california courts make themselves a nuisance in my life

No doubt you've heard about the ruling against Starbucks in the CA tip-pooling case. The Girl is a supervisor there, and is in line for about $1.50 pay cut until some equitable solution is found.

Like many supervisors, being cut off from the tip pool would bring her pay to roughly an equal level with the baristas she supervises. She is, of course, considering asking for a demotion.

I'm no expert on California labor law, but on it's face the ruling seems kind of goofy. The relevant section of labor code and it's definition of agents who could not be given tips:

"...(d) "Agent" means every person other than the employer having the
authority to hire or discharge any employee or supervise, direct, or control the
acts of employees.

Supervisors at Starbucks can not hire or fire employees. They supervise, obviously, but when I check somebody's code or give them advice on how to make their Excel equation work properly, that doesn't make me management. Supervisors direct and control baristas, but so do other baristas. Maybe no one should be given tips.

Truth be told, Supervisor don't have much in the way of official power at Starbucks. They can't even formally punish anyone without written approval of the manager (who does not get tips). Roughly 90% of the job is the exact same as well-respected barista. They're paid hourly and make up 1/2 to 1/4 of those serving customers at any given time.

I do not think this judge was showing good Posnerian pragmatism. Here we have situation where the customers, supervisors, baristas and company had settled on a method of compensation that worked reasonably well for all parties. Then along comes one nuisance lawsuit, and now everyone has to find a new equilibrium. Was there an overiding interest in disrupting this agreement? Any good reason to redistribute money from supervisors to baristas? Is it even in the spirit of the law?

The answer to all three seems to me to be "no." The law looks to me like an attempt to keep the companies and businesses from taking tips from hourly employees, not an attempt to pick and choose which hourly employees get tips. But again, not an expert on labor law (though I'm pretty okay on the affirmative-action side by now).

But even given that the legal matters, it seems like a silly argument for our state to be butting into. With all the problems that California has, we need to be disrupting already functioning agreements, too?

Seems silly, that's all.

case against the proposition system, #864

Yesterday, 2.7 million Californians voted for proposition 91. In the "Argument For" section of the voter handbook, the proposition's two authors pleaded to voters not to vote yes on prop 91, as it had been made irrlelevant by previous legislation.

Cue Kent Brockman: "I've said it before and I'll say it again, democracy just doesn't work."

deft political operative

Well, I think we can safely cross "political canvasser" off the list of things I'm any good at.

I spent the weekend lamely and apologetically knocking on doors of Democratic and undeclared Sacramentans asking them who they want to vote for and if, maybe they would probably like to vote for Obama, or not.


Blech. Never again. Certain things are best left to other people, and I have discovered another of them.

Now, I did do one useful thing, which was to inform a number of unaffiliated voters that they can vote in the democratic primary. Quite a few did not know this, and at least one was and Obama supporter.

So there ya go. My vote counts double this year.