In yesterday's post we talked about employer monopsony. Relevant to this post is today's news about Washington state successfully suing to get fast food franchises to no longer enforce "no poaching" agreements. The gist is:
The provisions prohibit workers at, for example, one Carl’s Jr. franchise from going to another Carl’s Jr. They do not stop those workers from taking jobs at restaurants run by a different chain.While this does not lock workers into a single chain, it does make it harder for them to move around if one particular employment situation gets bad. Any barriers to mobility tend to depress wages and thus the question of minimum wage as a policy.
It's true that tackling the bad policy might be a better overall decision. But minimum wage is an easy to enforce policy that is hard to weasel around. Once again, it is a policy that bears more looking at.
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