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There's no easy way to say this

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Re: There's no easy way to say this

#151

Post by sandworm101 »

bigiain wrote: post #43
nine_k wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is $200 a month; unless you work part-time, it's likely illegal.

Jurisdictions are quite important when deciding whether something's "illegal". Seems like that's twice the minimum wage where it happened (just from reading the post/comments), so it's extremely unlikely to be "illegal" where it happened. (it's a curious question as to whether there's anything illegal, and if so, on who's part, if a Mexican business is paying above-local-minimum wage salaries to people who are not lo…

>>If you _accept_ a remote job where the renumeration is disclosed but below your local minimum wage - I wonder if any law has been broken, and if so, by who?

Yes. That is a crime. The employee has committed a crime by negotiation/accepting the wage. The employer has too. Regardless of where they think they "work" they are employing someone standing in the other jurisdiction. If one allows offshore companies to bypass wage laws then every single local company would be run through an offshore shell, negating the local law. So it is near-universal that offshores must comply with local wage laws.

In practical terms, a flesh-and-blood 'employee' isn't going to be prosecuted. That side of things is reserved for sub-contracting entities that aren't real people. Negotiating a sub-minimum wage contract remains a crime for subcontractors. This is necessary to prevent one-person "companies" negotiating illegal pay for their one employee under the fiction that they are an arms-length subcontractor when everyone knows the person is effectively an employee.

Re: There's no easy way to say this

#152

Post by coldtea »

Zyst wrote: post #78
sulam wrote: post #54

At the risk of repeating a comment I made further down in a thread, the average QA Engineer salary in Mexico is literally 10X more than one of these devs was making. Anyone trying to justify this in terms of the Mexican minimum wage is trying to sell you ocean front property in Arizona.

Aye, copy pasting a comment I posted below: I live in Mexico, I've never seen anyone in Mexico make minimum wage, ever. And I do know people from all walks of life. As to what they earn, again, I live in Mexico, I am employed by a Mexican company, and work for Mexican clients. I make their yearly salary in 15 days or so. It really is disgusting that they would treat employees this way, specially when they were such a…

>I live in Mexico, I've never seen anyone in Mexico make minimum wage, ever. And I do know people from all walks of life.

Hmm, there are dead poor people in Mexico and even the US, including people that make less than minimum wage (from part time gigs they can manage to find, etc).

Re: There's no easy way to say this

#153

Post by dmichulke »

lazaroclapp wrote: post #91
Zyst wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aye, copy pasting a comment I posted below: I live in Mexico, I've never seen anyone in Mexico make minimum wage, ever. And I do know people from all walks of life. As to what they earn, again, I live in Mexico, I am employed by a Mexican company, and work for Mexican clients. I make their yearly salary in 15 days or so. It really is disgusting that they would treat employees this way, specially when they were such a…

I am probably one of those comments below "justifying it in terms of the minimum wage". Quite honestly, a big part is that I read it as $2,400 USD a month originally (not yearly!). Even if that had been the case, I wouldn't have faulted developers for feeling underpaid in the particular case of KSP (given how big of a success the game ended up being). As yearly salary it is indeed atrocious. Still, worth saying, not…

At the risk oft stating the obvious:

The devs agreed voluntarily to accept this salary for a number of years. It is not ours to judge whether this it was too small, because for them it was not (until now)

Likewise, if you insist on "this salary is too small for them", you're saying that you know better what's good for them than they themselves. I would find that offensive.

Re: There's no easy way to say this

#154

Post by adventured »

Zyst wrote: post #78
sulam wrote: post #54

At the risk of repeating a comment I made further down in a thread, the average QA Engineer salary in Mexico is literally 10X more than one of these devs was making. Anyone trying to justify this in terms of the Mexican minimum wage is trying to sell you ocean front property in Arizona.

Aye, copy pasting a comment I posted below: I live in Mexico, I've never seen anyone in Mexico make minimum wage, ever. And I do know people from all walks of life. As to what they earn, again, I live in Mexico, I am employed by a Mexican company, and work for Mexican clients. I make their yearly salary in 15 days or so. It really is disgusting that they would treat employees this way, specially when they were such a…

"One in seven Mexican workers earn the average minimum wage of 65.58 pesos ($5.10) a day or less, national statistics office INEGI says."

Also worth noting that at least half of Mexico's population lives below their own poverty line.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-economy-analysis-id...

Re: There's no easy way to say this

#156

Post by drdeca »

eropple wrote: post #102
lazaroclapp wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am probably one of those comments below "justifying it in terms of the minimum wage". Quite honestly, a big part is that I read it as $2,400 USD a month originally (not yearly!). Even if that had been the case, I wouldn't have faulted developers for feeling underpaid in the particular case of KSP (given how big of a success the game ended up being). As yearly salary it is indeed atrocious. Still, worth saying, not…

> Still, worth saying, not an illegal salary. "This is so shitty that the nicest thing that can be said is it's not actually illegal " doesn't merit the exculpatory nature of this sentence. And the sentiment behind it isn't really worth much in the first place.

How does that compare to the similar argument when people bring up free speech (and a person responds that if the best defense is that the government can't make it illegal, etc.)

Re: There's no easy way to say this

#157

Post by Dylan16807 »

eric_cc wrote: post #141
CydeWeys wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like Squad was taking advantage of employees by forcing them to work very long hours. That's definitely bad behavior. Maybe you or I would quit immediately, but a lot of people don't. They still have a right to complain about it when they finally do get around to quitting. I just don't understand why you are going after the employees. What point does it serve? We know that burnout, being overworked, and bei…

The guy you're replying to isn't going after anybody. You seem like you're just looking for a fight to make some point.

If it's "baseless" to accuse the employer of acting in bad faith, then those poor working conditions are either an utter accident or the fault of the employees' decisions.

And working conditions are not an accident.

Re: There's no easy way to say this

#158

Post by thomasz »

dmichulke wrote: post #153
lazaroclapp wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am probably one of those comments below "justifying it in terms of the minimum wage". Quite honestly, a big part is that I read it as $2,400 USD a month originally (not yearly!). Even if that had been the case, I wouldn't have faulted developers for feeling underpaid in the particular case of KSP (given how big of a success the game ended up being). As yearly salary it is indeed atrocious. Still, worth saying, not…

At the risk oft stating the obvious: The devs agreed voluntarily to accept this salary for a number of years. It is not ours to judge whether this it was too small, because for them it was not (until now) Likewise, if you insist on "this salary is too small for them", you're saying that you know better what's good for them than they themselves. I would find that offensive.

We don't have to judge for them. They left. In a very public way.

Re: There's no easy way to say this

#159

Post by ryandrake »

cryptarch wrote: post #34
gogopuppygogo wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article states that the minimum wage in Mexico is $100/month ($1,200/year). My guess is he moved to Mexico to work on this and gain experience. Pay sucks but the game is successful and if he didn't publicly come out against the company it would have likely led to higher paying jobs in the states due to association. This may not be popular to many people but I'm sure it's well known on on Hacker News by now. Long…

Did you mean "intents and purposes" or did some wordplay go over my head?

Hah, we laugh at that one, but as soon as you point out that "performant" is not an English word, the HN "languages evolve!" guys come out of the woodwork with their pitchforks.

Re: There's no easy way to say this

#160

Post by Dylan16807 »

dang wrote: post #145
jcrites wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dang and other HN staff have said before that they like making readers have to work a bit for the information, and not just be spoonfed in the headlines. I understand it to be about fostering curiosity and wonder. I assume it's also about discouraging people from dismissing an article based on headline alone. ("Kerbal Space Program? I don't know what that is and don't care about it"). Really great HN articles are oft…

The only part I disagree with you about is this: > Dan could probably explain better than I. Well done.

You've said clickbait titles are against the rules in the past. What is your definition of a clickbait title, if it's not something vague and provocative that requires users to click through to figure out what the topic is?

(Note that I am talking purely about titles, not the articles behind them.)

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