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Comment by kennywinker | Hacker News Reader

First, 30/hour is the ceiling, not the floor.

But ok yeah 30/hour for 48 (soon 40) hours of work, but you have to live on the farm 7 days a week. Sooo… that’s 30 * 48 / (24 * 7) = 8.60/hour.

If the target is to have each worker do 70 hours/week, but you’re capped at 40 hours before overtime kicks in, that only brings your cost up by:

With overtime: 40 normal hours * $30 + 30 overtime hours * $45 = $2550

Without overtime: 70 normal hours * $30 = $2100

Difference is $450/worker, or a ~21% increase in cost. At most, since most workers aren’t getting $30/hour. So yeah, raise the price of asparagus by 21%, to reflect the actual cost of picking, or better yet have the owners take a 21% pay cut.

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> So yeah, raise the price of asparagus by 21%, to reflect the actual cost of picking, or better yet have the owners take a 21% pay cut.

Wouldn't be anything like 21%. Tons of costs other than the labor to pick. I'd bet it'd closer to 2% than 20%.

Omg yes, i got fixated on the labour portion and forgot that’s just a fraction of the production cost.

Easy to do, even when people aren't doing it on purpose for propaganda reasons (which, you clearly weren't, from the tone of your post, but... it happens).

The article says that labor can be 50% the cost of asparagus

This farmer claims it's about 50% of his costs. There are more steps before it hits store shelves. And price-charged is necessarily over costs for any non-failing business, so 50% (let's say) of costs won't equal 50% of the wholesale price even before shipping, storage, and all the profit and overhead of those are factored in.

Plus, the same farmer said stuff like:

"After all, he says, he cannot raise his price on a box of asparagus by 50% just because it was cut on a Sunday."

Which makes me inclined to take anything he says about his business or this law with a grain of salt(ed & peppered grilled asparagus... mmm, delicious). Because that's both a blatant math fail, and a business-sense fail.

> Sooo… that’s 30 * 48 / (24 * 7) = 8.60/hour.

Literally still more than some other jobs, and meanwhile by this math you're getting paid while you're asleep or drinking with your friends.

> Without overtime: 70 normal hours * $30 = $2100

What typically happens: Farmer hires 75% more people so none of them get overtime but now they each make 57% as much money because they've each had their hours cut.

> So yeah, raise the price of asparagus by 21%, to reflect the actual cost of picking, or better yet have the owners take a 21% pay cut.

Food is a global commodity. The margins aren't 21% and if you try to raise the price buyers will just get it from someone in a different country.

As someone else pointed out, it would be far far less than 21%, since labour is not the only cost of production. A 21% increase in labour costs doesn’t mean total costs go up by 21%.

> Literally still more than some other jobs, and meanwhile by this math you're getting paid while you're asleep or drinking with your friends.

This is big “a pizza party is good compensation for overtime” energy, my guy. If you’re AT work you’re working.

> As someone else pointed out, it would be far far less than 21%, since labour is not the only cost of production. A 21% increase in labour costs doesn’t mean total costs go up by 21%.

> Labor accounts for half of the costs

The margins aren't 10.5% either, and they can't go below the market rate of return or the farm shuts down because the land and equipment is worth more than it generates. Which it was already so close to before this happened that many of them already have.

This isn't Apple, it's a farm.

> If you’re AT work you’re working.

Slogans-as-hard-rules that don't take into account context is why labor laws consistently hurt workers.

Can you see why a worker might prefer this arrangement to one in which they're paid e.g. $12/hour for 40 hours, and are consequently upset at having it be prohibited?

> > Labor accounts for half of the costs

The actual quote is:

> Labor accounts for half of the costs, he says

Unless he shows me his books, I’m not gonna believe that on just his word. Neither should you.

> The margins aren't 11.5% either

Again, I’d have to see his books before I concluded that the margins didn’t leave room for a <11.5% raise in labour costs. Remember - it would be less, since as he said only the most skilled cutters are earning +$30/hour.

> Labor accounts for half of the costs, he says

"He" is the farmer. Who else would even know?

> Again, I’d have to see his books before I concluded that the margins didn’t leave room for a <11.5% raise in labour costs.

Books are just spreadsheets. They contain no authentication. You don't trust his word but you trust him to give you accurate numbers?

We don't need some specific farmer's accounts to know which businesses have low margins. Farming is a notoriously competitive industry with razor-thin margins because the product is a fungible global commodity.

> Remember - it would be less, since as he said only the most skilled cutters are earning +$30/hour.

The 21% increase comes from paying 50% more for 30 of 70 hours, (0.5 x 30)/70 = 21%, the same percentage regardless of the base hourly wage.

But it's actually worse than that, because for the overtime hours it's a 50% increase. Which is why they immediately get cut.

> What typically happens: Farmer hires 75% more people so none of them get overtime but now they each make 57% as much money because they've each had their hours cut.

Wouldn't that also increase rates, since you need to hire more laborers, which means the demand for labor increases?

Another possibility, is lower peoples' rates to $24.80—40 hours at $24.80/hr + 30 hours at overtime = $2108, so the same as they were being paid before.

Or something in between.

> Wouldn't that also increase rates, since you need to hire more laborers, which means the demand for labor increases

Only if farm work is such a large proportion of the market for unskilled labor that it would move the entire market, which it isn't. And even if it was, paying more would raise costs which would cause marginal farms to fail and lower labor demand again.

> Another possibility, is lower peoples' rates to $24.80—40 hours at $24.80/hr + 30 hours at overtime = $2108, so the same as they were being paid before.

Those people don't want to work for $24.80/hour instead of $30 for most of the year just to be able to get overtime during harvest season. You might offer to pay them less during that time for the same kind of work, but this is the sort of thing the government sometimes gets mad at you for, because then you're transparently thwarting their inefficient price controls.

And you have to ask what's the point of the law if the best case scenario is that you can find a way to cause the rule to have no effect.

> And you have to ask what's the point of the law if the best case scenario is that you can find a way to cause the rule to have no effect.

I was looking for a way to have the rule cause no harm—everybody works the same hours, and gets paid the same.

That's some funny math. When I had to travel for work, I did not get paid for every hour of the day I was away from home at the job site.

There's a few places where these comparisons break down.

First, there is a difference between being away from home and being away from home while being on site 24/7. I'm pretty sure the business traveler and the majority of farm workers don't fit into the latter category. Those who do, such as people working in remote parts of the world, are usually paid quite handsomely.

Second is the level of compensation being provided. Even if you could earn $1,400/week every week of the year as a farm hand, which you cannot since it is seasonal work, you would still be earning less than most people who have to travel for business on a frequent basis. In other words, certain people have their pay padded to account for working away from home.

Finally, there are a whole host of other differences. To a certain degree, these laborers are considered replaceable. (They may not have lost their jobs, but they have lost hours.) The hours worked are rarely guaranteed, particularly if their role is tied to production (rather than maintenance). And if they do have a job outside of the farm, they're going to have far less flexibility to pick up extra hours even when the pay is better (not everyone is a migrant worker or a student).

But unless you were ignoring reality, i’m pretty sure it counted in your mental math about “is this job worth it”. Right?

Why don't you ask the workers?

I don't have to even ask them (since I've worked such jobs) to know what they want. They want as many paid overtime hours as they possibly can get during the season. Anyone limiting these hours will be seen as the enemy.

They are not upset at anyone other than the government over this situation, as they should be.

I don't think many on HN realize that this sort of ham-fisted regulation damages the lower classes and the narratives start from here. If you want to know why the EPA is so hated by blue collar rural workers - this is almost a perfect example. A policy put in place that harms them, when they are told it is helping when anyone complains about it.

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