NationStates Jolt Archive

I hope this is better than the 'minimum wage bill' proposal you may remember.

After it's defeat a number of changes have taken place:
1. The 350% tariff has been dropped
2.The living costs include more vital essentials.
3.The minimum wage has been changed to minimum hourly rate.
4. There is now a the ‘WA Employment Overseer and Court’ replacing the roles of 2 of the former proposed organisations.

These changes have been made as a result of your constructive criticisms and some of the flaws I spotted myself. E.g(shortage of factors in living costs and lack of hourly rate so organisations have to pay the same for a 2 hour worker a day as a 6 hour worker a a day.)

Anyway here goes;

Bill of Minimum Hourly Rate

Category:Social justice
Effect:sweeping
Proposed by:Liberela

Recognising how unfair and exploitative the current capitalist system can be.

Recognising wages need to be liveable.

I propose a new ‘minimum hourly rate’ .

1. The WA Will set up a new ‘minimum hourly rate’.

2:The ‘minimum hourly rate’ will be at least 135% of living costs per hour.

3:The living costs will be based on the average cost of:
Food and drink( Only fruit juice).
General Healthcare and maintenance
Rent/Housing
Gas
Electric
Water
Council tax
Insurance
Public Transport for one year

4. This will be calculated by the formula:
Living costs ´ 135% ¸(47×48)

5.Employers can pay over the ‘Minimum hourly rate’.

6. The ‘WA Employment Overseer and Court’ will be set up to monitor all employment law and employers, investigate any breaches in employment law and bring any prosecutions to their court.

7: The ‘WA Employment Overseer and Court’ will enforce a sentence of 5 years in jail or rehabilitation and community sentences to employers and managers who don’t adhere to employment law codes as monitored and upheld by the ‘WA Employment Overseer and Court’. On top of this a fine of 35% of their salary will be charged into the WA .

8. This bill excludes prison labour as that is a punishment.

9. The ‘WA Employment Overseer and Court’ will have a branch in every city over 100,000 people within the WA and all regions with over 350,000 within the WA. All regional and urban branches will be controlled by their respective national ‘WA Employment Overseer and Court’.

I hope this helps workers rights within the WA and eliminates poverty.

It is not the duty of the WA to set pay rates for people in individual nations nor to do anything to bring pay rates in all member nations to a standard. If they want equal pay then work to promote fair trade between nations so that goods sold will bring fair profits to all nations across the WA...

As each nation is different in how the government may or may not serve the people not rule them. Here government serves the people establishing rules for them to follow to maintain order among the many. These are called laws and citizens follow them or they become criminals.. Thus as criminals they serve government for the benifit of honest citizens who follow the laws.

I disagree as I think trade needs to fair and non-exploitative, this stops people having to work excessively long hours and makes sure they can live on. This will strike poverty as a thing of the past!

Recognising how unfair and exploitative the current capitalist system can be.

You may "recognize" this; not every nation does. The nation I represent, for example, does not.

2:The ‘minimum hourly rate’ will be at least 135% of living costs per hour.

3:The living costs will be based on the average cost of:
Food and drink( Only fruit juice).
General Healthcare and maintenance
Rent/Housing
Gas
Electric
Water
Council tax
Insurance
Public Transport for one year

We feel that these clauses do not take into account the wide variances in what an average citizen may have for expenses in each nation, and also does not take into account the fact that what constitutes a "living wage" varies widely between nations. And what's with the special status for fruit juice?

4. This will be calculated by the formula:
Living costs ´ 135% ¸(47×48)

This formula seems a bit arbitrary.

6. The ‘WA Employment Overseer and Court’ will be set up to monitor all employment law and employers, investigate any breaches in employment law and bring any prosecutions to their court.

7: The ‘WA Employment Overseer and Court’ will enforce a sentence of 5 years in jail or rehabilitation and community sentences to employers and managers who don’t adhere to employment law codes as monitored and upheld by the ‘WA Employment Overseer and Court’. On top of this a fine of 35% of their salary will be charged into the WA .

These two clauses seem like a huge infringement on national sovereignty to us. You're basically saying that if someone in, say, the Altan Steppes don't conform to this WA court's desires, that court can order them to be imprisoned and fined. That's a complete non-starter for us. We can punish people who break our labor regulations just fine.

In addition, by giving this court authority over "all employment law and employers", it seems to us that you're going way beyond the mandate of a "minimum hourly rate" and entering into some kind of uber-labor rights enforcing.

9. The ‘WA Employment Overseer and Court’ will have a branch in every city over 100,000 people within the WA and all regions with over 350,000 within the WA. All regional and urban branches will be controlled by their respective national ‘WA Employment Overseer and Court’.

Wow, that's a huge bureaucracy. I'm not convinced that would be any more efficient or effective at protecting workers' rights than individual nations can do now, with their own labor departments or whatever the case may be.

I wish I could be more positive, but this proposal is DOA as far as we're concerned.

Jaris Krytellin, Ambassador

Nice restart.

I think you can better wipe the word capitalistic in your proposal. It will be seen as blaming capitalistic systems. I do dislike the capitalistic system in general, but just put the word economic in stead of capitalistic and the propasal will be more fair for different nations.

The formula is not as clear it could be, but as a non-native English speaking person, I cannot think something better.

Fruit juice can be out, maybe you want to say non drugs related drinks (and food (pot cake?)).

Greetings,
Cocoamok the weird WA Delegate for Intelligentsia Islands

This is the revisal guys, thanks weird Anarchist for your support. I have modified this as the result of everyones advice, please if you thnk it can be improved say how so I can investigate changes if they are needed. I'm not here for 2-3 days and Liberela has temporarily left the WA but will be back soon!

Altan Steppes I feel these are the basic living costs and on your advice took off fruit juice. The figures aren't arbitury and constitute a average Western working week and on the court issue, I'm sure your courts can be trusted but this has been designed to stop corparate corrupted and untrustworthy courts from ignoring the issue by putting powers to a WA incorrupt court!

Your states will have sovereignty in other areas, but on this point doesn't joining the WA already effectively give up national sovereignty as laws you disagree with can be imposed, I think we all chose to give this up when we all joined the WA in the interests of the world.

Bill of Minimum Hourly Rate

Recognising how unfair and exploitative the current economic system can be.

Recognising wages need to be wages you can live on.

I propose a new ‘minimum hourly rate’ .

1. The WA Will set up a new ‘minimum hourly rate’.

2:The ‘minimum hourly rate’ will be at least 135% of living costs per hour.

3:The living costs will be based on the average cost of:
Food
General Healthcare and maintenance
Rent/Housing
Gas
Electric
Water
Council tax
Insurance
Public Transport for one year

4. This will be calculated by the formula:
Living costs ´ 135% ¸(47×48)

5.Employers can pay over the ‘Minimum hourly rate’.

6. The ‘WA Employment Overseer and Court’ will be set up to monitor all employment law and employers, investigate any breaches in employment law and bring any prosecutions to their court.

7: The ‘WA Employment Overseer and Court’ will enforce a sentence of 5 years in jail or rehabilitation and community sentences to employers and managers found guilty of not adhering to employment law codes as monitored and upheld by the ‘WA Employment Overseer and Court’. On top of this a fine of 35% of their salary will be charged into the WA .

8. This bill excludes prison labour as that is a punishment.

I hope this helps workers rights within the WA and eliminates poverty.

Heres the 2nd revisal guys:

Bill of Minimum Hourly Rate

Recognising how unfair and exploitative the current economic system can be.

Recognising wages need to be wages you can live on.

I propose a new ‘minimum hourly rate’ .

1. The WA Will set up a new ‘minimum hourly rate’.

2:The ‘minimum hourly rate’ will be at least 135% of living costs per hour.

3:The living costs will be based on the average cost of:
Non-drugs related Food and drink
General Healthcare and maintenance
Rent/Housing
Gas
Electric
Water
Council tax
Insurance
Public Transport for one year

4. This will be calculated by the formula:
Living costs ´ 135% ¸(47×48)

5.Employers can pay over the ‘Minimum hourly rate’.

6. The ‘WA Employment Overseer and Court’ will be set up to monitor all employment law and employers, investigate any breaches in employment law and bring any prosecutions to their court.

7: The ‘WA Employment Overseer and Court’ will enforce a sentence of 5 years in jail or rehabilitation and community sentences to employers and managers found guilty of not adhering to employment law codes as monitored and upheld by the ‘WA Employment Overseer and Court’. On top of this a fine of 35% of their salary will be charged into the WA .

8. This bill excludes prison labour as that is a punishment.

I hope this helps workers rights within the WA and eliminates poverty.

This is revisal 3 guys:
The 2256hours is equivelent to 47(weeks)x48(hours) which is the typical western working hours.

Bill of Minimum Hourly Rate

Recognising how unfair and exploitative the current economic system can be.

Recognising wages need to be wages you can live on.

I propose a new ‘minimum hourly rate’ .

1. The WA Will set up a new ‘minimum hourly rate’.

2:The ‘minimum hourly rate’ will be at least 135% of living costs per hour.

3:The living costs will be based on the average cost of:
Non-drugs related Food and drink
General Healthcare and maintenance
Rent/Housing
Gas
Electric
Water
Council tax
Insurance
Public Transport for one year

4. This will be calculated by the formula:
Living costs ´ 135% ¸2256

5.Employers can pay over the ‘Minimum hourly rate’.

6. The ‘WA Employment Overseer and Court’ will be set up to monitor all employment law and employers, investigate any breaches in employment law and bring any prosecutions to their court.

7: The ‘WA Employment Overseer and Court’ will enforce a sentence of 5 years in jail or rehabilitation and community sentences to employers and managers found guilty of not adhering to employment law codes as monitored and upheld by the ‘WA Employment Overseer and Court’. On top of this a fine of 35% of their salary will be charged into the WA .

8. This bill excludes prison labour as that is a punishment.

I hope this helps workers rights within the WA and eliminates poverty.

Sorry the formula is getting messed up by the forums system of posting, how do I get onto mods.

What are you trying to do? And, furthermore, it's probably better if you didn't include formulae. Also:

Recognising how unfair and exploitative the current economic system can be.In NS, there isn't one "current economic system". Unless you're blaming everything from pre-monetary barter systems to hyper-capitalizm to absolute communism.