Quote:2014 was a very bad year indeed for Westover Winery of Castro Valley.

This was the year that a $115,000 fine from the state for using volunteers to help make the wine put the small-time vintner out of business, according to The Daily Review.

Westover used volunteers who were paid in job experience in winemaking, according to owner Bill Smyth. That may have been common practice at wineries before, but the killer fine from the state Department of Industrial Relations means that volunteer crushers are now a thing of the past, the newspaper reported.

Other wineries in the area who used volunteers have ended the practice, according to the newspaper.

Westover received fines in July for not paying minimum wage or workers' compensation insurance, the state told the newspaper.

It's not legal for a for-profit business to use volunteer labor. The winery, once open for ten hours a week, made $11,000 a year, Smyth told the newspaper.

Some of the "volunteers" took classes on winemaking Smyth offered, he told the newspaper.

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Westover-Winery-Volunteer-Labor-Earns-Bay-Area-Winery-115000-Fine-275325761.html

Quote:There's just no money left. They've taken everything.

(09-17-2014 12:14 PM)VA49er Wrote:  Yet another reason to leave California.

(09-17-2014 02:27 PM)Native Georgian Wrote:  

(09-17-2014 12:14 PM)VA49er Wrote:  Yet another reason to leave California.

For nearly a century-and-a-half, California represented a kind of heaven-on-earth to Americans of all backgrounds and stations. It is almost impossible to describe the magnetism that the mere "idea" of California had on the US imagination, as expressed in literature and media. And the economic/demographic growth more than justified all the hype.

But over the past 20-25 years, California has witnessed a mass-exodus of middle-class families and small-business owners. Combine that with the fact that such people from other US states have, at the same time, overwhelmingly stopped migrating to California in the first place. And combine both of the above with the fact that California is still attracting significant #s of people who are not native to the United States and who have limited understanding (if any) of the English language and have little taxable income (if any). The resulting change -- in the span of barely one generation -- is truly staggering. For a while the evidence was mostly anecdotal or "too small" to notice. But in the last 5-10 years, the record has become so crushingly obvious that even most proponents of California's status-quo have stopped bothering to deny it.

(09-18-2014 05:54 AM)Fo Shizzle Wrote:  You can almost bet that the competing "wineries" used political clout to install this law. The article clear states that the other wineries in the area do not use volunteer labor.

The reason the government does not like "volunteer" labor is simple. It has already used the value of your future labor as collateral for its debts. It needs you to be making income so it can reap the tax revenue to pay those debts back. AND YOU THINK YOU ARE FREE? Another example of why we are just slaves on a comfortable plantation.

(09-18-2014 05:54 AM)Fo Shizzle Wrote:  You can almost bet that the competing "wineries" used political clout to install this law. The article clear states that the other wineries in the area do not use volunteer labor.

Quote:The reason the government does not like "volunteer" labor is simple. It has already used the value of your future labor as collateral for its debts. It needs you to be making income so it can reap the tax revenue to pay those debts back.

Quote:AND YOU THINK YOU ARE FREE? Another example of why we are just slaves on a comfortable plantation.

(09-18-2014 11:20 AM)Fo Shizzle Wrote:  The idea that one can not free donate their labor is so "anti freedom". This law basically says that one does not own their body. I can't think of a more abhorrently heinous law. Someone needs to mount a challenge to this insanity. I can't believe it could pass any test of Constitutionality.

(09-18-2014 11:20 AM)Fo Shizzle Wrote:  The idea that one can not free donate their labor is so "anti freedom".

Quote:Someone needs to mount a challenge to this insanity. I can't believe it could pass any test of Constitutionality.

(09-18-2014 11:15 AM)Native Georgian Wrote:  

(09-18-2014 05:54 AM)Fo Shizzle Wrote:  You can almost bet that the competing "wineries" used political clout to install this law. The article clear states that the other wineries in the area do not use volunteer labor.

I have no doubt that is true. It's still an act of the California state government that forced this small company out of business. Most people may not notice or care, but people who are thinking about starting a small business in California do.

Quote:The reason the government does not like "volunteer" labor is simple. It has already used the value of your future labor as collateral for its debts. It needs you to be making income so it can reap the tax revenue to pay those debts back.

Well said. You omit to mention, however, that this "system" is hopelessly unsustainable. One day, it will break down. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when 80% of the people realize that they are on their own, and "Social Security" and "ObamaCare" and all the other rackets were just an empty bag used by some politicians to win elections.

Quote:AND YOU THINK YOU ARE FREE? Another example of why we are just slaves on a comfortable plantation.

Anyone who has to submit an annual declaration of their economic activity to the taxman, and to cough up a % of their total income, and risk imprisonment if the taxman decides later that the declaration was inaccurate, is hardly "free".

One question, though: do you really think this plantation is "comfortable"?

(09-18-2014 11:20 AM)Fo Shizzle Wrote:  The idea that one can not free donate their labor is so "anti freedom". This law basically says that one does not own their body. I can't think of a more abhorrently heinous law. Someone needs to mount a challenge to this insanity. I can't believe it could pass any test of Constitutionality.