Why We Fight - more evidence

[ProfessorPlum]

Some people around here just about stroked out when I made this and additional claims last week:

* The ultimate corporate model of labor is slavery - free labor with no pay. We need government to prevent that, and make corporations pay for labor

Their point seemed to be that corporations often had good people in them- which I agree with - and to stop picking on our poor beleaguered corporate overlords - which I do not.

Then this morning I see this headline: Starbucks Has to Pay for Drips of Off-the-Clock Work

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/starbucks-has-to-pay-for-drips-of-off-the-clock-work

which is all about stopping wage theft where Starbucks, which I think we can all agree is one of the more benign corporate entities in the US, wanted to keep not paying workers for their total working time.

this was presented as

Link to tweet

"The Calif. Supreme Court decided a case that could add billions in labor costs to employers' bottom line by requiring them to pay employees for work time that previously went uncompensated " by Jon Steingart, editor at Bloomberg.

So, we have a corporation that wants (some) work done at zero pay. And a corporate news outlet crying about how it will cost employers "billions" to pay their actual wage. Boo hoo.

And this kind of "why won't people just work for free" framing happens all of the time, day in and day out, throughout the media.

Is it really a question that we need to STOP giving corporations the ability to buy and control our government?

[Cary]

1. There are a lot of other things going on

It is extreme and not objective to decree that the ultimate corporate model is slavery. After all slaves don't consume all that well.

[kcr]

2. It isn't a question

But I think no one listens because it's the corporations who sign their checks. Labor has been weakened to the point that it's a joke in this country. I think the lack of focus in that area is a big reason why no one listens to anyone railing about the corruption. Why should they care? It's not that I don't think money in politics is important, but I think by itself, without the context of the power imbalance between corporations and workers, it lacks meaning and importance. People just don't understand why it's so important. The fight for unions and labor should take more of a front seat, with corruption as part of the ingredient. It's not effective as a talking point by itself.