Corporatocracy Wins Again

By that reasoning we shouldn't bother with any sort of employment law at all. You're saying exploitation is absolutely fine. I think we all understand that the courts have found that this treatment is legal.I think the purpose of discussion is whether it should be legal.How do we determine what is or is not exploitation? How do we determine what employment practices are or are not abusive? How do we decide what we should legislate, and what we should leave to the market?Imagine this topic was actually about child labor, and that kids as young as 8 were being made to work in dangerous, gruelling factory work for 12+ hours at a time, and still earning a wage below sustenance. Is that okay because they took the job "out of desperation," and they should just expect to be exploited?Certainly in that case our society has decided that such treatment of workers should flatly not be allowed under any circumstances, regardless of how desperate the employees are for work.How do we find the line between what we should ban, like child labor, and what we should not ban?I don't think that's an emotional topic necessarily. I think it's about ethics in the workplace.I think today's society requires employment to the point that "find another job," while good advice, is not necessarily a good solution. Certainly if you're getting by but you'd like more money, "find a better job" is perfectly acceptable. But if a practice crosses the line into exploitation, I think "find a better job" is just patronizing and refusing to deal with an ethical dilemma.I remember a case a few years back where Walmart was locking in employees overnight. They were not allowed to leave, and physically prevented from doing so - not just on pain of losing their jobs, they physically could not leave the building regardless of reason, even in case of sick children. There was a class action lawsuit, and the employees won. My ex-wife worked for Walmart at the time and was herself locked in.Personally I'm not a fan of involuntary searches. I don't even like having my bags checked when I walk out of Best Buy...so I usually just don't shop at Best Buy. I don't think employers should be allowed to force all employees to submit to an exit search on threat of job loss - today's society requires employment, so such requirements are absolutely coercion. If the employer has a reasonable suspicion that a particular employee is in possession of stolen goods then by all means...but I find general search requirements for all employees to be horrifically invasive.That doesn't even touch on the issue of pay while waiting in line for the search; I don't think the searches themselves should be okay. It's an invasion of privacy, and the fact that it's your employer rather than law enforcement isn't ethically any different to me. I'm well aware that the law today doesn't treat them the same, but I'd happily support a law or a legal precedent that ensures employees have the same privacy rights at work with their bodies and personal property as they have when dealing with the police.As for the pay...again I understand that the law right now apparently allows for this to be unpaid time. But hourly employees are exchanging their hours for money. It's already legally required to pay employees who are on call if they're required to be within a certain distance of the office and respond within a certain amount of time. I don;t see how this is terribly different. I see it as a legal loophole that needs to be closed. If you require your employee to be present on work premises, hourly employees must be paid for that time, period. If they're free to go without risk of losing their jobs, then their presence is optional and they don;t need to be paid. I think the criteria of "required" vs "optional" and "on premises" vs "able to go where you choose" are the appropriate variables to determine whether an hourly employee who typically works at a specific employer-designated location needs to be paid for their time.