hose Who Support the Minimum Wage Must Advocate for the Prohibition of Volunteering

While I don't think I would use the word scab, I can certainly understand this viewpoint as it pertains to some volunteer work (volunteer firefighters come to mind).

That being said, people who volunteer for disaster relief, distributing food and necessities to the homeless and/ or needy, etc are stand up citizens in my book.

 

Yes, and I'm fully aware of this argument. As I stated, I understand the lack of consistency for paying volunteers below the minimum wage. From an law-based perspective, you are right. However, it is assumed that volunteer positions don't fall under the jurisdiction of minimum wage laws. From a moral perspective, your assertion can be refuted.

Some organizations utilize the profit motive to attract volunteers, even if the pay is below the minimum wage.

 

Bingo.

I am going to volunteer for the fire department. Yet, I support minimum wage.

 

First of all, while it may technically be illegal (not even sure if t would be), I don't think there is a cop/ federal agent/ whatever that would arrest either you or your friend for that scenario.

Aside from the volunteer and the employee offering their services, whatever that might be, there really is no comparison. The worker and volunteer have different expectations. The employee expects to be treated fairly, and compensated with a livable wage. Thats why they seek employment in the first place. The volunteer has no expectation of receiving compensation for their services.

You can't demand consistency, because the two are entirely different scenarios, with entirely different motives behind them.

 

Whether you donate blood or not does not affect the pay of a doctor one cent. It only increases their ability to save lives, while being paid for the unique set of skills.

But a good Capitalist would know that.

 

What's funny is that you think calling yourself a "Capitalist" is an insult to Capitalism.

It isn't.

Calling yourself a good Capitalist is an insult to Capitalism.

 

Oh, I don't know, because it helps save lives. If you really hate people richer than you so much that you are willing to forgo saving people's lives then I really fear for the entire human race.

 

I suppose. Listen, getting 2 or 3 dollars an hour is not really possible to live off of in most places. I certainly am not advocating 20 dollars an hour to flip burgers, but exploiting people to that degree is a bit too extreme. Besides, why would a company hire more just because they can pay them less? You hire employees because you need employees, not because all of a sudden you can get twice the amount of workers for the same amount.

Once again, this is why we should have more local minimum wage laws. In some places 5.15 an hour is possible to live off of. In places like downtown New York, the minimum wage should be higher because the cost of living is higher. Having the same minimum wage for Fredrick, Oklahoma as it is in Seattle, Washington is a bit on the dumb side.

 

Well, if businesses were not offering enough money, the employee does not have to work for that company -- they could go to another business that pays more. A full time job that does not pay enough to possibly live under will not sustain itself in a free market. A McDonald's who could use another cleaning person for only $3 or $4 an hour at the end of the day, and a high school or college student who wants to make a little movie ticket money, sure... why not? The beauty of the free market is that it pays people based off of the value of their work, productivity, etc. while government restrictions only prevents McDonald's from hiring that extra cleaning person and really has no principle in it at all (just an inconsistent, arbitrary bureaucrat signing legislation).

What the minimum wage hurts the most are small businesses. If a small business has 10 full-time employees at the minimum wage (oftentimes, the natural market price is lower than the government-imposed minimum wage, obviously) and the minimum wage increases by even $1, now that company has about a $20,000 extra burden and will have a much harder time sustaining its business (growing certainly becomes an issue). Expanding businesses is what creates more jobs, and crushing the businesses that are trying to start out is not the right approach to take in order to achieve greater employment. From an economic perspective, it only makes sense to shift the question of wage over to the free market in order to expand employment. From a principled perspective, the arbitrary deciding that $0 an hour is okay, $7.25 an hour is okay, but $5 is exploitation obviously doesn't make any sense.

 

Jeepers, you REAL capitalists are trying to deny my right to make a profit on my own blood. Maybe you boys are just squishy faux capitalists, eh? Maybe I'm an insult to faux capitalism everywhere.

 

Get back to me when the rich people who are 'saving lives' start donating their time, eh? In the meantime, you can be the chump.

 

Who would work at McDonald's for $3 an hour?

The defacto minimum wage is usually higher than minimum wage. I can recall before the downturn, the minimum wage by law here was $6.95 an hour. Burger King was advertising $9.50 an hour. If what you were saying is true, they would never offer more than $6.95 an hour.

Corporations pay what they have to pay for workers.

 

Well, you must hate youth organizations, then. I'd be more than happy sending the union half of the salary I make as a volunteer

 

Are you people serious?

Are you seriously saying that volunteer work for charitable organizations should be made illegal?

 

You do understand that the Red Cross (at least in the U.S.) uses proceeds from blood sales to hospitals for disaster relief, etc., don't you. The hospitals aren't making a profit off of blood. The Red Cross is.

 

Please feel free to sell your blood at a plasma center. I'm sorry if my donating blood reduces your fees (by increasing blood supply), but that's my choice.

 

Studies show that conservatives donate more of their own money, time and even blood than do liberals.

Volunteerism is more common among those with higher educational attainment, so in general, volunteers are richer than the general population.

 

I would agree if it was businesses that "hired" volunteers. However, mostly it's non-profits/governmental agencies that "hire" volunteers.

 

I ain't saying it's not your choice. You are certainly allowed to be a chump in this country.

 

The whole point of volenteering is doing it to without the need of compensation. People CHOOSE to do it, knowing full well that they are not being payed. There is no connection between minimum wage and volenteer work at all. The OP has no valid point....End of thread.

 

No. That's a silly idea.

The point is that volunteers are of a different nature altogether.

For one thing, volunteering doesn't (or at least shouldn't) happen in for-profit companies-- with the possible exception of a friend helping out a friend who's starting up a business and can't afford to pay (and then the friend is owed big time).
In a for-profit company, workers are paid for helping the company make profit. There's nothing intrinsically good about helping someone else make money. They owe you for your labor in that your labor is necessary for their profit.

Volunteers work for non-profit entities.
Non-profit entities support a common good. That good might be something only a few enjoy (a neo-con book club) or something the whole public benefits from (housing the homeless).
Non-profits are not focused on maximizing profit. All of their revenue is intended instead to work toward a cause. All costs are overhead.
And there's also the fact that the organization exists to fulfill a good that is intrinsically valuable to at least some group of people.

The question in a non-profit is about what labor has to be paid for to ensure the organization exists... and the goal is to keep it low. Non-profit workers work for less. They are assumed to work there because they value the product (corporations emulate this in their interview questions, but everyone knows it's at least partially BS). Pay is based on what it will take to enable the qualified person to work there. Pay is necessary for positions that require long-term reliability, continuity, flexible availability, and specialized skills.

Volunteer positions usually don't require these things (though some small organizations can exist as volunteer-only, usually part-time run or run by people who are retired or independently well-off).
Plus volunteers serve other purposes than labor.
Offering volunteer positions helps to serve the good the organization hopes to serve in ways other than just saving money on labor. Volunteers are part of an outreach network, building awareness. The most reliable and loyal ones (which an outreach program hopes to recruit and train) are zealous for the cause and talk about it to others. And they volunteer again and again.

As you can see, the nature is different.
You don't want to hire a bunch of people desperate for a living to volunteer. You want to get people involved who are motivated by the cause itself.
When you pay, it psychologically makes it more like a "job" and decreases the motivation for such people.
(there are also interns, of course, but they are paid with credits and held accountable by reports and involved in more advanced tasks).

And think about it. Is a lawyer less likely to volunteer services to poor church members because they don't pay him... $3 an hour?
Who's going to more zealously talk about the need to help the homeless? A guy who fills a booth for free because he wants to be there or the guy who you paid $3 to show up? And at what point is the extra few bucks an hour going to hurt for those you do pay (say, a janitor) vs. having to pay any amount of dollars per hour to the (if your outreach works) army of front-line volunteers.
And to professionals who offer their time-- it's INSULTING.

It's the difference between for-profit and non-profit.

 

This is absolutely an excelent point.

 

This doesn't even make sense. If you are a volunteer you don't receive compensation. If you work and get less than minimum for compensation, you are an idiot not a volunteer, and the business should be considered an organized criminal venture, for utilizing a slave labor force for a profit.
　
　
Even if somebody works for a business, not a non profit organization, but waves their wages, their pay (based on the appropriate minimum wage) should be donated to a non profit, in the name of the volunteer.

 

Do you consider Volunteer Firefighters/Ambulance Corps members scabs?

 

I think it's because you can't really exploit someone if you aren't paying them at all.

You do raise an interesting point, though.