Lyft and Uber threatened to stop doing business in Minneapolis after the city council adopted a new rule Thursday that would set a minimum wage for rideshare drivers.

  • @quindraco@lemm.ee
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    -2811 months ago

    That’s a weird reaction. Why not just ignore the bill entirely? It’s not like a municipality has any viable enforcement mechanism against what amounts to a smartphone app.

    • @cdf12345@lemmy.world
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      4711 months ago

      That’s a weird takeaway from this.

      Govt: we believe that companies that employ people in our community should have to pay the established legal minimum wage.

      Companies: we are only able to profit by paying non livable wages.

      Lemmy user: yes company, keep exploiting your workers and breaking the laws all businesses have to follow, I mean they can’t really catch you.

      • @reddig33@lemmy.world
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        1311 months ago

        “Govt: we believe that companies that employ people in our community should have to pay the established legal minimum wage.”

        …Unless they are waiters or waitresses.

        • @TheYear2525@lemmy.world
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          2011 months ago

          I’ll just do the rest of the thread, since it’s the same every time:

          They actually do have to pay minimum wage if you don’t make at least that in tips.

          Yeah, but if you try to get them to do it, they’ll fire you!

          Being unwilling to stick up for your rights is a different claim entirely

          Must be nice being privileged, asshole!

          Must suck being too cowardly to stick up for yourself!

          [removed]

          [removed]

        • Waiters and waitresses still get paid minimum wage (not tipped minimum) if their tips and wages are less than minimum wage.

          Well, they’re supposed to at least.

          • _haha_oh_wow_
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            211 months ago

            Supposed to is the important part there, wage theft is depressingly common.

            • Definitely true, which is why I included that line.

              But, the truth is that if you’re not doing well enough as a server to hit minimum wage in tips, you’re probably going to get let go anyways. It’s stupid easy to get minimum wage in tips.

      • @steltek@lemm.ee
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        211 months ago

        It’s at least worth pointing out that Uber in particular broke several laws to establish themselves in various markets and never suffered any real punishment.

      • Brawndo
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        -1111 months ago

        That is a weird takeaway from this.

        Government: We believe that you need to pay your workers more because we feel like it’s not enough.

        Companies: The workers agreed to the pay when they signed on. If you make us pay them more, we cannot afford to pay the workers without raising our rates to levels that people don’t want to pay for.

        Government: You will pay them more money.

        Companies: We can’t afford to do that so we will be pulling out of this area and now they will make exactly $0 and now people have fewer transportation options.

        Government: We did it, we successfully raised people’s earnings to $0! pats self on back for a job well done

        • @cdf12345@lemmy.world
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          811 months ago

          How is this any different than a fast food chain illegally paying someone under minimum wage? Then getting shut down for not acting legally?

          If you can follow the laws, you don’t exist.

          Everyone else has to play by the labor laws rules. If you can’t afford it, go out of business.

        • @thepianistfroggollum@lemmynsfw.com
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          11 months ago

          The problem with your scenario is that you’re assuming an increase in payroll expenses will have enough of an affect on the company’s profit margin for them to go negative.

          This is almost never the case, and if your business can’t survive without paying slave wages, then your business doesn’t deserve to survive.

          The truth is that companies don’t want to raise wages because they’re on a quest to hoard as much wealth as possible. Just look. The country is in a recession and corpos are reporting record profits.

    • Ertebolle
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      -211 months ago

      Sure they do, they can fine them and if they don’t comply they can go to state court to get it enforced. Individuals may be able to flout overdue tolls or traffic tickets or whatever for a while, but it’s extremely easy to impose a fine on a public corporation.