, what right does anyone have to tell me I can't? (Or, to put it in a more on-topic perspective -- I earn less money, per hour, as a freelancer than I would working at a local McDonalds. Does this mean I should sue someone for 'exploiting' me?) Heck, I used to be a volunteer, back in the ealry days of online services, late 80s, early 90s, playing forum cop on AOL and CI$. "Exploited"? Heck no! I got online comp time, and, when you considered time online used to cost twelve smegging bucks an hour, I was getting many times minimum wage in equivalent value. Volunteer means "to do something for free, because you want to do it". Going from volunteerism to sweatshops is a logical jump of stunning proportions. (Also keeping this on topic, doesn't SJG often have unpaid positions doing website maintenance? I mean no offense or implication against SJG, I'm just marginally certain I've seen such postings on Illuminati Online. If I am incorrect in this, I apologize.) _______________________________________________ Ogf-l mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
