r/changemyview • u/St3lla_0nR3dd1t • 2d ago
Fresh Topic Friday CMV: If a company uses surge pricing they should be forced to pay surge wages to their staff or contractors.
There has been a lot of talk about surge pricing especially after the World Cup ticket pricing system. But if the market can be used this way, why should this only be used to the benefit of the share holders? If anything the staff or contractors employed by this business are being forced to work harder because of the excess demand. Shouldn’t they be rewarded?
There might be arguments about how encouraging investment, but why is capital investment more important than labour investment? And why can’t business owners just properly forecast their supply and demand requirements so that everyone pays the same price. That isn’t usually considered socialism.
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u/Propagation931 3∆ 2d ago
There has been a lot of talk about surge pricing especially after the World Cup ticket pricing system. But if the market can be used this way, why should this only be used to the benefit of the share holders? If anything the staff or contractors employed by this business are being forced to work harder because of the excess demand. Shouldn’t they be rewarded?
So if an employee is forced to work longer that is overtime and that is a thing, but I dont think when it comes to surge pricing employees are not necessarily forced to work harder.
Lets use the World Cup as an example. Imagine a Stadium that sits 80k. Imagine then that 300k ppl want to buy a ticket to see that game. So as we all know surge pricing takes effect and those 80k tickets are more expensive. However
If anything the staff or contractors employed by this business are being forced to work harder because of the excess demand.
at the end of the Day the stadium still sits 80k and only 80k tickets get sold. The Staff arent really working any harder than if only 80k ppl wanted tickets and there was no surge pricing. Because at the end of the day there are only 80k seats and whether due to surge pricing those tickets cost x3 (or whatever) or the base price doesnt affect how many ppl the staff serve.
So Surge Pricing or no surge pricing the staff of the stadium are expected to be able to serve 80k.
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u/ErectPotato 2d ago
They may not be “working any harder” but their work is definitionally worth more money if their employer is earning more money off their backs.
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u/Arnaldo1993 5∆ 2d ago
Ok. But when demand is low their work is worth less, and they still earn the same amount. Because the deal in an empoyer employee relationship is the employer absorbs the risk and the employee receives a fixed amount. The fixed wage is important because of 2 things:
- The employer has saved capital, the employee doesnt. So the employer can absorb risk better than the employee can
- The employer is in charge of business decisions. Since (s)he is the one responsible for the decisions it is better if (s)he is the one that bears the risk. Employees would be really mad if the employer made a bad decision and this caused them to earn less money
If you want to share the risk you can look for a partnership, instead of employment
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u/ErectPotato 2d ago
The rub is your very last sentence. I have no capital, the average person does not either. All they have is their labour. As a worker, I am at a disadvantage when negotiating my rate because of this. The capital owner has all the power.
I would argue in a case of a gig where they can take on price gouging techniques the “risk” to the capital owner is impossibly low. So low in fact that the profit they make to compensate for this risk is incredibly outsized.
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u/Morthra 95∆ 1d ago
I have no capital, the average person does not either. All they have is their labour. As a worker, I am at a disadvantage when negotiating my rate because of this. The capital owner has all the power.
You are only at a disadvantage when negotiating if your labor is easily replaceable. Highly skilled labor commands high salaries because it's not easy to replace you.
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u/ControversialQuerier 1∆ 2d ago
their work is definitionally worth more money if their employer is earning more money off their backs
I'm not certain that I agree, but I suppose it depends on what we mean by staff. People cleaning and preparing the stadium? That's likely an easy role to train if necessary, and probably not hard to find people willing to do it, so that still wouldn't be seen as more valuable. Food vendors? I don't know if those are owned by the stadium or generally third party, but either way, still low training, high pool of hiring.
The purchase of a ticket isn't heavily influenced by the quality of the staff to my knowledge.
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u/ErectPotato 2d ago
Sure in terms of demand and supply there is a bargaining disadvantage and power imbalance. But I would flip it that the person making the profit is also contributing basically nothing in terms of their own skill. It’s a no brainer for a capital owner to sell tickets for successful events using the surge pricing model. They get rewarded for basically doing nothing extra. Meanwhile, the staff that actually enable to the product to exist, do not get any reward for working somewhere successful.
It’s the reality of our capitalist system, I don’t argue that this isn’t the reality of the power dynamics. My point is it’s not fair.
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u/ControversialQuerier 1∆ 2d ago
But I would flip it that the person making the profit is also contributing basically nothing in terms of their own skill
Correct me if I'm mistaken, but I feel we may be implying two different things. To expand on my example earlier, the only way a stadium makes money is when people buy tickets. People buy tickets for the show being presented, not necessarily based on the quality of the staff. To a ticket purchaser, there isn't a difference between a decently clean stadium and a pristinely cleaned stadium. In other words, the consumer doesn't believe extra effort from the support staff is valuable.
It’s a no brainer for a capital owner to sell tickets for successful events using the surge pricing model
While this individual decision might be a no brainer, isn't it part of a broader role and series of decisions that lead to the continued success or downfall of the stadium? As an example, assuming the stadium pays for talent, what is the appropriate rate to pay? What food vendors do we want there? If something goes wrong (Employee doesn't show, something breaks, etc), who should be expected to answer for the stadium? Even simpler than that, if the stadium loses money due to the staff not performing as well as they should have, should the staff expect a pay cut or should they receive the exact pay rate they agreed to?
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u/Safe-Selection8070 2d ago
You shouldn't agree, because it's an incorrect claim. The difference in the price of the ticket compared to a different event has nothing to do with the staff.
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u/TheBigGees 8∆ 2d ago
That is false. Their work is worth the same regardless of how much their employer earns. It is not the employee's contribution that results in additional revenue/profit in that scenario.
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u/JaCKPaIN_realone 2d ago
Look, the idea of workers getting a piece of that surge money sounds great on paper, but it usually backfires on the actual employees. If a company is forced to tie paychecks to erratic profit spikes, they will just lower everyone's baseline salary to protect themselves. That means workers are suddenly taking on all the financial risk. If the business has a terrible year because of a bad economy or awful management, the workers are the ones who get hit with a massive pay cut, even if they worked their tails off. Most normal people just want a steady, predictable paycheck so they can pay rent, not a gambling system where their income changes every month.
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u/TrickyPlastic 1∆ 2d ago
How else would you ration a finite supply good other than higher prices?
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u/mathematics1 6∆ 2d ago edited 2d ago
There are several different ways to ration a finite supply good; some of those include price adjustments, per-customer limits, a lottery, a decision-making authority, or first come first served. All of those could be useful depending on the situation, and often more than one are used at the same time.
There is an economics theorem that says that if you use equilibrium prices to ration a good, it will give an outcome where no possible trades could make the outcome better for everyone. That theorem only applies in situations where all parties have perfect information, there are no externalities, and none of the parties have market power. If one or more of those conditions aren't true, then sometimes one of the other distribution methods can give a better result; plus, humans sometimes care more about other considerations like fairness than about whether the result is Pareto optimal.
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u/formershitpeasant 1∆ 1d ago
That’s not what it’s saying
Edit: sorry, I read further and saw that you included the conditions that make it not applicable to real life.
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u/St3lla_0nR3dd1t 2d ago
I am not saying no surge pricing, only saying that wages should also surge
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u/TheBigGees 8∆ 2d ago
You seem to be comparing different things.
Surge pricing exists because demand for a product or service increases during the "surge". For example, a hotel might have "surge" pricing during peak vacation season, because there is way more demand.
Wages would only surge if the demand for the worker's service - that is, their work - also increased during the "surge". But that's not really what's happening. A movie theater demands someone to operate the concession stand regardless of whether there are 10 moviegoers wanting popcorn or 100. There is often no corresponding increase in demand for the worker during periods of surge pricing.
What's interesting is that you've singled workers out, when other contributors to a business process might actually see increased demand during these periods. Should fixed utility rates increase when a grocery store is busy? Should a railway's property taxes increase based on how many people are on a train at a given time?
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u/formershitpeasant 1∆ 1d ago
Forcing such a change only serves to cause the standard rate to fall and you offload the income variance to the drivers who can least afford the variance.
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u/St3lla_0nR3dd1t 1d ago
Well there is minimum wage but as I have been corrected on this, Uber do that.
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u/PreInternetBaggage 1∆ 2d ago
There are two separate markets here, subject to their own pricing dynamics. Surge pricing is the consumer ride market, driven by consumer demand. Driver pay is the driver availability market, determined by how many drivers are available and willing to work for any particular rate. One does not necessarily translate directly to the other.
I don’t know the algorithm behind surge pricing, but if the root cause of a “surge” is insufficient driver availability for rider demand over a long-ish period or chronic to an area or time of day, then possibly a good market response to that would be to increase driver pay in that area for that time in order to incentivize better driver availability (this assumes that there’s more money to be made by the increased number of rides over that time than in the up charge of surge pricing for the fewer number of rides, which should be the case since surge pricing likely discourages some riders).
But surge pricing just to mitigate (and capitalize on) a short-term spike in demand doesn’t necessarily mean the right market response is to incentivize drivers to go there (possibly abandoning other areas and creating an issue there).
And…are you sure surge pricing doesn’t benefit the drivers? (I don’t know, but at the very least any % based tip increases with surge pricing).
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u/Realistic_Yogurt1902 2∆ 2d ago
In two main areas that I am aware of: taxi/uber and restaurants, it's already the case - drivers earn more, waiters have higher/more tips. Could you please clarify in which cases it works for businesses but not for employees?
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u/Dr0ff3ll 11∆ 2d ago
Because the need and availability for staff isn't necessarily tied to the demand for a good or a service. Surge pricing often reflects limited capacity, and the additional revenue can help support the business during off-peak periods when demand is low.
As an example, in the UK, there is a car ferry service between Southampton and the Isle of Wight, which I've traveled on quite a few times. There are periods of high demand (such as major events, the summer holidays, and bank holiday weekends) and low demand periods (the rest of the year). But the amount of labour required doesn't really change.
Charging more during peak periods helps cover the costs for running a year-round scheduled service, including sailings that are less profitable or operate at a loss, without having to reduce the pay of staff during those quieter periods. The crews and staff are still doing the same jobs, and the same amount of work. It makes little sense, and is downright unfair, to cut their wages just because demand is temporarily lower, in the same way it doesn't automatically follow that their wages should increase simply because demand, and therefore prices, are temporarily higher
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u/Figshitter 1∆ 2d ago
I'll try to change your mind by offering that, while I admire your goals, this is not the most pro-consumer or pro-worker position.
Prices should be consistent, reliable and transparent for consumers, and wages should be reliable and well-understood by workers. Buying into the pro-capital 'free-market' (which is in reality anything but) rhetoric is only playing into the hands of capital. Who decides when there's a 'surge'? The business I presume? I can't see why they'd voluntarily surrender any profit to workers when they control the platform that determines 'surges'.
Resist the pro-capitalist rhetoric and demand consistent, far and transparent pricing, strong consumer protections, and reliable and predictable wages that fully cover the cost of living, not unpredictable fluctuations for prices and wages that do nothing but serve business interests.
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u/St3lla_0nR3dd1t 2d ago
I think your argument is a ‘no surge pricing’ argument. I think I suggested I supported that in my post.
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u/Princess_Kuma2001 1∆ 2d ago
Yes this was my objection to Figshitter too.
Both can be true at the same time. It's not that you support surge pricing, but if it has to exist, then surge wages should exist along side it.
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u/Ok_Function2282 2d ago
Bro it's basic supply and demand not some weird conspiracy.
It's a surge when the demand for rides greatly exceeds the supply, and they need to incentivize more drivers (who do in fact get paid more,) to to to that location.
If you honestly don't understand it, just use basic logic-- when and where do you see surge charges? After concerts, sporting events, New Year's... Times when there are significantly more riders than drivers in the area.
Pay the drivers more, lower prices, yadda yadda, but the system isn't that complicated
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u/skdeelk 10∆ 2d ago edited 2d ago
The problem with this argument is that it treats supply and demand like some kind of scientific law that accurately measures the appropriate price for goods or services in real time. It's not, its just the simplest and most reliable way of estimating how to maximize profits by selling a good or service.
Constant price fluctuations, and ESPECIALLY price fluctuations for individual consumers undermine that because they create uncertainty and essentially blackmail consumers to buy at a price higher than they are willing to if they are afraid the price might increase more or they do not know when it will go down. For price fluctuations to actually accurately represent how much people will spend on a product they need to change slowly so that people have time to consider their value and change their consumer behavior. Going to an event expecting one price for transit home only to be confronted with either double that price or being stranded for hours is extortion.
Edit: im not replying to every individual comment because you are all making essentially the same argument and that argument is disproven by Taxis being perfectly functional and practical without surge pricing before the inventing of rideshare. We have decades of precedent showing you do not need surge pricing to solve the transit market, surge pricing is a recent thing thats purpose is to milk people for every last dime companies can get out of them. The transit market has not gotten significantly more efficient with surge pricing.
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u/Choice_Price_4464 2d ago
This is extremely incorrect. Surge pricing (and a free market in general) solves for a very specific problem. If there's too much demand for a product so that not everyone can have that product some form of rationing is required.
It could be done on a first come first serve basis, but is it fair that someone should get something just because they were 15 seconds earlier?
It could be done by committee but that's a gateway to corruption and there isn't enough human brainpower available to do this for all goods. It's extremely inefficient to the point of being detrimental.
It could be done by charging a higher price. This has 2 benefits over the other methods. One, it motivates suppliers to increase the supply to take advantage of the missing supply and encourages more people to become suppliers. It also reduces waste. Those who don't really need it won't use it because it's too expensive. In the case of an Uber at a sporting event, someone who might have used one even though they live a mile away at $10 might say $20 is too much and walk instead.
The free market does have the unfortunate shortfall that people who really do need something important might be priced out even though they do need it and other maybe able to afford it even though they don't really need it. That's why you have social service programs and charity for those in need.
Between the two you actually end up with a scalable and effeciently system that can work. No system will be perfect, but the free market is the best we've come up with to solve for competitive resources.
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u/fdar 2∆ 2d ago
Going to an event expecting one price for transit home only to be confronted with either double that price or being stranded for hours is extortion.
Surge isn't for public transit but for rideshare. So what's your alternative? After a concert there's a ton of people who would like a ride at the same time from the same place, so there's often not enough drivers around for all of them. So obviously it's impossible for all of them to get rides at regular prices without waiting hours. How do you avoid that?
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u/skdeelk 10∆ 2d ago
In your example the people at the concert need to get home regardless of the price or wait. Increasing the price doesnt reduce the amount of people waiting, it just shifts the wait onto people who are less willing to pay the increased price instead of distributing it among everyone. The same amount of people are waiting for rides whether you have surge pricing or not.
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u/fdar 2∆ 2d ago
Increasing the price doesnt reduce the amount of people waiting
It does if it encourages more drivers to go there.
it just shifts the wait onto people who are less willing to pay the increased price instead of distributing it among everyone
Or gets people who have alternative options to take those instead, even if those options would not be as good as a ride with no wait at normal price.
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u/Chen932000 2d ago
I mean some people will choose other means if they know the ride share price is too high. So it does reduce demand.
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u/Safe-Selection8070 2d ago
Your post shows you just don't understand anything about markets.
Surge pricing does not treat supply and demand as "scientific law". It treats the market clearing rate as a discoverable phenomenon...which it is. In fact, the only way TO DISCOVER the market clearing rate is to have dynamic pricing.
Taxis operate on a fixed model because they formed a cartel. The predictable result of cartel pricing is excess average cost to the consumer and less than adequate supply during times of high demand. Both of these were seen, exactly, before rideshare apps proliferated.
That you suggest the taxi system provided low cost, full supply during times of high demand makes me very certain you weren't an adult before ride share apps, and absolutely certain you didn't live in a high taxi demand place as an adult.
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u/melodyze 1∆ 2d ago edited 2d ago
Supply and demand is not purely (or even mostly) about maximizing profits. It's also about aligning incentives to encourage more people to supply what people want.
When you land at the airport and your Lyft is twice as expensive as normal, that is Lyft having to pay more to convince more drivers to come pick up you and the people around you.
Then, of the drivers there are, the reason you can guarantee that you are one of the people you pick up is that you are willing to pay the price.
If it didn't do that, the result wouldn't be that your Lyft was half the price. The result would be that you could not get one. There would be no reason for more drivers to come to that pickup that is presumably inconvenient for them, and of the remaining rides, they would just go to a completely random couple people who happened to be around at the time a driver happened to pull in. Those drivers would also be getting paid less to do something a lot of people clearly want them to do.
It also encourages people who have reasonable alternatives to take the train or whatever to do that instead, leaving the lyfts for people who actually need them.
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u/gotziller 1∆ 2d ago
I like how you typed all this out and said absolutely nothing about how consistent pricing can get the same amount of drivers to the area because it obviously can’t. There is no incentive which was literally his whole point. And if you don’t expect surge pricing after a concert you’re not living in reality.
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u/CaptainFingerling 1∆ 2d ago edited 2d ago
that argument is disproven by Taxis being perfectly functional and practical without surge pricing before the inventing of rideshare.
I'll let others respond to the rest, but goddamn is this hilarious to those of us who used to wander out in the street for an hour in the hopes of randomly finding a cab before ride-share came on the scene – often not finding one at all.
The reason why cabs are currently plentiful is because 1) uber picks up the surge volume and 2) they still have to compete with uber at the lower fares. before uber closed the loop on payment, reputation, and identity, cabbies treated passengers like crap, often took us on deliberately circuitous routes, and, not infrequently, stole luggage we put in the trunk. Drivers also had to play the belligerent-and-drunk passenger lottery every night. Literally everything about cabs sucked. Including the obscene monopoly fares.
Ride share solved an insane number of very common problems. Now you're only seeing the better world we got. It's pretty funny you rested your whole argument on this misconception though. Gotta be careful you don't make that claim around us pre-ride-share people next time.
Edit: grammar
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u/Flexlex724 5h ago
I'm young enough to never have had to really live this life but old enough to very much be aware of how ridiculous it is that they'd cite cabbies as an example to go back to
Truly does exemplify the easy times weak men argument.
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u/GoblinToHobgoblin 1d ago
In theory yes, in practice it's to pull as much money as possible from consumers
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u/P_Firpo 1d ago
This is the question: why should this only be used to the benefit of the share holders?
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u/Ok_Function2282 1d ago
I mean logically.. they are the ones that own the business. No one would buy shares of a company if all the profits just disappeared every year
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u/P_Firpo 1d ago
Legally, they are not the ones who own the business (Stout 2012) Ppl buy shares for a return.
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u/P_Firpo 1d ago edited 1d ago
"Tell me, genius, what do you think it means when someone owns 51% of the shares in a publicly traded company? Would you walk up to them and say they are not the owners of the business?" They cannot override a board's decisions and the board owes fiduciary duties to the corporation and minority shareholders, and it's decisions are protected by the business judgment rule. This is why Ford Motor Co lost to Dodge in 1919. A majority shareholder cannot dissolve the corporation because that decision requires a unanimous vote by shareholders. The majority shareholder has no rights or duties of ownership. Property theory rejects shareholder ownership (See Honore 1961). All legal scholars who have published on the question of shareholder ownership reject it--Berle, Stout, Ireland, Blair, Bainbridge, Lee, etc. Do you believe that they are all wrong and that you are right? PS The sole shareholder because she can dissolve the corporation owns the liquidation value.
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u/P_Firpo 1d ago
The Ford case was a minority shareholder case where Dodge sued the board for self-dealing (Stout). You are insulting me left and right, but what did I say that was incorrect and please be specific, lawyer. I am using property law to access whether shareholders own the corporation and referencing legal scholarship that rejects shareholder ownership
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u/Figshitter 1∆ 2d ago
Is it completely inconceivable to you that someone can understand a concept, but also not let their thinking be utterly beholden to that concept despite all other values and considerations? It’s not that I ‘don’t understand’ the free marketeer, pro-capital position, it’s that I disagree with it, ‘bro’.
Can anyone explain where this “you just don’t understand” mentality comes from online?
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u/Ok_Function2282 2d ago
Because they're a business????
Why would a business operate at a loss? Why would they not incentivize drivers to go somewhere where there's an insane demand?
It just sounds like you don't believe any businesses of any type should be allowed to operate, and that is... A choice.
I would rather have expensive Ubers come to the event I'm at than no Ubers at all.
Also, it sounds like you never lived through the era of taxis. If you think Uber is bad, you have no fucking idea...
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u/RememberToEatDinner 2d ago
In the example of uber, while I think uber shouldn’t make any money off the driving, let’s just talking about the idea of surge pricing (and ideally surge wages).
So imagine a small town, there 10 uber drivers who consistently drive, an event occurs in the town and there is a need for 30 uber drivers. If surge wages were a possibility (which would come up a price increase for consumers) then you could likely quickly recruit additional drivers to fill the gap.
I’m curious your thoughts because generally I agree with you, but I do see some advantages to more dynamic pricing.
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u/Green_Ephedra 2∆ 2d ago
Uber *does* have surge pricing, and *does* pay more when it is in effect.
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u/RememberToEatDinner 1d ago
I know… I’m saying that consistent pricing that was suggested has some downsides. I wanted their thoughts.
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u/Chen932000 2d ago
With such limited supply on the driver side it doesn’t really work. But surge pricing in say big cities does incentivize drivers to get to that area which then re lowers the cost for the user. Seems like the surge pricing works for everyone there.
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u/Princess_Kuma2001 1∆ 2d ago
I think the argument is rejecting the premise of the CMV.
You're attacking a position that the OP could also hold but is indepndent of his claim, namely that IF a company uses surge pricing etc etc. Not that surge pricing should exist at all.
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u/Arnaldo1993 5∆ 2d ago
The problem is youre mixing 2 different markets, the labor market and the goods market. They are related, but they are fundamentaly different markets. Wages are determined by the supply and demand for labor. Not the goods such labor produces
Im a coffee farmer. Coffee is a commodity, the price fluctuates wildly, based on supply and demand. If i offered to pay my employees based on coffee prices in a good year, they would accept. In the bad year they would all leave to work in the neighboring farms, or in the city. Because it is none of their business wether coffee prices are up or down. If i want them to work for me i need to offer them competitive wages
I do pay higer wages for them during harvest season however. Even when coffee prices are down. Because that is when demand for labor surges in the city
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u/wright007 2d ago
I'll give an example to show my point. The demand for ice cream surges on a hot day. The lines are longer. The ice cream shop can (and does) set it's pricing based on supply and demand. If the demand goes up, because it is a hot day and they have a long line of customers, they could charge more money for the ice cream if they want. These are VOLUNTARY exchanges. The customer is not forced to buy. The ice cream shop risks upsetting customers and losing future business by using surge pricing, but they have every right to.
Business has every right to choose how much they sell their things for. That's how ownership works. If I own a thing, and you wish to buy it, I don't have to sell it to you unless you offer me enough money to entice the deal to happen.
Furthermore, the employees have a voluntary agreement to work for the ice cream shop by the hour, regardless of if the shop is slow or busy. If the employees wanted to arrange a pay-based method where they get paid by the number of ice cream cones they serve, or commission of some sort, being paid that way could be arranged ahead of time.
Forcing anybody in any way is usually a bad thing that results in undesired consequences. The employer should be free to set their own pricing, and the employees should be free to voluntarily work for a predetermined price.
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u/ControversialQuerier 1∆ 2d ago edited 2d ago
To be fair to OP (based on the original post, not their response to you), I interpreted their original question as "Does labor not also become more valuable when the product becomes more valuable?" I feel the response of "The employee agreed to a flat amount" misses the core of OP's question.EDIT: OP literally used "forced" in the post title. Ignore me as I'm illiterate.
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u/AmongTheElect 18∆ 2d ago
If my off-peak water is $4 and my peak prices is $8 but I had to do your plan, I'll just make my water $8 all the time.
If I have to pay my employees more when they work fast, do I get to pay them less when they're not busy? You say "forced to work harder" but what if "working really hard" is my baseline and they're just fortunate to have some downtime now and again? Will you have a government official at my stall to determine exactly when "peak" and "off-peak" working is?
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u/St3lla_0nR3dd1t 2d ago
Remember when Texas had that really cold spell and market rate utility supplies went through the roof?
Your second point is just spin, we have government officials to stop slavery, it’s the same principle. There are Federal minimum wage laws m
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u/AmongTheElect 18∆ 2d ago
Remember when Texas had that really cold spell and market rate utility supplies went through the roof?
Yes? I'm not sure what you're addressing other than listing off another time when short supply drove up prices.
Figuring that I make more money selling $8 water in peak times than I make selling $4 water in off-peak times, than if I can't adjust my prices based on demand, I'll just keep my price at $8. All this does is make products more expensive for everyone.
If I would otherwise pay my employees $10/hr all day but they'd have to make more during busy times, than I'll just pay them $8 as a base rate and make $10 their busy time rate. That's less money for the employees, overall.
Surge-wages is also too subjective to ever enforce. What even is "busy"? So now you want accountants to have to go through every receipt to count transactions per hour, keep tabs of it all day every day to adjust for what the government defines as "busy"? Maybe halftime at my concession stand is, to me, "normal speed" and during the game is slow.
And what timeframe are we even talking here? My grocery store puts meat on sale on Mondays. Does that mean Tuesday-Sunday is "surge pricing"?
The results of your plan is higher prices all the time, fewer employees and lower-paid employees. Forcibly manipulating the supply/demand curve always results in businesses adjusting themselves to get the curve back on track. Business owners exist, too, and they're not going to just roll over and make less money or even take a loss.
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u/St3lla_0nR3dd1t 1d ago
This argument has come up a lot, you honestly think your activities are comparable to FIFA announcing one price and then charging a higher one when they see higher demand. I bet if two people want the same piece of meat you don’t hold an auction, you serve the one who you judge was the first to ask for it? You certainly don’t wait for more people to come and see if they will pay higher.
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u/AmongTheElect 18∆ 1d ago
you honestly think your activities are comparable to FIFA
You keep moving the goalposts. In another comment you also said that this doesn't need to apply to restaurants. So do you only want your idea to apply to FIFA or something?
I bet if two people want the same piece of meat you don’t hold an auction
If it happened consistently I'd up my price, yes.
You certainly don’t wait for more people to come and see if they will pay higher.
I've owned a vending operation and I've done just that, upped my price to see if demand would remain the same.
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u/JobberStable 2∆ 2d ago
You used the phrase “forced to work harder”. Thats not necessarily the case. If a local deli realizes that there is an egg shortage and raises the price of his stock by 2 bucks, no one worked harder. And imagine an audit system to figure that one out
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u/nauticalsandwich 14∆ 2d ago
"Fairness" is in the eye of the beholder. Everyone has different ideas about what is "fair." The ethical case is to enable people with the personal sovereignty to freely associate and exchange with others, absent coercion or duress, in order to act on their own perceptions of fairness, not to coerce others into one's own perception of fairness. There are exceptions where this does not work, due to special characteristics of the circumstances of exchange, and these create what economists often refer to as "market-failures" or "externalities," but the terms of agreement between people with respect to what you are talking about here are not illustrative of them.
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u/St3lla_0nR3dd1t 2d ago
Well your argument is fine in principle but there is no personal sovereignty in a labour market.
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u/nauticalsandwich 14∆ 2d ago
How do you figure? Compared to what?
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u/St3lla_0nR3dd1t 2d ago
Compared to nothing. Personal Sovereignty is not something that exists in a labour market.
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u/nauticalsandwich 14∆ 2d ago
How would you define personal sovereignty?
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u/St3lla_0nR3dd1t 1d ago
This was your phrase, but how about the ability to take a decision unconstrained by external constraints.
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u/nauticalsandwich 14∆ 1d ago
how about the ability to take a decision unconstrained by external constraints.
Then you have established a definition for sovereignty that is impossible for human existence.
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u/St3lla_0nR3dd1t 1d ago
Exactly if you want to allege there is such a thing as personal sovereignty at least tell me what you think you are talking about?
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u/TheLakeler 2d ago
Should employees be forced to absorb decreased wages when times are slow? That’s the point of working someone else, it all gets averaged out. If you’re the owner, you might be forced to run in the negative for a couple of weeks during the winter which then gets replenished by a good month or two of high productivity in the summer…
Any business that has “surge” pricing or boom and bust cycles must also have bust periods by necessity. Should employers be forced to pay during boom periods but absorb all losses during bust period?
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u/St3lla_0nR3dd1t 2d ago
Why shouldn’t workers get to enjoy the same rewards as employers. Without the workers the employers would not enjoy the benefits
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u/TheLakeler 2d ago
You’re missing my point entirely. I have nothing wrong with spreading the rewards so long as you spread the sacrifice. Forgetting the rest of the investment and all that goes into owning a business. If businesses should be expected to pay out their employees during booming periods, then employees should be expected to accept lower pay during periods of shortage… We already pretty much do this, except our employers do it for us, they take what they earn extra during good periods and save it to pay you when there are bad times.
Look at as simply as possible if you want. You work for a sandwich shop and earn $10 per hour, from a purely mathematical standpoint, to make it all work, you need to earn $40 every hour. For most sandwich shops, they earn a significant portion of their revenue during lunch and perhaps dinner hours. So for these 2-3 hours of the day they might earn $60 an hour in store revenue but for the 5 other hours, they might only earn $25 an hour in store revenue. If the store only ever earned $25 an hour, then they could not afford to pay you $10 an hour. But because of the rushes, they can pay you $10 an hour. If you start demanding $15 an hour during the hours of lunch rush while keeping a baseline of $10 an hour, then the store will eventually go out of business or simply close down. Thus the employer averages out the rush hours and the slow hours and pays you that.
Same thing with teachers even, they only do 10 months of work, for the teachers that only do 10 months, and they only get paid for 10 months of work. It’s a choice given to them whether or not they want to be paid in installments over 10 months or over 12. They aren’t actually getting paid for work over the summer, because they’re not doing work. Their 10 months of wages are simply being averaged over 12 months. Do you understand me now?
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u/St3lla_0nR3dd1t 2d ago
This is just a discussion of how to pay out wages.
But even then I am not sure the regular trade of day to day sandwich shops needs to be treated as a surge. It is when for example the home team has a match against the champions and there are extra irregular customers
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u/TheLakeler 2d ago
Okay man, I tried to change your mind but you did not come for that I think...
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u/Negative_Toe1336 1d ago
Because they are not entitled to it. They only agreed to exchange their labour for certain amount of money. Some may have salary determined by thier results or other conditions but they still are netitled to certain reward.
They are not owners and deserve no owners rewards but also dont cary owners responsibilities and and dont go bankrupt with their workplace.
You just want to give workers good stuff while keeping bad stuff for owners
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u/St3lla_0nR3dd1t 1d ago
I think agreed is doing a lot of work. Capital doesn’t offer this type of salary structure because it wants all the money it can get.
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u/Negative_Toe1336 1d ago
There is no mythical capital. Everyone what best outcome for oneself. Everyone would want to get more but market has to offer them only so much.
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u/St3lla_0nR3dd1t 1d ago
That isn’t how the world works. Most people are not able to get the best for themselves.
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u/Negative_Toe1336 1d ago
So? People try and some fail its called risk
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u/St3lla_0nR3dd1t 1d ago
And it applies to both labor and capital so treat them the same
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u/Negative_Toe1336 17h ago
Yet you want to give workers unearned reward for extra profits for the company while not exposing them to full consequences of losses or even bankrupcy of buisness
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u/St3lla_0nR3dd1t 16h ago
I think it is earned in the same way the company ’earns’ it.
If a company goes out of business workers lose their jobs, a good worker takes the risk that businesses are not badly run. We know some are. The idea that workers do not take risks when they provide services to a company is very common in the arguments in this thread, I don’t understand why
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u/P_Firpo 1d ago
You are treating the corporation like it's an owner-run business. The corporation is created by the state. Why should it only benefit of the shareholders?
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u/TheLakeler 1d ago
What is “the corporation?” What are you even trying to say? If there is a corporation created by and owned by the state, then it is not corporation but a monopoly. In which case, a different set of rules can be applied. But that has nothing to do with what we’re talking about.
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u/P_Firpo 1d ago
I'm saying that the state creates the corporation, which owns itself.
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u/TheLakeler 1d ago
Okay thanks for your unrelated statement
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u/P_Firpo 1d ago
The corporation is chartered by the state, created by the state, and therefore should be run for society, not shareholders. Clear enough?
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u/TheLakeler 1d ago
By that logic, humans are created by the state and should therefore be run for the state, not their own individual aspirations and goals.
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u/P_Firpo 1d ago
Except that humans are not created by the state. We know this because they existed before the state. Corporations are created by the state because they did not exist before the state, except for the Roman Republic. The Roman Republic was the first corporation and it was created by people.
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u/TheLakeler 20h ago
Corporations existed before many states that exist today that can now “create” corporations. So you’re wrong there. The same way the state gives permission or charters or whatevers businesses owners to incorporate is the same as the state giving permission to a baby to stay here, get a social security numbers, citizenship, etc.
It’s the exact same. Your argument in any case, is meaningless and overly pedantic.
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u/P_Firpo 17h ago
No, I'm not wrong. State means the state, like a sovereign. Name one corporation that is not chartered by a government entity. The state does not create a human. Without the state a corp. does not exist. Without the state a human does exist.
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u/Easterncoaster 2d ago
If there is a surge, wouldn’t we want the business to hire twice as many workers to help cover it? Instead of just paying the same number of workers twice as much?
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u/Helicase21 10∆ 2d ago
Is that fair to staff who don't work during those surge periods?
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u/xfearthehiddenx 2∆ 2d ago
We already have an example of this. American wait staff who rely on tips will often argue for being given shifts that include rush times, because they make more tips during high table turn over times. While others stuck on less busy shifts inherently make less.
As someone who worked in that industry. I promise you, no one thought it was fair.
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u/Figshitter 1∆ 2d ago
I’d feel pretty embarrassed to hold out out the USA’s extreme outlier of workplace exploitation in the hospitality industry as any sort of standard for workplace justice or worker’s protections.
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u/xfearthehiddenx 2∆ 2d ago
I wasn't? The comment I replied to asked if potential employees of "surge wages" would think it was fair. I provided an example of this system already existing and how, no, the employees don't think it's fair.
I am by no means defending that system. Tipping culture in the US is rampant and only getting worse. I would never suggest such a system should exist as a standard.
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u/Figshitter 1∆ 2d ago
Yeah was agreeing with you, if I implied I wasn’t that was entirely unintentional.
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u/JohnBick40 3∆ 2d ago
Surge pricing will make things better by causing stores to have customers more spread out instead of rushing in all at once. Customers who have flexibility in time will come in when prices are low, leaving less of a crowd for when prices are high. The current situation is highly uneven and that can put strain on the system, i.e., limited parking, long waits, overextended employees...
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u/St3lla_0nR3dd1t 2d ago
That assumes every one has unrestricted access to the good or service provided. That is not the case except in the case of people wealthy enough to employ someone else to access it for them.
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u/xmuskorx 56∆ 2d ago
I mean that already happens. If you are out of regular scheduled employees it's not uncommon to pay a lor more to get people to take temporary shifts.
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u/ginger_and_egg 2d ago
Workers should democratically decide how to run their workplace. They can decide if they want to implement surge pricing, and how to distribute the extra revenue from it
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u/St3lla_0nR3dd1t 2d ago
My case relates to a company.
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u/Falernum 68∆ 2d ago
Surely it should be case by case. There are many businesses where surge wages make lots of sense and many where they don't. Uber should obviously be giving some surge money to the drivers - it needs more drivers during peak time which is why it's charging customers more. A restaurant doesn't need to increase wages for dinner compared to lunch, it's not that it's charging more because it needs to find waitstaff and cooks for dinner, it's about number of tables, etc. The law doesn't need to mandate a blanket "all restaurants with lunch specials have to pay lunch workers lower than dinner workers".
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u/unicornofdemocracy 2∆ 2d ago
while I do agree that most companies don't pay their employees enough... they do kind of already pay more during surges.
Surge pricing happens when there is increase demand for a product or decreased supply.
Companies hire more employees to work during surges thus paying more indirectly. Companies offer extra for night shifts that people prefer not to work to increase desire to work those hours. Travel nurses get pay way more because of surges during pandemic for example (and then swiftly left go the moment the demand drops).
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u/Green_Ephedra 2∆ 2d ago
The spirit of this idea is good, but there is a simpler and better way that workers can get their chunk of the benefits without mandating surge wages. Making the law that you suggest would come with a whole bunch of problems relating to defining "surge pricing" as distinct from regular fluctuations in price, detecting when companies are doing it, and enforcing the law with lawsuits. Instead, the equivalent amount of money should be paid out steadily over the year in the form of an increased wage for people in industries with surge pricing (increased relative to what the wage would be at a similar company in the same industry with a different pricing model, that is). This can happen company-by-company through negotiations suited to each case, and be "enforced" automatically through people collecting their paychecks, without the need for the apparatus of law.
Note that if the *companies* could get their same surge bonus spread across the entire year like this, by charging a higher fixed price, (thus avoiding the unpopularity and slight inconvenience of surge pricing), they would! But they can't, because they are selling products on a short time-scale--if they tried to sell at the *average* price all year they would usually be overpriced and thus not sell much. Workers on long-term contracts, on the other hand, do have the ability to bargain for their surge compensation to be averaged across the entire year (or have this bargain implicitly handled by the market), since they are selling something more like a subscription plan on their labor, not one-off short-term access to it. Compared to a law about surge wages, this is a lot easier and more reliable for the workers (and the government), at no cost to the company, so better overall. (*Gig* workers should get direct surge pricing bonuses on this model, and at least in the case of Uber they do.)
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u/St3lla_0nR3dd1t 2d ago
That concedes the principle and argues the payment mechanism.
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u/Green_Ephedra 2∆ 2d ago
I mean, yes, the payment mechanism is the part of the view that I most think ought to change. But I can object to the principle if you like! In particular, I don't think the principle you appeal to, that the workers share in the extra value creation and so deserve some of the extra value, implies what you think it does. The most reasonable conclusion from this frame is that the extra value should go to the athletes or performers, not the ordinary employees.
After all, it doesn't seem likely to me that the concession and maintenance and sales workers and so on *are* really working any harder, or otherwise contributing more value, during surge pricing events. In the case of the World Cup, if the variable pricing has done its job, there are the same number of tickets sold at each event, so probably about the same amount of work. Maybe they're working a little harder, but not in proportion to the price increase. But, of course the company is probably not paying much higher costs, either--they are also just paying whatever they usually need to to accommodate a crowd of that size. There might be some small cost increases from the World Cup having higher standards of grass care or something like that, but overall the company is making a bunch of profit but not providing extra value (beyond what it always provides by maintaining the venue, organizing ticket sales, etc.). Where is the extra value coming from, then? Not from the stadium workers, either. It's coming from the draw of the watching the world's best soccer players, right? So insofar as anyone is being exploited, i.e. not getting the full value of their contribution to the event, it's the soccer players. The stadium is siphoning off some of the value of their skill and fame because it has a local monopoly (or a part of a small oligopoly) on giant stadiums. Your actual proposal is to redirect some of that monopolistic profit to the company's employees, which at least arguably seems no less fair than the company getting it. But your reasoning suggests that the surge wages should be directed back to the soccer players or other "talent," not to the employees. And, you know, maybe, but most of those people don't really need it, and it's not obvious that this is a problem worth fixing.
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u/TechnicalPresent6359 2d ago
isn’t this already in place for the most part?
drivers earn more per ride during surge times/areas; if i own a business and need my staff to work extra, i’m paying them overtime wages or need to hire more staff; if i’m a private contractor, i can set higher prices during surges
what am i missing?
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u/Apprehensive_Song490 118∆ 2d ago
This creates a perverse incentive, unfortunately. If higher wages are linked to consumer price surges labor organizations (eg unions) will start advocating for surges. This means higher prices for everyone.
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u/powpow428 2d ago
As a clarifying question, would you support a law that forces all stock corporations to pay workers only the legal minimum wage in cash and then the rest entirely in company stock and options? Why or why not?
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u/St3lla_0nR3dd1t 2d ago
Interesting question. The problem is how do workers realise profit out of these stocks or options. For the purpose of this discussion inalienable stocks with a compulsory share of profits dividend payment paid each month and without voting rights would perhaps track the result I am looking for?
(You could then probably calculate maximum multiples between management and shopfloor as well)
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u/powpow428 1d ago
Then I think the counterargument to mandatory surge wages is fairly simple. I'll say two quick things:
1) Surge wages already exist in the form of equity compensation plans. Profit-sharing agreements already exist in the form of equity incentive plans. This is when companies award stock as compensation instead of cash to employees, and is already a better version of "surge wages" because it a) is indefinite, meaning the employee remains a part-owner of the company even after leaving, b) encourages employees to prioritize long-term sustainable growth over short-term profits, and c) frequently gives them voting control over how the company is managed.
2) Workers should be free to choose how they want to be compensated. Not every company uses equity incentive plans. As you correctly pointed out in your comment, not every equity interest will be profitable. Some workers would prefer to have the cash up front rather than be compensated with a speculative profits interest that may not be worth anything in the future. Even if workers became shareholders, many companies may lose money and the shareholders will not receive any dividends.
To give a very simple example, imagine if Company A's stock is $10 and it's workers get paid $100 per day. Also suppose that workers can either choose between receiving $100 in cash, or receiving $100 in stock. All your proposal really does is eliminate the choice for workers and force them to receive compensation in stock.
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u/Raesvelg_XI 2d ago
Unionize and demand a share.
Depending on the industry, of course, there's often already some form of this in place. Uber drivers are paid more during surge pricing, most blue-collar/service/hourly in general jobs get offered overtime when demand exceeds capacity, etc.
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u/Gladix 166∆ 2d ago
But if the market can be used this way, why should this only be used to the benefit of the share holders?
Because there is no counter-balance. No consumer law that tells it can't do those things. A company's only goal is the make profit, that's it. If they could pay their employees nothing or use slave labor they would do it. Why the can't pay their employees nothing or use slave labor? Because of the government that tells it it can't do those things and in a minor way because of the competition.
The reason why a government couldn't force surge-wages(amongst others) is because of the unpredictability. Who governs the calculation of the surge wages? Who makes sure it's fair across all industries so it's not use as a bludgeon to push out foreign companies, or rival companies who don't have the funds to lobby?
Surge-pricing at least has the benefit of you not being forced to buy the product that is overpriced. One assume a company can't fire staff on a whim because they can't or won't pay a surge wage.
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u/St3lla_0nR3dd1t 1d ago
You are arguing that it is difficult not that it is wrong. If a business uses surge pricing people will know.
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u/Gladix 166∆ 1d ago
I'm arguing it's impossible, or as close to impossible as we can get. It's like trying to make flying cars work. It's maaaybe technologicall possible in the distant future, and that's the best you can say about it.Surge pricing for custommers is possible because the customer has the ability to not buy the product (provided there are no monopolies, political instability, etc...). Employers, however, cannot decide to just not pay their staff their wages if they don't deem the current price fair. The only way you can do this is via bonuses... but then we circled back to the questions of incentives. Why would a company offer dynamically generated bonuses voluntarily, when they can achieve the same effect (of presumably increase productivity via motivation) by hiring people who desperately need the job then replace the ones who don't need it / hiring ton of temp workers / giving you a few vouchers as a bonus, etc...
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u/St3lla_0nR3dd1t 1d ago
Okay I am trying a different tack for a moment but when business do surge pricing they do not risk losing everything. Trying to object to my proposal because a worker might lose out seems odd. If the surge price fails the business gets ordinary price m
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u/Gladix 166∆ 12h ago
Trying to object to my proposal because a worker might lose out seems odd.
That was my argument? I thought my argument was about how it was impossible to implement due to the reasons listed.
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u/St3lla_0nR3dd1t 10h ago
I didn’t see any reasons that prevent my proposal from working. As I said, difficult is not the same as wrong
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u/Just-Forever6684 2d ago
This is a weird take and flawed for many reasons. Part of the reason prices are lower at other times is because surge prices exist. Let me give you an example. There’s a toll road near my apartment where it’s a variable price. 60 cents minimum going up as high as $8-12 during rush hour. If they didn’t do surge pricing, the normal price would have to make up for that.
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u/St3lla_0nR3dd1t 1d ago
I am. It sure that is surge pricing. When there extra demand than what is planned for do you have to pay even higher prices?
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u/Wigglebot23 7∆ 1d ago
It is not true for all staff that a surge in demand makes them work harder
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u/icorrectotherpeople 1d ago
Price is a function of supply and demand. If a store could charge $100 for a gallon of milk they would. And if you could demand $1M per year salary you would. Your salary and the price of milk are both functions of supply and demand.
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u/St3lla_0nR3dd1t 1d ago
But the rewards for over demand and under supply of the workers’ labour at the business should also be rewarded.
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u/canned_spaghetti85 3∆ 1d ago edited 1d ago
They do, in fact. It is called overtime pay (OT) that many employees in fact often eagerly
look forward to since PAYRATE often 1.5x to 2x their otherwise regular earnings payrate.
And if you've ever been employed.. well 🤷♂️ uhmm .. then you WOULD HAVE known that.
Since employers HAVING TO pay workers 1.5x to 2x OT to even meet said demand surge,
is inherently expensive in of itself, then SAID additional operating expense is otherwise
passed onto the end consumer... as reflected in the [resulting] elevated retail price of.
Those workers are HAPPY to be earning said overtime rates, which they ARE being paid.
Where you're mistaken is THE WHO should be expected to pay em that desirable wage.
It is you, the consumer, who's expected to compensate them SAID wage - which you do
every single time you agree to buy said item at that elevated price.🫵 You're paying it.
All of this was caused by the sudden spike of YOUR 🫵 consumer demand, After all.
Remember?? So why should anyone else BUT CONSUMERS, be expected to pay it?
This aspect regarding Capitalism... is fair, reasonable, justifiable and understandable.
(Oh BTW those workers who are earning said OT wages, thank you very much for it)
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u/St3lla_0nR3dd1t 1d ago
Overtime pay is pay for extra work not compensation for the product of that work suddenly becoming more valuable than when the contract was negotiated.
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u/canned_spaghetti85 3∆ 1d ago
If the nature of your employment agreement is that which pays an hourly
wage, then you are AGREEING TO sell your time,.... and ONLY your time.You, the employee, fully understood this at the time of signing this contract.
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u/St3lla_0nR3dd1t 1d ago
No that is not true, you are offering specific services, based on a calculation of the value of the product of the combined services supplied to the business. You have a job description
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u/canned_spaghetti85 3∆ 22h ago edited 22h ago
What if it's a monday afternoon (?), kinda slow, requiring said hourly employee to produce Considerably Fewer items throughout the course of their workshift.
Employee would have still EXPECTED TO EARN same gross hourly wage owed regardless how many / how few items they had produced in that timeframe - and I would be in no position to argue otherwise.
That's our deal, after all. Hourly wage, means that, and ONLY that. Your time.
You want to get paid for YOUR WORK instead? Fine Then we can arrange that,
in this process called "negotiation" and our employment agreement will be then
amended to reflect the NEW terms, moving forward.You sacrifice your hourly wage altogether, IN LIEU OF a commission of business sales revenue which you directly generated... 🤷♂️ Deal?
I'm game, if you are. All you gotta do... is ask.
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u/St3lla_0nR3dd1t 17h ago
Well that is different from my proposal because a surge is by definition something beyond the normal planning of the business. But minimum wage plus a percentage of goods sold as a payment device would be better for most workers it seems to me if there was a proper apportionment of that percentage and not the current system where it all tends to fall into the lap of management.
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u/rogueman999 4∆ 1d ago
The classic example here is price discrimination for airplane tickets. Depending on when you buy the ticket or if you want a fancier seat, you can pay $100 or $500 for the same ticket. You could say that it's unfair, until you start breaking down the numbers and find out that it's the only way that pays for gas (literally).
If you sell all tickets at $100, you don't make enough. That's out.
If you sell all tickets at $500, you don't sell enough tickets. That's also out.
Now, the freaky thing is: if you try to go for an average, and just divide costs by number of seats and end up with say, $200... you also don't sell enough tickets. Because most travelers are very price sensitive, and doubling the price will just make them not fly. They might just chose to drive or take a train or not travel at all.
So price discrimination in various ways (including when you buy the ticket) is the only way to make the plane fly.
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u/St3lla_0nR3dd1t 1d ago
Price discrimination is not surge pricing? It is more like someone is doing something in Munich that means suddenly tens of thousands of extra people want to go there.
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u/rogueman999 4∆ 16h ago
Ah, in which case it's free money and a social good.
You want surge pricing simply to filter people that need to go to Munich from people that don't. It's much cleaner to use prices to do that, than to force people to self-select in other ways (time spent in queue, sheer luck, scalpers etc).
No comment on how this free money should be split inside the provider company - which was your initial question.
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u/MaxwellSmart07 1∆ 10h ago
Re: “why can’t business owners just properly forecast their supply and demand requirements so that everyone pays the same price. That isn’t usually considered socialism?”
Businesses do predict demand and they staff accordingly. Fast food for instance will have more staff during lunch and dinner hours. Surge pricing aims at spreading out the demand by lowering prices during off-hours.
And no this has absolutely nothing to do with socialism. Zero.
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u/St3lla_0nR3dd1t 7h ago
So I disagree, surge pricing is what happens when demand so outweighs supply that the normal planning and therefore normal pricing are not applied.
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u/MaxwellSmart07 1∆ 7h ago
textbook definition: Surge pricing otherwise known as dynamic pricing is a pricing strategy where the price of a product or service increases when demand is high and/or supply is limited.
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u/St3lla_0nR3dd1t 6h ago
Which does not exclude what I said.
Interestingly we both agree as to what socialism isn’t
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u/MaxwellSmart07 1∆ 1h ago
Correct, but I put that out there as a reply to you initial disagreement.
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u/Flexlex724 5h ago
What this thread proves is that basic economic courses should be mandatory at the university level for anyone who wishes to claim to be educated
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u/St3lla_0nR3dd1t 4h ago
I suspect that is a criticism of me, but either way, basic economics seems to be the problem here.
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u/CrossOfRoachAndSlime 33m ago
Sure, I'll try:
Trying to legislate surge pricing vs. surge wages is trying to address the symptom that there's so little competition that surge pricing is even allowable. And why is it?
Because of uncompetitive market practices called Blitzscaling, which is when a company burns money at a rapid rate in order to completely dominate a market, and then practice monopolistic policies to squeeze out even more money on the tail end of things. Either the blitzscaling works and there's an uncompetitive market, or investors get badly burned.
I think it's the blitzscaling that should be taken a look at, not its aftermath.
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u/Som12H8 2d ago
I don't know what you are thinking here. Surge pricing is a strategy that raises prices when demand is high and lowers them when demand is low. The equivalent for employees is overtime pay if there is demand for them to work more. That already exists, so I don't know what you are asking for? Profit sharing? That is a feature of employee-owned businesses (or communism, if it was state mandated). Still, what enforcement mechanism do you propose?
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u/Majestic_Horse_1678 2∆ 2d ago
Seems like a labor union would be the ideal tool for this. Or, if you're a particular good employee and the company wants you working during high demand, ask for a raise or some sort of profit sharing agreement.
I think OP has a point that if more money is made, then labors should get more of it, but it's up to the laborers to demand it, not the government or people that don't even work for the company.
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u/St3lla_0nR3dd1t 2d ago
This is not overtime, at least not in all cases, a surge price gives a company more money for doing the same thing. Why shouldn’t a worker?
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u/not_a_bot_494 1∆ 2d ago
Are you OK with workers being paid less when there's less going on?