[DRAFT] The Elimination Of Economic Slavery Act

[Unified Canadian Fascists]

The Elimination Of Economic Slavery Act
Category: Social Justice
Strength: Significant
Proposed by: Unified Canadian Fascists

Believing that all foreign-based employees[†1] have the right to a minimum livable[†2] wage;

Understanding that the outsourcing of cheap labor undercuts the manufacturing industries of highly developed nations, and ensures foreign workers dependency on such labor to the extent of economic slavery;

The World Assembly hereby declares:


SECTION 1: Requires member nations ensure that no business operating within its national borders employs foreign workers who receive less than a livable wage[†2], as defined within this act.

SECTION 2: Urges member nations to take further action to ensure a fairer and more equal minimum livable wage abroad as in contrast to their own respective nations.

SECTION 3: Clarifies that nations which do not have a minimum wage are not bound to this act, so long as they do not adopt a minimum wage.

SECTION 4: Clarifies that labor contracts approved before the creation of the act may or may not be upheld on the discretion of their respective authorities.

DEFINITIONS:
[†1] Employees are defined as any individual who performs a task or tasks for compensation that is not self employed, employed in law enforcement, or in the military.
[†2] A livable wage is defined as a wage of no less than 75% below the absolute minimum wage of each respective nation

EDITS:
Changed the language used in definitions to no longer refer to another act.

[Serrus]

The Elimination Of Economic Slavery Act
Category: Social Justice
Strength: Significant
Proposed by: Unified Canadian Fascists

Believing that all foreign-based employees[†1] have the right to a minimum livable[†2] wage;

Understanding that the outsourcing of cheap labor undercuts the manufacturing industries of highly developed nations, and ensures foreign workers dependency on such labor to the extent of economic slavery;

The World Assembly hereby declares:


SECTION 1: Requires member nations ensure that no business operating within its national borders employs foreign workers who receive less than a livable wage[†2], as defined within this act.

SECTION 2: Urges member nations to take further action to ensure a fairer and more equal minimum livable wage abroad as in contrast to their own respective nations.

SECTION 3: Clarifies that nations which do not have a minimum wage are not bound to this act, so long as they do not adopt a minimum wage.

SECTION 4: Clarifies that labor contracts approved before the creation of the act may or may not be upheld on the discretion of their respective authorities.

DEFINITIONS:
[†1] Employees as defined in World Assembly Resolution #7, the Workplace Safety Standards Act are,
"-any individual who performs a task or tasks for compensation that is not self employed, employed in law enforcement, or in the military."
[†2] A livable wage is defined as a wage of no less than 75% below the absolute minimum wage of each respective nation

House of cards.

[The Greater Siriusian Domain]

Teran Saber: "I can definitely see the merit to this. However, how would this apply to nations that are pre- or post-currency, or ones that use a complete socialist or communist economic system?"

The Elimination Of Economic Slavery Act
Category: Social Justice
Strength: Significant
Proposed by: Unified Canadian Fascists

Believing that all foreign-based employees[†1] have the right to a minimum livable[†2] wage;

Understanding that the outsourcing of cheap labor undercuts the manufacturing industries of highly developed nations, and ensures foreign workers dependency on such labor to the extent of economic slavery;

The World Assembly hereby declares:


SECTION 1: Requires member nations ensure that no business operating within its national borders employs foreign workers who receive less than a livable wage[†2], as defined within this act.

SECTION 2: Urges member nations to take further action to ensure a fairer and more equal minimum livable wage abroad as in contrast to their own respective nations.

SECTION 3: Clarifies that nations which do not have a minimum wage are not bound to this act, so long as they do not adopt a minimum wage.

SECTION 4: Clarifies that labor contracts approved before the creation of the act may or may not be upheld on the discretion of their respective authorities.

DEFINITIONS:
[†1] Employees as defined in World Assembly Resolution #7, the Workplace Safety Standards Act are,
"-any individual who performs a task or tasks for compensation that is not self employed, employed in law enforcement, or in the military."
[†2] A livable wage is defined as a wage of no less than 75% below the absolute minimum wage of each respective nation

House of cards.

OOC: Pretty easy fix for that, though. Just remove the references to GAR#7 and make definition 1 stand on its own.

[Serrus]

Teran Saber: "I can definitely see the merit to this. However, how would this apply to nations that are pre- or post-currency, or ones that use a complete socialist or communist economic system?"

House of cards.

OOC: Pretty easy fix for that, though. Just remove the references to GAR#7 and make definition 1 stand on its own.

OOC: First I've actually seen a house of cards violation.
*ticks checkbox*

[Unified Canadian Fascists]

Teran Saber: "I can definitely see the merit to this. However, how would this apply to nations that are pre- or post-currency, or ones that use a complete socialist or communist economic system?"



OOC: Pretty easy fix for that, though. Just remove the references to GAR#7 and make definition 1 stand on its own.

OOC: First I've actually seen a house of cards violation.
*ticks checkbox*

OOC:
"Resolutions may reference other resolutions to provide argumentative support."
The intent for adding that definition was to show that the definition used has previously been used, mainly to prevent accusation of plagiarism. This is the first proposal I've put forward, and I'm still new to the systems and ideas. I apologize for the general confusion, and will edit the language to prevent further confusion. I can now see where that's coming from. Thanks for pointing it out.

[Unified Canadian Fascists]

Teran Saber: "I can definitely see the merit to this. However, how would this apply to nations that are pre- or post-currency, or ones that use a complete socialist or communist economic system?"

Rt. Hon. Adrien Tucker "That's definitely an interesting point that you bring up, but I believe it could be addressed in the same way which we addressed nations without a minimum wage in section 3. As it current stands, there's a bit of a gap for such nations. Should non-currency using nations find an agreement to import goods produced from nations with the use of currency, the act should still be made to protect those workers from potential exploitation. This could be done by ensuring the average of the world assembly's minimum living wage could apply to these cases. I'd love your take on that, though."

[Araraukar]

OOC: "Resolutions may reference other resolutions to provide argumentative support."

OOC: Point that out in the rules, please? The rules say repeals can mention other resolutions for argument support.

Also, a new account, Canadian flag, intricate knowledge of what's been talked about in GA recently, ability to go full OOC for said arguments at a drop of a hat... Chester, is that you?

[Imperial Polk County]

Employees are defined as any individual who performs a task or tasks for compensation that is not self employed, employed in law enforcement, or in the military.

Ambassador Drane shakes his head. "I find it absolutely horrendous that you think it is okay to pay law enforcement and the military below living wage level, for doing some of the most dangerous work in society. Are cops and soldiers that disposable, that despised in your nation?"

[Unified Canadian Fascists]

Employees are defined as any individual who performs a task or tasks for compensation that is not self employed, employed in law enforcement, or in the military.

Ambassador Drane shakes his head. "I find it absolutely horrendous that you think it is okay to pay law enforcement and the military below living wage level, for doing some of the most dangerous work in society. Are cops and soldiers that disposable, that despised in your nation?"

"Of course not!" Rt. Hon. Adrien Tucker proclaims, abruptly dropping his translation device, and jolting up at his desk with a wild hand gesture, "My nation could perhaps be among the highest in regards to respect for law enforcement- But It's completely irrelevant to define that sectors workers in an act regarding industrial workers. And I'll have you know, the crime rate in my country is among the lowest in the entire region!"

[Unified Canadian Fascists]

OOC: "Resolutions may reference other resolutions to provide argumentative support."

OOC: Point that out in the rules, please? The rules say repeals can mention other resolutions for argument support.

Also, a new account, Canadian flag, intricate knowledge of what's been talked about in GA recently, ability to go full OOC for said arguments at a drop of a hat... Chester, is that you?

OOC: Absolutely no idea who Chester is. I've looked around the rules, and tried my best to search for relevant information as best as I can- Upon reinvestigation it seems the rule I was talking about was actually a suggested change to the rule. Any whom, I've remedied the silly mistake so that it stands on its own.

[Imperial Polk County]

Ambassador Drane shakes his head. "I find it absolutely horrendous that you think it is okay to pay law enforcement and the military below living wage level, for doing some of the most dangerous work in society. Are cops and soldiers that disposable, that despised in your nation?"

"Of course not!" Rt. Hon. Adrien Tucker proclaims, abruptly dropping his translation device, and jolting up at his desk with a wild hand gesture, "My nation could perhaps be among the highest in regards to respect for law enforcement- But It's completely irrelevant to define that sectors workers in an act regarding industrial workers. And I'll have you know, the crime rate in my country is among the lowest in the entire region!"

Drane waves his hand. "Ambassador, please, shake the sand off your flip-flops for a moment, because you're missing my point entirely. You're specifically excluding law enforcement and the military from your definition of 'employee' while including every other non-self-employed worker, whether they are considered industrial workers or not. Every lifeguard, every waiter, every truck driver, every IT worker, every schoolteacher, every call center employee, every other municipal and federal employee, they're all covered, but the police and the army are not. Now, can you explain to me, in plain terms so that I can relay them back to our citizens, why the WA should specifically exempt such highly regarded personnel?"

[Aclion]

[†2] A livable wage is defined as a wage of no less than 75% below the absolute minimum wage of each respective nation.

Suppose a nation has no minimum wage.

[Serrus]

[†2] A livable wage is defined as a wage of no less than 75% below the absolute minimum wage of each respective nation.

Suppose a nation has no minimum wage.

Suppose you read section 3.

SECTION 3: Clarifies that nations which do not have a minimum wage are not bound to this act, so long as they do not adopt a minimum wage.

[Araraukar]

OOC: Okay, on the assumption that you're actually new here, I'll give you some proper feedback. Keeping it out-of-character for now, because I have to refer to things like formatting and use RL references.

The Elimination Of Economic Slavery Act

Your title needs work. You might not want to call it a Living Wage Act, but that's what it currently is. You might want to at least go for the less clunky "Eliminating Economic Slavery".

Proposed by: Unified Canadian Fascists

Since it's your draft, leave this bit out entirely. If you accidentally leave it into the submitted form, it makes it illegal for Branding.

Believing that all foreign-based employees[†1] have the right to a minimum livable[†2] wage;

Not what you want to start with. You're using "Economic Slavery" in the title, you should open with preamble clauses that open up what that means and why it's a bad thing, without going into full definitions. Considering how nations (in RL as well as IC) tend to be selfish about money and place their own people above those of "filthy foreigners", your opening clause should probably be something general about how anyone working full-time should be making enough money to be able to live off of it. Then you should put in something that triggers the nations' selfishness, such as your current second preamble clause, and only then go for foreign workers' rights. I'm not actually sure why you're going for foreign workers and not all workers.

Understanding that the outsourcing of cheap labor undercuts the manufacturing industries of highly developed nations, and ensures foreign workers dependency on such labor to the extent of economic slavery;

This needs to get more attention in the preamble, and also needs to be cut into multiple pieces. Imagine you're writing the preamble for little children, like with RL politicians, only dressing it up in diplomatic wordings, and when you get to the active clauses, then you go professional. (Except remember that 99.9% of people here aren't economy majors...)

Also, don't bold the first words of the sentences, as there's at least one superdelegate who will vote against a proposal they otherwise aren't for or against, if there's extra formatting like that.

The World Assembly hereby declares:

You should open the whole Proposal with "The World Assembly" or "The General Assembly", as that'll give you the actor that does all the understanding and believing. Then you can replace this bit with just "Hereby", as that'll work as a good way to separate the preamble (which is often all that non-GAers will read of a proposal before deciding which way to vote) from the active clauses. Also, lose the bolding.

SECTION 1:

Why are sections required, when you only have one clause per section? You could just replace "SECTION 1" with "1." That'll still serve to separate the active clauses from one another, without looking like something taken out of the Red Party handbook for USSR.

Requires member nations ensure that no business operating within its national borders employs foreign workers who receive less than a livable wage[†2], as defined within this act.

Leave footnotes out and actually put your definitions first. Define things you use before you use them. Also, rather than "within its national borders", I suggest using "within its jurisdiction", as that will close a bunch of loopholes, and is used by many existing resolutions. Also, remember what I said about the nations being selfish? First make them give their own people rights and then say they need to give the same rights to foreign workers working in the nation.

SECTION 2. Urges member nations to take further action to ensure a fairer and more equal minimum livable wage abroad as in contrast to their own respective nations.

What does this mean? Especially the "as in contrast to" bit? Also, how can nation A take action to ensure nation B pays a fair wage to people from nation A who work in nation B? If that's not what it says, it needs a rework.

SECTION 3. Clarifies that nations which do not have a minimum wage are not bound to this act, so long as they do not adopt a minimum wage.

This doesn't sound right. All a nation would have to do to evade this was to change the wording of their minimum law wage without changing how it works in effect. Then they could pay the same their own people as before, and tiny pittance to foreign workers. In fact, if there's no official minimum wage, I'd make it scale down to 75% from the average wage paid to domestic workers.

Although, as with all wage laws, also remember that bartering economies exist, as well as post-scarcity ones where the state provides everything for free. Granted, such nations probably wouldn't need foreign workers either, but eh, weirder things have happened.

SECTION 4. Clarifies that labor contracts approved before the creation of the act may or may not be upheld on the discretion of their respective authorities.

A bad idea. I'd at least make the upholding depend on the uncoerced opinion of the employee, not their employers. But if you decide to mandate that all contracts need to be changed to fit the new legislation, put in something about "within reasonable time", so that 1) nations don't need to panic if they have lots of foreign workers, like in RL Arab Emirates or USA, abd 2) that they can't decide to arbitrarily do it a 1000 years from now.

DEFINITIONS:

Like I said before, definitions should go before the clauses in which you use the terms you define.

[†1] 1. Employees are defined as any individual who performs a task or tasks for compensation that is not self employed, employed in law enforcement, or in the military.

As others pointed out, law and military forces shouldn't be counted out of the workforce, if they're paid a wage.

[†2] 2. A livable wage is defined as a wage of no less than 75% below the absolute minimum wage of each respective nation

What is "absolute minimum wage"? How does it differ from "minimum wage"? I ask this, because over here (Finland) there's just one minimum wage (per hour; if you work full-time rather than per hour, I think it's calculated to be 8 hours a day).

Also, have you checked the previous attempts at a living wage and their repeals, as well as the current existing Minimum Standards of Living or something like that, which basically lets nations make people work for no payment to earn basic living conditions (food, water, shelter), unless they're disabled or minors.

[Dobrobyt]

Why do you mention minimum wages, but exempt the military and law enforcement? That I don't get.

[Imperium Anglorum]

OOC: Actual text of the House of Cards rule as it currently stands. I think you may have referenced my proposed change to it, which has language, I believe, to that effect. "Proposals cannot rely on the existing resolutions to support it; it must be independent. However, repeals may reference other resolutions as an argument to justify the repeal."

The Elimination Of Economic Slavery Act
Category: Social Justice
Strength: Significant
Proposed by: Unified Canadian Fascists

Believing that all foreign-based employees[†1] have the right to a minimum livable[†2] wage;

Understanding that the outsourcing of cheap labor undercuts the manufacturing industries of highly developed nations, and ensures foreign workers dependency on such labor to the extent of economic slavery;

The World Assembly hereby declares:


SECTION 1: Requires member nations ensure that no business operating within its national borders employs foreign workers who receive less than a livable wage[†2], as defined within this act.

SECTION 2: Urges member nations to take further action to ensure a fairer and more equal minimum livable wage abroad as in contrast to their own respective nations.

SECTION 3: Clarifies that nations which do not have a minimum wage are not bound to this act, so long as they do not adopt a minimum wage.

SECTION 4: Clarifies that labor contracts approved before the creation of the act may or may not be upheld on the discretion of their respective authorities.

DEFINITIONS:
[†1] Employees are defined as any individual who performs a task or tasks for compensation that is not self employed, employed in law enforcement, or in the military.
[†2] A livable wage is defined as a wage of no less than 75% below the absolute minimum wage of each respective nation

EDITS:
Changed the language used in definitions to no longer refer to another act.

MORTIMER WELLESLEY: We will oppose this ham-fisted attempt to reduce employment in our nation through the imposition of minimum wages. The actual effect of minimum wages in non-monoposony markets has been clearly shown in empirical evidence to reduce employment. There are no 'excess' profits to redistribute, the first welfare theorem holds, preconditioning a Pareto-efficient allocation of resources.

There already exist laws on a minimum standard of living. Such systems ought be conditioned on negative capitation, which would reduce distortions of the price mechanism that underpin efficient resource usage and the recreation of natural equilibria.

Furthermore, we reject this absurd hypothesis that foreign capital investment reduces undeveloped nation output. Foreign capital investments necessarily increase productivity and then, national output. There exists a comparative between a world with, for example, foreign direct investment and one without. In the former, strong institutional pressures reduce patrimonialisation of the state and increase worker productivity. The alternative is one of Malthusian stasis.

Any egalitarian conception of morality, especially one having to do with diversity of outcomes, would strongly condemn actions which would effectively transfer enormous sums of world economic output into the hands of people in developed countries when those resources could be put to better use – especially when considering the diminishing marginal utility of consumption. In the whole, we find this proposal to lack any basis in ethics or sense and will vehemently oppose it should it come to a vote.

[Aclion]

Suppose a nation has no minimum wage.

Suppose you read section 3.

SECTION 3: Clarifies that nations which do not have a minimum wage are not bound to this act, so long as they do not adopt a minimum wage.

Suppose a business operating in a nation with a minimum wage is employing foreign workers in a nation that has no minimum wage?
Suppose a business operating in a nation with a minimum wage is employing foreign workers in a nation with a different minimum wage?

[Serrus]

Suppose you read section 3.

Suppose a business operating in a nation with a minimum wage is employing foreign workers in a nation that has no minimum wage?
Suppose a business operating in a nation with a minimum wage is employing foreign workers in a nation with a different minimum wage?

Yeah, that is a problem.

[Fauxia]

Does this actually do anything?

Also, what if my minimum wage is 10 marks (OoC: roughly 20 dollars)? I am urged to raise it? This one size-fits-all is disastrous.

[Aclion]

Does this actually do anything?

Also, what if my minimum wage is 10 marks (OoC: roughly 20 dollars)? I am urged to raise it? This one size-fits-all is disastrous.

It's a fundamental problem with applying minimum wage in an assembly whose members have differing costs of living and purchousing power, and may not have a wage system at all.

[Toneor]

SECTION 3. Clarifies that nations which do not have a minimum wage are not bound to this act, so long as they do not adopt a minimum wage.

This doesn't sound right. All a nation would have to do to evade this was to change the wording of their minimum law wage without changing how it works in effect. Then they could pay the same their own people as before, and tiny pittance to foreign workers. In fact, if there's no official minimum wage, I'd make it scale down to 75% from the average wage paid to domestic workers.

That creates problems of its own. There are plenty of jobs that pay a salary below 75% of the average wage, and those are precisely the jobs that would be affected by the minimum wage laws in the event that they existed.

Suppose that the average fast food cashier makes 7000 zm anually, and the overall average wage is 20,000 zm. If that 7000 were required by a minimum wage law, then your approach would in turn require that foreign workers in that job be paid 5250 zm. But if there is no minimum wage law, it would instead require a wage of 15000 zm for foreign workers and no minimum wage for domestic.

Still, while I don't think that modification would fix things, I agree that this proposal is especially susceptible to loophole abuse. Even if we were to ignore cases where no minimum wage laws exist, footnote 2 defines the act's requirements in terms of the "absolute minimum wage" (emphasis added). A nation could define its minimum wage as "a minimum of 50 zm/year (absolute requirement), or 7000 zm/year (for domestic workers) and be entirely within its rights under this proposal.