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Scheduling Technology Leaves Low-Income Parents With Hours of Chaos

nytimes.com

61–70 of 152 posts

Re: Scheduling Technology Leaves Low-Income Parents With Hours of Chaos

#61
post #15

If there is a higher demand for workers during certain hours, shouldn't the workers be paid higher for those hours? Seems like a fair trade off? If you want ala carte hours, you should pay ala carte prices. Only way I can think to do it though is by regulating time software... something like "if you use flexible hours, you must comply to these regulations" where in they specify custom pricing.

"Seems like a fair trade off? If you want ala carte hours, you should pay ala carte prices."

That only works if the supply of workers is limited. And in this case, the low-wage bracket, it isn't. It's absolutely flooded with people, so you can't expect the workers to command any such bargaining power. It's simply supply and demand, and there simply isn't enough demand to satisfy the huge supply of low-wage workers.

My solution: Company towns. Give the workers daycare, food, accommodation, training/education and pay them peanuts... in the middle of nowhere. But that'll never fly, because the argument really isn't about "fair-wage", it's more about "entitlement" so people see it as some sort of loss instead of a huge gain in a market that really isn't favoring them at the moment.

Re: Scheduling Technology Leaves Low-Income Parents With Hours of Chaos

#62
post #12

Am I the only one who thinks you shouldn't have a child if you haven't yet set up a stable environment for them? That includes sorting out your education and jobs.

You're not alone; quite a lot of people think that.

The question is, what can you do about it. I doubt many people in the U.S. would be comfortable with a company or government telling poor people they're not allowed to have sex or have a kid. That's very personal stuff.

And unfortunately there's a puritanical streak in American culture that makes it hard to put in place systems that would help teens help themselves, like effective sex education or free contraception.

Re: Scheduling Technology Leaves Low-Income Parents With Hours of Chaos

#63
post #61
post #15

If there is a higher demand for workers during certain hours, shouldn't the workers be paid higher for those hours? Seems like a fair trade off? If you want ala carte hours, you should pay ala carte prices. Only way I can think to do it though is by regulating time software... something like "if you use flexible hours, you must comply to these regulations" where in they specify custom pricing.

" Seems like a fair trade off? If you want ala carte hours, you should pay ala carte prices. " That only works if the supply of workers is limited. And in this case, the low-wage bracket, it isn't. It's absolutely flooded with people, so you can't expect the workers to command any such bargaining power. It's simply supply and demand, and there simply isn't enough demand to satisfy the huge supply of low-wage workers.…

> My solution: Company towns. Give the workers daycare, food, accommodation, training/education and pay them peanuts... in the middle of nowhere. But that'll never fly

...because its been done before, became widely and accurately recognized as de facto slavery, and the key components of such schemes outlawed.

Re: Scheduling Technology Leaves Low-Income Parents With Hours of Chaos

#64
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth I wouldn't have a kid without $1 million in liquid assets set aside for him. It seems evil to me to have a kid without enough money to feel confident he'll never have to work for money. But then most people think I'm nuts.

What makes you think $1 million in liquid assets is enough to plan for the next ~100 years?

Nothing's for sure but you can live pretty comfortably on ~$15k a year and it's pretty easy to earn 1.5% more than inflation on $1 million.

Re: Scheduling Technology Leaves Low-Income Parents With Hours of Chaos

#65

The macro trend of more and more companies shifting jobs from full time to part time is disconcerting. Working one of these service jobs where you're slave to your hours like this is hell. The "Share Economy" (Uber, TaskRabbit, etc.) has the potential to make this both better and worse. At least if you're an independent uber driver, you can choose when you're going to be available and pick up jobs when it makes sense…

> The "Share Economy" (Uber, TaskRabbit, etc.) has the potential to make this both better and worse.

Incidentally, while its a pleasant (for the industry) propaganda/marketing label, these things have nothing to do with sharing. They are routine sales-through-an-agent, and are no more about "sharing" than selling a house through a real estate agent is.

Re: Scheduling Technology Leaves Low-Income Parents With Hours of Chaos

#66
post #16

Minimum wages also contribute to this: when you remove flexibility from one parameter of a gigantic system in dynamic tension, it can be partially clawed back elsewhere. So if the mix "lower wages but consistent (and often overstaffed) schedules" is prohibited by the wage law, you may instead get the mix "slightly higher wages but hours aggressively trimmed and rearranged".

This has little to do with minimum wage, it's purely driven by profit incentive.

Assume there is no minimum wage, or a really low one, what's to stop them from both paying less, and aggressively trimming the hours?

Re: Scheduling Technology Leaves Low-Income Parents With Hours of Chaos

#67
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth I wouldn't have a kid without $1 million in liquid assets set aside for him. It seems evil to me to have a kid without enough money to feel confident he'll never have to work for money. But then most people think I'm nuts.

If everybody did that it would cause a demographic crisis. Who exactly do you expect to be looking after you when you are retired (growing your food, manufacturing your medication, diagnosing your ailments etc etc) and only 0.01% of the population have had children in the last 50 years. Other people having children is actually a vital service to the rest of society. Or at least those of us hoping to live for at least…

Hopefully robots by that time. Anyways, I'm not really interested in living past the age when I'm too old and unhealthy to work. Sounds awful.

Re: Scheduling Technology Leaves Low-Income Parents With Hours of Chaos

#68
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" Seems like a fair trade off? If you want ala carte hours, you should pay ala carte prices. " That only works if the supply of workers is limited. And in this case, the low-wage bracket, it isn't. It's absolutely flooded with people, so you can't expect the workers to command any such bargaining power. It's simply supply and demand, and there simply isn't enough demand to satisfy the huge supply of low-wage workers.…

> My solution: Company towns. Give the workers daycare, food, accommodation, training/education and pay them peanuts... in the middle of nowhere. But that'll never fly ...because its been done before, became widely and accurately recognized as de facto slavery, and the key components of such schemes outlawed.

Enlighten me how that is slavery? Bear in mind, in my example people have the choice to go there, or not.

Re: Scheduling Technology Leaves Low-Income Parents With Hours of Chaos

#69

I've written simple scheduling software. The only consideration taken by this scheduling software were worker preferences: management doesn't care who covers the shifts, just that they're covered. So it took into account "fairness", day of week preferences, scheduled holidays, et cetera. By those measures, the software does a lot better than humans. However, there's something to be said about the predictability of th…

I think the issue is more with how the software enables crazy dehumanizing things like demand scheduling.

Re: Scheduling Technology Leaves Low-Income Parents With Hours of Chaos

#70
post #5
post #3

This is not really a technology issue, it's a non-union employee issue. As a society we're asking the government to step in and legislate to protect workers rather than fostering unions to negotiate on a case by case basis. http://www.theguardian.com/money/us-money-blog/2014/jul/23/e...

I agree that the software connection is weak, but it can be a reminder to people that decisions made by software can have a real positive or negative effect on human beings, in ways that the software (and software makers) can't easily predict. How do we build more humanism into our apps?

The bigger question will be how can we build more humanism into our managers.

Software is just a tool. Ultimately, managers are the ones who need to be educated on the impact of their decisions.

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