HomeUploadUpload DirectHotlinkRandomAbouttheme toggle

The $15 Minimum Wage Is Turning Hard Workers Into Black Market Lawbreakers

Views: 973
An in-depth look at New York's car wash industry, and the real world consequences of politicians interfering with a complex industry they don’t understand.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel: http://youtube.com/reasontv
Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Reason.Magaz...
Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/reason
Subscribe to our podcast at iTunes: https://goo.gl/az3a7a

Reason is the planet's leading source of news, politics, and culture from a libertarian perspective. Go to reason.com for a point of view you won't get from legacy media and old left-right opinion magazines.

----------------

On March 4, 2015, a group of union leaders, activists, and elected officials were arrested for blocking traffic during a protest in front of a Vegas Auto Spa, a small car wash in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Chanting "No contract, no peace!" and "Si se puede!," they had come in support of striking workers, who had walked out demanding a union contract after allegedly being subjected to dismal working conditions.

For David Mertz, the New York City director and a vice president at the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), it was an inspirational moment in an ambitious six-year campaign to unionize the city's car washes industry.

"These workers were willing to stand out there during one of the coldest winters...literally in decades to fight for their rights and for basic human dignity," says Mertz, who was also arrested that day. "You have the ability to make change by coming together, and when you do that sometimes you find that you've got some friends on your side."

In the past six years, the car wash industry, which employs low-skilled, mostly immigrant workers, has also been the target of lawsuits for alleged underpayment of wages, including a handful of cases spearheaded by the New York State Attorney General's office. Working conditions in the industry were also cited as a raison d'être in the successful campaign to raise the state minimum wage to $15 per hour, which takes full effect at New York City car washes in January of 2019.

As Reason chronicled in a feature story in our July 2016 issue, the real world impact of the unionization drive, the lawsuits, and the $15 minimum wage has been mainly to push car washes to automate and to close down.

Two years later, there are more unintended consequences. The $15 minimum wage is fostering a growing black market—workers increasingly have no choice but to ply their trade out of illegal vans parked on the street, because the minimum wage has made it illegal for anyone to hire them at the market rate.

The minimum wage is also cartelizing the industry: Businesses that have chosen to automate are benefiting from the $15 wage floor because outlawing cheap labor makes it harder for new competitors to undercut them on price and service.

As a sequel to the 2016 article, this video takes an in-depth look at the real world consequences that result when politicians interfere with a complex industry they don't understand, enabled by media coverage that rarely questions the overly simplistic tale of exploited workers in need of protection.

Click here for full text and links: https://reason.com/reasontv/2018/10/11/the-15-minimum-wage-car-washes

Written, shot, edited, and narrated by Jim Epstein.

Photo Credits

Photo of Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton greets unionized car wash workers at the Hi-Tek Car Wash in the Queens borough of New York City, U.S. April 18, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Segar

Photos of Council Member Carlos Menchacha's arrest. William Alatriste for the New York City Council

Music Credits

"Curtains are Always Drawn" by Kai Engel is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial License.

"Industrial Music Box" by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100812
Artist: http://incompetech.com/

"Desert City" by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100564
Artist: http://incompetech.com/

"Summer Days" by Kai Engel is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial License.
@ReasonVidsfollow
Thumbnail for Stossel: Libertarian Larry Sharpe Brings New Ideas to New York4:59
Stossel: Libertarian Larry Sharpe Brings New Ideas to New York
ReasonVids
847 views
Thumbnail for Blacks are incompatible with Western Civilization (A Rhodesian explains.)32:54
Blacks are incompatible with Western Civilization (A Rhodesian explains.)
AOUisgay
2215 views
Thumbnail for Dresden the real Holocaust.  Allied fire bombing of German civillian cultural center at the end of WWII.11:29
Dresden the real Holocaust. Allied fire bombing of German civillian cultural center at the end of WWII.
allAheadFull
1096 views
Thumbnail for Fully documented nigger deportation procedure from Japan1:41
Fully documented nigger deportation procedure from Japan
AOUisgay
2196 views
Thumbnail for Challenge FAILED!1:07
Challenge FAILED!
bestofupgoat
8 views
Thumbnail for Remy: The First Noel (Ballot Access Parody)1:46
Remy: The First Noel (Ballot Access Parody)
ReasonVids
882 views
Thumbnail for Robert E Lee statue gets melted0:13
Robert E Lee statue gets melted
AOUisgay
413 views
Thumbnail for Why We Should Privatize the Postal Service4:07
Why We Should Privatize the Postal Service
ReasonVids
860 views
Thumbnail for oy vey shut it down!!!0:41
oy vey shut it down!!!
bestofupgoat
309 views
Thumbnail for Black man calls out the Jew3:10
Black man calls out the Jew
AOUisgay
3059 views
Thumbnail for Schindler's List0:20
Schindler's List
bestofvoatxyz
368 views
Thumbnail for Ohio Express - Mercy (1969) | Beat-Club2:25
Ohio Express - Mercy (1969) | Beat-Club
invidious
240 views
Thumbnail for Psychedelic Drugs: The Future of Mental Health9:23
Psychedelic Drugs: The Future of Mental Health
ReasonVids
877 views
Thumbnail for Venezuelans Fleeing Socialism Find Community at a Miami Storage Facility6:02
Venezuelans Fleeing Socialism Find Community at a Miami Storage Facility
ReasonVids
825 views
Thumbnail for Uvalde - Same victim, two networks, different fathers, two different first names1:35
Uvalde - Same victim, two networks, different fathers, two different first names
AOUisgay
1016 views
Thumbnail for If They’re Gonna Steal All That Deodorant, They Could At Least Use It Sometime.1:00
If They’re Gonna Steal All That Deodorant, They Could At Least Use It Sometime.
AOUisgay
977 views
Thumbnail for Most Koreans reject the commie left's shitty agenda0:39
Most Koreans reject the commie left's shitty agenda
AOUisgay
615 views
Thumbnail for Guys Literally Only Want One Thing0:14
Guys Literally Only Want One Thing
bestofvoatxyz
564 views
Thumbnail for My Boss Hates Overtime Part 5 😡😡😡 #shorts | Anton Fomenko0:09
My Boss Hates Overtime Part 5 😡😡😡 #shorts | Anton Fomenko
invidious
299 views
Thumbnail for Q & A With Andrew W.K.: "A Role Model for Fun"29:51
Q & A With Andrew W.K.: "A Role Model for Fun"
ReasonVids
982 views
Thumbnail for Noam Chomsky - The 5 Filters of the Mass Media Machine4:46
Noam Chomsky - The 5 Filters of the Mass Media Machine
bestofvoatxyz
910 views
Thumbnail for The Tea Party Goes to Washington: Rand Paul on the intellectual bankruptcy of both major parties23:19
The Tea Party Goes to Washington: Rand Paul on the intellectual bankruptcy of both major parties
ReasonVids
935 views
Thumbnail for Stossel: Moral Panic Over Sex Work5:50
Stossel: Moral Panic Over Sex Work
ReasonVids
889 views

points

Permalink
Reply
libertarian, reason magazine, reason.com, reason.tv, reasontv, car wash industry, rwdsu, retail wholesale department store union, david mertz, $15 minimum wage, minimum wage, car wash campaign, make the road new york, new york communities for change, stuart appelbaum, main street car wash, automation, car washes
TOS  •  Add Keywords  •  Donate  •   Analytics  •   DMCA  •   Puzzle