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Comment by myspy | Hacker News Reader

Wow, real a*holes the leadership of Starbucks.

Maybe so, but please don't post unsubstantive or name-calling comments to HN. We're trying for something else here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

The two comments above you are discussing how this is kind of what workers signed up for when they joined a union. Maybe SB leadership are assholes (and maybe they are breaking labor laws -- I genuinely don't know much about this topic), and not to call you out specifically, but I see a lot "drive by" comments like these that are just expression of anger, and don't really engage with the story at all. I see a lot of non-programming discussions get buried in this stuff, and it makes HN feel like Reddit. I used to always feel like more likely than not I'd learn things from HN comments.

HN stories about unions always attract low-value comments. I prefer the GP-kind of comments to the elaborate troll replies pretending to understand unionisation ("oh look! Less money! That must have been the sort of thing the workers really wanted when they unionised").

"Look what you made me do" - Starbucks Management and/or domestic abusers

They signed up for their employer breaking the law?

"Don't protect your rights or your employer will break the law!"

> and maybe they are breaking labor laws -- I genuinely don't know much about this topic

Well, the NLRB, one of the arbiters of labor laws, doesn't say "maybeeeee", it says they _are_ breaking labor laws.

Wage theft is three times larger than the rest of categories of theft combined, so I suspect the issue is more systemic than some individually asshole leaders / more complex than celebrity-like good vs bad evaluation of individual actors. Agreed they are assholes, but am skeptical that advicating nicer ones and fining the mean ones can legitimize the whole system

Yes and, not no but.

Right, culture is frequently described as a top-down phenomenon, so it is appropriate to look at those highest in the leadership chain first, as they are prime movers when it comes to this kind of thing. They shape the organization's operations through their choices of what to get involved in and what to let others handle.

Systemic or not, these decisions are still made by individual actors who very much know the difference between right and wrong.

I have no idea what right or wrong means to most people in 2023. Also there is no such thing unless you believe in Judeo-Christian values. There are only actions

Thank you for the insight, ihateyouall123.

Wage theft is also not punished nearly heavily enough to act as a deterrent. From Rutgers:

"Even if an employer is caught, the penalties are generally not severe enough to change their future behavior. The two primary penalties that DOL uses are civil money penalties and liquidated damages. Employers who repeatedly or willfully violate the minimum wage and overtime requirements may be subjected to civil monetary penalties of up to $1,100 for each violation, but DOL seldom uses these penalties (Bobo, 2009)."[0]

[0]https://smlr.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/Documents/Cente...

I've never understood the distinction between "employer" and "employee". There's no such thing. I've been both. So have tons of other people.

One does work, the other captures the surplus value of that work

Sometimes the employer is also acting as a worker but not necessarily and they get to keep the surplus either way

That seems like a pretty clear distinction to me

if you're going to analyze the labor market, the employees are also capturing the labor surpluses

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/sV5P59KbkmE/hqdefault.jpg

Workers are a variable cost. A business where the surplus goes to workers ongoing instead of profiting its owners is a failure, or a worker’s cooperative.

A lot of economic confusion is caused by people not understanding that 'employer' and 'employee' are just peers making a trade.

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