Cliff:

Let's talk truth.

First, who is coercing whom?  Is it the mine owner and operator who has
created a situation whereby your hypothetical family totally lacks any
other opportunities. Is it the consumers of the mines' output that
created that situation?  Or is it just a fact of life? Can you name any
time in any society in the history of man where people were not faced
with just such choices?

Second,  are you prepared to tell that person that he cannot make that
choice?  Will he be better off?  If YOU deny him that choice what are
YOU prepared to do to support his family (however, since you are making
the decisions you have to pay for it, not me and not others).

I have no dispute with what you say, and in fact, I am prepared to
support your position. But I do need to know what  wages we are talking
about. You say that there is a "vast disparity between 'underpaid' and
[being] paid so little that you can barely survive". OK, so just what is
that hourly rate? Do we "underpay them" or pay them just enough so they
can survive, or do we fix it somewhere in the middle.  And just how do
we define "survive"? What level of amenities are we prepared to allow
this family?  How many hours per week should Papa have to work in order
to be at this comfort level we set - 40, 60 more, less? Do we make Mama
work too?  I am not being argumentative, but if we are to know what
exploitation is we need to know precisely when someone is being
exploited. That way we can avoid buying product from those producers, so
they go out of business and no longer exploit their workers. And if the
people suffer that is their problem, not ours.

By the way, if I have a business and I have two low skill employees
doing exactly the same work, one is a middle class teenager who just
wants to supplement the allowance from his parents and the other is a
father of six who is the sole source of support for his family. If I pay
them both the same am I exploiting one and not the other? Are you
proposing that I have a pay scale based on employee need and not the
value of output?   If the law says I have to pay the father of six more
than I pay the teenager, when it comes time to hiring people, what are
the chances that I will hire another father of six, or one?

Finally, no one spoke of deception, so I have no idea where that came
from?  Fraud is fraud and ought to be punished to the extent someone
suffers damages as a direct result of false and misleading statements.
But where is the deception? If the mine owner says he will pay $.10 an
hour and in fact that is what is paid, where is the deception?  Back to
my example - Let's say  my teenage employee saves the money he earns
from me, goes off to college and later gets a good job that provides him
a very comfortable life style. My other worker, has to spend all of his
money on food and shelter so saves nothing, never improves himself and
remains a low paid, unskilled worker. So where is the deception?   Did I
promise my employees a better life, or did I just say I would pay them
minimum wage?

The truth is that in most of the world and for most of history life
sucked and you died early and miserably.  Platitudes don't feed people,
but oddly enough a lot of crappy jobs do. But, as I said, if you want to
take the choices away from people and make the decisions for them I have
no problem with that, just let us know what pay scale and working
conditions are not exploitive, so that we can act accordingly.

Chuck D.





Clif Brick wrote:

>I have to comment on the use of the word "coercion".  What constitutes
>coercion?
>
>If your family is barely making a living, and you have the "opportunity"
>to go digging a hole and crawling into it, in search of pennies to save
>your starving family, risking being suffocated, drowned and/or crushed
>to death, all the while poisoning the very land you could barely live
>off of before you took this "opportunity", so that you have hope of a
>better life, isn't that the very essence of coercion. Your family is in
>jeopardy, someone deceptively offers a better life, you buy into the
>deception. The coal mining companies in Appalachia did the same thing,
>and it amounted to slavery not opportunity.
>
>There's a vast desparity between "underpaid" and paid so little that you
>can barely survive.
>
>One can paint the story anyway one likes, but it doesn't change the
>truth.
>
>Clif
>
>

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