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From: orb@whuxl.UUCP (SEVENER)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Wage Rates: Unions, Minimum Wage Laws, and Employer Oligopoly
Message-ID: <460@whuxl.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 30-Jan-85 17:27:52 EST
Article-I.D.: whuxl.460
Posted: Wed Jan 30 17:27:52 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 31-Jan-85 02:45:42 EST
References: <811@ratex.UUCP>
Distribution: net
Organization: Bell Labs
Lines: 25

> 
>      If the work-week is reduced, without corresponding reductions in
> weekly pay, this will amount to an increase in the wage-rate; in the long-
> run, this will mean increased unemployment.  Even if weekly pay is
> proportionally decreased (such that the wage-rate is kept constant),
> economies of scale will be lost (at a given wage rate, it's generally
> cheaper to hire 10000 workers for 40 hours per week than 400000 workers for
> 1 hour per week), and further unemployment will obtain.
> 
>                                         Everybody clear?
>                                         Daniel Kian Mc Kiernan

Clear as a smogfilled day in Los Angeles.......
Too bad we aren't still working the 60 to 80 hour week they averaged
around the turn of the century.  Just think how much more efficient
that would be................
not to mention the increased unemployed milling around desperate for
any job they can get!!
Seems like the economy has done better since going to the 40 hour week
than it did before the 40 hour week.
What would be *most* efficient might be the 168 hour week...
that used to be called "slavery"........
My question is: what are the poor robots going to do???
                  "Ecstasy is *still* the Greatest Revolution!"
                              tim sevener   whuxl!orb