[MUD-Dev] Criminalize Community Volunteers?

[Greg Underwood]

Mud Imp writes:

> someone stated that volunteers should be paid.
> 
> A couple comments.
> Paid means given something in return for services rendered. In the US paid
> seems to mean nothing but handed currency in return for services rendered
> but in other countries paid might mean handed eggs or handed a pair of
> shoes or handed help with a field or any one of a number of other things.

Actually, US law recognizes services rendered and etc as paid income.  Fer
example, I will be relocating to Las Vegas in about a week and a half, and
the company that is moving me there will report all of their expenses in
moving me as earned income.  For ease of legal use, I believe all income is
eventaully given a US$ value, but that doesn't mean all income can only be
in the form of US currency.


> Even in the unlikely situation where a volunteer is not paid anything at
> all for the time they put in, there's the small fact that everyone seems
> to be overlooking that said volunteer KNEW that they weren't going to get
> anything back for their time BEFORE they agreed to put in the time and in
> fact they had to go REQUEST the job that they volunteered for.

My understanding is that knowing you will get paid less than minimum wage
does not exempt the employer from falling under the sweatshop laws.  (I'm
not a lawyer, etc).

> Should they
> be paid? well if someone walks up to you and says 'please let me wash your
> car' and you state 'sure but i'm not giving you anything if you do' and
> the person then says 'That's ok, let me wash it.'  Do you then owe that
> person anything at all for the services they rendered you? no. you dont.
> Even if you use your car to make 500.00 a hour with, you still dont owe
> them even a free ride.

True, but that's because you said "I will give you nothing."  If you say
"I'll give you 1 shiney penn," well, then you do owe them the rest of their
minimum wage for the time they worked for you.  That is such a petty
offense that no judge would bother with the case (well, maybe Judge Judy,
but that's beside the point).  But in AOL's case, where millions of US$ is
at stake, it becomes worth it.

-Greg



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