notbob wrote:
On 2013-04-05, Bill Graham wrote:

In a truely capitalistic system, no company would want to get rid of
a productive employee that they have hired and trained to do their
job and who does it acceptably well.

Jay-sus, are you ppl ever naive.

A company will often fire the highest paid employee simply cuz they
have to pay him/her more. In high tech, I've often seen the best and
brightest let go for merely earning too much. In fact, it's a long
established tradition to let go employees with tons of experience and
replace them with 1-2 newbie boobies. High tech literally invented
the concept.

Other points are equally inaccurate. The feds typically default to
state labor laws. For years, CA had OT for anything over 8 hrs.
Republican gov Pete Wilson signed a law changing it to 1.5X for over
40 hrs. I was working up to 10-12 hrs day with no OT. Succeeding gov
Grey Davis changed it back to 8 hr OT.

The Federal Labor Relations Board is a joke. I once discovered my
temp agency was not paying me the legally required $0.36 hr I was due.
I complained to the FLRB. The finally got back to me and said that,
yes, my temp employer was, indeed, in violation of two federal laws.
I said, "I knew that. When do I get my $600 back pay?". The feds
replied, "Oh, there is no penalty or requirement they reimburse. We
jes consider it an administrative infraction". So, a law with no
penalty. No wonder almost every temp employment agency in CA ignored
it and withheld the money owed to workers.

Every single time I've taken a labor issue to the state or the feds,
they both sided with the company. I've seen too often over 45 years
as both a blue and white collar worker.

nb

All of the above may be true, but we don't live in a "truely capitalistic
system" We have become more and more socialized over the course of my
working life. (1956 - 1996) So, all bets are off.....