Letitia James Quotes
Wage violations are tantamount to theft.
James, Letitia. Press release. Office of the New York City Public Advocate, n.d.
Workers must be paid promptly.
The argument here is that since the poor working class wages are so low, that they cannot save for an emergency, therefore the society must provide for welfare for those who might otherwise starve.
This is not a common quotation from Thoreau. The great man for whom the establishment had so much respect had a very anti-capitalist streak. His view is that the employer will generally never pay his laborers a fair wage. Instead he will pay the laborer the lowest rate for which he can obtain the laborers services. If the laborer generates added value for his wage, the employer is in a zero sum game with the laborer. If part of the added value—the profit is paid to the laborer, the employer does not have it for himself (or his stockholders). In most cases, the laborer is forced to work for his and his family’s subsistence. This theory argues that they only way the laborer will get a fair wage is if there is a labor shortage (assuming no government laws or union pressure is in the picture. Many capitalists argue that a “fair” wage is what a free man is willing to work for and a free employer is willing to pay. So economics is like politics in general with respect to fairness—there is no universally accepted definition of what is fair.
While it was true that wages did not increase beyond inflation, the enormous increase in productivity—about a doubling—was not only due to the workers but was also due to the capital investment that the companies made in computers, robots, job restructuring, advanced training, and other management initiatives. Historically, when there are substantial productivity increases, the benefit is shared between the workers and the company as both were necessary to produce the increase in productivity. But since 1980, the workers have not obtained any significant share of the productivity increase.
At the time, industrialists could not even conceive of the notion of negotiating over wages must less collective bargaining.
Ten cents a day was a very low wage—it was about the equivalent of a meal at a tavern at the time. Workers throughout the country were outraged and give him a derogatory nickname—see Quotation 643585.
Letitia Ann "Tish" James is an American lawyer, activist, and politician. She is a member of the Democratic Party and the current attorney general of New York, having won the 2018 election to succeed appointed attorney general Barbara Underwood. She is the first African-American and the first woman to be elected to the position.
