At Vote: Living Wage Act

Living Wage Act

A resolution to reduce income inequality and increase basic welfare.


Category: Social Justice


Strength: Significant


Proposed by: Gobbannaen WA Mission

Description: The World Assembly,

AWARE that some workers are paid so little that they can barely afford to eat;

CONSIDERING this situation little better than slavery;

DESIRING that all people should be allowed to do more than merely surviving in exchange for full-time work;

DEFINES the Basic Poverty Line as the cost of enough food and drink to keep a person healthy for a week, plus one week's rent for an average one-person dwelling, plus the cost of an average weekly commute between home and work, plus the pro-rata weekly cost of those utilities deemed appropriate, less any income or benefits provided to all workers by the nation;

DEFINES the Dependent Poverty Line as the Basic Poverty Line, substituting an average two-person dwelling for an average one-person dwelling, plus the cost of enough food and drink to keep a dependent healthy for a week, plus the pro-rata weekly cost of schooling for a dependent, less any additional income or benefits provided to all workers with dependents by the nation;

REQUIRES that power and water supply be deemed appropriate utilities;

SUGGESTS an allowance be made for primary medical care where it is not free at the point of access;

NOTES that the Poverty Lines are defined on an area basis, and sets no limits as to how any nation may define such areas save that they must lie wholly within the nation's boundaries;

REQUIRES that the Poverty Lines be re-evaluated on at least an annual basis;

CONSIDERS a person working on average 30 hours or more per week to be in full-time employment, counting paid holiday as time worked;

REQUIRES that no person in full-time employment be paid the equivalent of a weekly net wage of less than 25% over the Basic Poverty Line;

REQUIRES further that no person in full-time employment be paid the equivalent of a weekly net wage of less than 25% over the Dependent Povery Line unless that person has no dependents and explicitly waives this right;

CONSIDERS a person working on average between 10 and 30 hours per week to be in part-time employment, counting paid holiday as time worked;

REQUIRES that a person in part-time employment be subject to the same minimum weekly net wage regulations as a person in full-time employment, with the relevant wage levels pro-rated to the proportion of 30 hours per week worked.

EXEMPTS from this requirement workers in the voluntary sector, who donate their time as they choose;

EXEMPTS also from this requirement convicted criminals who are required to perform work in the course of their sentence;

CONSIDERS a person working on a contractual basis to be equivalent to a person in direct employment for the purposes of this resolution;

DECLARES void any contract specifying a lesser wage or contractual remuneration than is specified above, requiring that either that contract is revised to conform with the above requirements or that national redundancy laws be invoked;

ACCEPTS that individuals may be paid in kind as well as cash, evaluating such payments for the purposes of this act as follows:

* Items which form part of the relevant Poverty Line assessment are evaluated as that part, pro-rated to their proportion of the individual's actual requirements;
* Other goods and services are evaluated as their average market value in the area over which the Poverty Line is assessed;

and URGES nations to ensure that their welfare systems provide at least the equivalent of a weekly wage of 20% over the Poverty Line.

In favor. My issues with it were dealt with before it was submitted.

Against.

Mainly because of:

NOTES that the Poverty Lines are defined on an area basis, and sets no limits as to how any nation may define such areas save that they must lie wholly within the nation's boundaries;

REQUIRES that the Poverty Lines be re-evaluated on at least an annual basis;

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Against.
1. This is forcing socialism or something akin to it upon all nations.
2. The meaning of "drink" is not defined this could mean any beverage water, beer, rum, or 40 year old single malt.
3. Persons serving in a nation's military are not exempt from this act.
4. Average commute? By what means?

Bah. 2:2. I hate ties.

whereisthatistan:

Against.
1. This is forcing socialism or something akin to it upon all nations.
2. The meaning of "drink" is not defined this could mean any beverage water, beer, rum, or 40 year old single malt.
3. Persons serving in a nation's military are not exempt from this act.
4. Average commute? By what means?

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1. Not really. All it does is force an increase in pay for some people. Everything else remains the same.

2. Are you really going to quibble over this? I'm sorry, but this challenge is absurd.

3. That one may be my fault, actually... Sorry. However, all of the housing and other items your nation's government is providing them do count, so you hopefully wouldn't have to worry.

4. It's not defined due to the variance in WA nations.

How about the runaway inflation this could cause. Greatly increasing wages will lead to greatly increased prices and then you'll have to raise wages to keep up with inflation and then prices will rise again.

Admittedly, that's a good point and was brought up while the resolution was in draft phase. In the end, no method of countering it within the resolution itself, due to length limits, was ever discovered.

Basically, a nation has to control it on their own. Proper methods of price distribution can effectively eliminate inflation from that. But, that has to be done individually, through the governments and corporations.

FOR

A universal decent living wage makes my highly educated, high producing workers that much more competitive and ends sweat shops in one stroke.