Reddit's preference of exploiting unpaid labor, and it's failure to plan for the inevitable event where that exploited labor decides they want to be compensated for their work is entirely on Reddit Inc. A company valued at $3 billion should have understood the potential risk.
All Reddit mods who feel burned out or are otherwise struggling because of the work they've done as mods should file a complaint with the Dept. of Labor and request financial compensation for the work performed, and coverage of any medical treatment stemming from the results of moderating toxic communities.
>I have yet to see a convincing argument, here on HN or elsewhere, about how these companies are taking advantage of workers.
I'll try :).
A right, by definition, is a moral or legal entitlement to have or obtain something or to act in a certain way. (Legal) Rights cannot be taken away from you.
Make sure you understand that before the next step.
Now read -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_rights and make sure you spend ample time becoming acquainted with the kind of rights that are bestowed to workers in countries like the US.
Now make a judgment on whether you think some of these companies are infringing some of these rights. If you also have trouble with that, let me know and I'll help as well!
Every job I've ever had required me to get advance permission to do paid outside work, so such a rule would eliminate most people who are both ethical and employed.
> There would be minimum working condition requirement enforced by labor department.
Yeah, this is basically what I'm saying. :) Labour codes are developed over time. In the beginning, it's the wild west. Want to be a janitor and not use any personal protective equipment? Go right ahead! After workers keep getting sick, the government begins to legislate requirements around health and safety.
Awareness of mental illness is a relatively new thing. We'll probably see some developments in this area if the big tech companies continue to outsource moderation at scale. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/may/25/facebook-modera... is a nice article that describes accommodations that other companies provide to moderators. They include, as an example, monthly psychologist visits which continue after the person stops working for the organization. They also include training for the person's family and social support groups.
> Why is it fair that an employee can stop working at their job or commit fraud, then immediately sell all the non-public information they have to a competitor?
Then sue if you have proof. What is not fair is to reduce a worker's opportunity to work when he isn't on your payroll.
"We have labor laws in the US because 'some people will take the deal.'"
No, we have labor laws to subsidize labor unions by driving up the cost of labor. It's one of the reasons we have rust belts instead of factory belts.
"You are flooding the market with artificially cheap labor, making it impossible for others who can't work for free to compete."
If a person's labor has lower value than free, they have a problem. That problem is not competition.
"Worse, as a business owner, how am I to compete with someone getting free labor while I'm paying my employees like a sucker?"
Logical thinking fail. "Artificially cheap labor", to use your words, drives down your costs for both labor and supplies.
In any event, unpaid internships are consistent with the principle of free association: the participants do not harm each other, and do not coerce anyone else. Restricting unpaid internships is morally equivalent to banning a church that does not charge for admission, on the theory that they unfairly compete with movie theaters.
> which calls for workers to stop volunteering at one location, which is being interpreted as a call for a strike
No, this is called "working to rule". You don't do anything more than your contract stipulates you must.
What I suspect is happening is that the company has to pay more, or it somehow is not in their interest, when it's mandatory rather than voluntary overtime, so they're threatening people for not volunteering.
> And yeah I’m pretty sick of this framing. It’s an anecdote where employees are direct victims, and then the focus gets shifted to hypothetical and indirect victims (businesses).
No, the focus gets shifted to
> We need to make sure that businesses that _do_ treat their employees well are able to succeed. And, to do that, we make sure that treating their employees well isn't turned into a penalty. We make sure that all companies are playing by the same rules.
The thread went like this
>>> Businesses should not be able to steal wages from their employees, and we should punish them harshly
>> Yes, if businesses can get away with that, then the ones that treat workers well will go out of business
> (you) Stop making this about the business being a victim here
Seriously, what the heck. Everything about that bit of the thread was about making sure it's better for businesses to treat employees well.
People have spouses, kids, mortgages. They relocate for work. They pour a lot of their time, energy & emotion into it. It causes people strokes, and hairloss. People bring the stress of their work home, and marriages suffer for it.
Your comment is rather glib. Praise these companies? No thanks.
> Can you give examples where transactions result in negative sum due to asymmetrical power, and what the proposed solution is?
Start by reading literally anything in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_labor_law_in_the_Un... and observe that most of the implemented solutions largely consisted of curtailing the rights of capital holders to do whatever they please in the employer-employee relationship. Weekends, sick leave, overtime pay, company scrip, employer responsibility for worker safety, fair employment, the right to free association, the right to work without harassment... Capitalism didn't produce any of those things - it is incapable of producing them - but has fought tooth and nail, sometimes with batons and bullets against them.
Power imbalances continue to exist, the purpose of all these work-arounds to them is mitigating the harm that someone with power can inflict on someone without.
The Fair Labor Standards Act: https://webapps.dol.gov/elaws/whd/flsa/docs/volunteers.asp
Reddit's preference of exploiting unpaid labor, and it's failure to plan for the inevitable event where that exploited labor decides they want to be compensated for their work is entirely on Reddit Inc. A company valued at $3 billion should have understood the potential risk.
All Reddit mods who feel burned out or are otherwise struggling because of the work they've done as mods should file a complaint with the Dept. of Labor and request financial compensation for the work performed, and coverage of any medical treatment stemming from the results of moderating toxic communities.
https://dol.gov/agencies/whd/contact/complaints
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