In Los Angeles, a small number of actors and theater professionals are reportedly fighting against the minimum wage as they filed a lawsuit against Actors’ Equity Association. The young actors are urging the union to reverse its 99-seat theater plan, which was imposed in April.
Just what is the 99-seat theater plan? It’s an initiative that mandates theaters with fewer than 100 seats pay union members at least $9 per hour. The plaintiffs are making the case that the new minimum wage will lead to tremendous overhead costs and cause these small theaters to close their doors, and thus cause these young actors to be out of work.
Simply put: young actors are losing opportunities to perfect their craft because of the minimum wage. This also means that they’re actually suing their own union, and the plaintiffs include such names as Ed Harris, Amy Madigan, Ed Asner, French Stewart and Tom Bower.
“Many will close altogether,” the lawsuit states. “All will have greater difficulty producing original works. Some have already decided to present fewer productions with smaller casts beginning in 2016, and many will turn to the world of non-union actors.”
But this is just economics at work. Young actors, akin to young workers in any industry, need to start work at low-paying jobs in order to garner the experience, training and skills to garner higher paying jobs. As they build their human capital then they can demand higher pay as time goes by as long as there’s demand in their respective field.
This is why someone like Tom Hardy can command six-figure salaries and some Starbucks barista who just started acting can earn very, very little.
Meanwhile, young actors are learning a lesson in entrepreneurship: when employers are mandated to pay higher wages then they lose money, which then forces them to cut jobs and/or hours and close up shop.
What’s sad about this is the fact that these young actors will still argue for the minimum wage and promote the Fight for $15 cause tomorrow and the day after. Even though they’ve learned first-hand how destructive the minimum wage is, they’ll likely sip their Starbucks lattes and talk about how great socialism is.
Here is a tremendous statement from Walter Block:
“The minimum wage does not require any employee to be hired. It mandates, only, that if he is taken on, then a lower bound on wages is applied. It is thus an unemployment law. It implies that low skilled workers will not get jobs. Suppose a worker’s productivity is $7 per hour, while the law requires a payment of $10. If a firm takes on such a person, it will lose $3 per hour. Of course no one can live well on $7 per hour. But, with a minimum wage law, zero will be earned, since he will become unemployed. It is no accident that the young, the unskilled, the downtrodden, inner city members, have unemployment rates in the stratosphere, something that simply did not occur before the advent of this malicious legislation. Then, there was no such strong association between skill level and unemployment.”
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