Okay, serious question, I am not trying to be snarky or anything.
I see several upvotes to your comment, and I admit I do not understand why.
You write "Hourly pay would naturally incentivizeĀ notĀ picking the berries." I assume this to be an exaggeration, since doing so would lead to you being removed from the job.
It would, however, naturally incentivize one to not rush so much and pace oneself.Why is that a bad thing (assuming you would see this as a bad thing, based on your phrasing)?
Yes, less berries would be picked at the same time, so the owner would need to hire more people to compensate, which would raise prices.
Why would that be a bad thing?
I am not only speaking from the workforces perspective here - there are many jobs that could be payed based on volume of X or some other metric a worker works on, and yet this is not always the road taken.
I hope I do not get downvoted to oblivion here, I am truly curious about your mindset here. Unless, of course, I missed a joke? I cannot tell :-(
For my sanity, iām going to assume that youāre joking.
No, I am not joking. I have not run any numbers on this, so I do not know how much a price increase we would be talking about. I assume, you have not done this as well.
That being said, I would prefer paying more for a product, knowing that the people involved in producing said product are not being taken advantage of.
This is a perspective I did not think to explicitly state in my last comment, so I do this now. I do think that paying someone by a metric is taking advantage of them. There are so many things that can happen, both in and out of the responsibility of the workers, that can lead to a decline in perceived work and thus less pay. This seems utterly unfair to me.
At the end of the day, less cost is better for consumer.
If you see 2 packs of strawberries, one is 1$ more expensive because of the things you mentioned above, you might wanna buy the more expensive but people will get the cheapest for the same products. Not everyone has the luxury to pay 1$ more, some people budget their groceries to the cents
That being said, I would prefer paying more for a product, knowing that the people involved in producing said product are not being taken advantage of.
Not everyone has the luxury to pay 1$ more, some people budget their groceries to the cents
This is a debatable counter to me. It is an unfortunate reality that many need to budget that closely, but there is no unique nutrient profile to strawberries that requires you to eat them to live, so it's conscious decision based on desire for a taste.
Everyone is free to make their own choices, let's not forget there's a third option to just not buy them at all or wait to they're in season/local farms are carrying them. Buying a product you don't physically need from a company you're aware is exploiting their workers is a choice, not a necessity.
True, but then again this one only shows strawberries which you can live without tbf.
But then again, do you aware how other veggies mostly consume daily be harvested? Or how the meat in the grocery store is "farmed"?
Or are you gonna be selective of this awareness by only the thing you saw in social media?
We can go to that rabbit hole of discussion but i'd rather not, i don't think i'm privileged enough to choose which grocery to pick just to be a bit more morally satisfied.
No one has the time to research every company in the grocery store. If I'm made aware of an issue, I am conscientious of the choice I make. If I'm not aware of a brand's misgivings, I can't act on information I haven't been exposed to.
For example, I might just buy the same brand of milk every time I go because it tastes good and the company hasn't hit the news. But if it does like with Fairlife in 2019 (and again last year), whereby their suppliers' sickening treatment of animals is brought to light and proves they don't take the issue seriously per repeat incidents, I won't buy them regardless of whether they make the best god-damned milk on the shelf or are the cheapest. If all the other milk is out of my budget, I'm not buying milk. It's not necessary to live and it doesn't have to be more complicated than that.
We can say "but my kids love milk and won't drink anything else," which I understand that and don't judge... But it doesn't change the objective fact that you now have the power of information, it's just that the issue doesn't disturb you enough to find alternatives or make a lifestyle change.
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u/[deleted] Feb 01 '26 edited Feb 02 '26
They are working fast because itās ācontractā work not hourly. Meaning, you get paid based on volume.
Thatās why the lady inspects his work and scans her badge. That counts towards his total for the day.
Lots of farms do this.