Any other centrist atheists?

[Tiberius]

I'm not against the idea of unions in general, but in my country, they have far too much power.

Past tense. Unions in the UK are powerless now. The balance of power has shifted. Now employers have too much power. Contracts mean nothing to them. They break them without fear of consequence.

That is simply not true and you know it. Strike action is still protected in this country; in the past year workers have disrupted many services by striking and the government has protected them at all times.

So, what then? Do we just let people starve so that business owners can keep afloat?

No, but since when does food cost more than $7.25 an hour? The benefits of having a job, even for a very low wage, are numerous. The experience, the possibility for higher wages in the future, the fact that you are earning money rather than earning none at all (or relying on government handouts). All these things are good, and they all get reduced when a minimum wage is in effect.

Many companies pay slightly above minimum because it looks good that you are not paying absolute minimum.

The problem is, it would not cause employees to leave for competitors, because their competitors (such as Target, for whom I've also worked) attempt to low-ball each other. If Wal-Mart suddenly started paying employees $1.50 an hour, Target would go "well, no reason to pay ours $7.75" and then Target employees might start making $1.65. Others would follow suit.

Employers like that can exploit desperation. Give them free reign to do so and we'll be a nation of sweatshop workers.

It's astounding that you can admit that companies pay more than the legal minimum because it looks good, and yet form a completely contradictory opinion in the next paragraph. Paying employees more always looks good. There is no reason to think that Target (or any Wal-Mart competitor) would follow suit with such wage reductions, because keeping your higher wages is going to look much better than Wal-Mart suddenly decreasing them by such a large factor, and it will give you a massive edge over Wal-Mart in the long run. Companies aren't run by computerized drones you know; they are run by people who understand how important company appearance is. If a company like Wal-Mart was stupid enough to think paying its employees $1.50 an hour was OK, its competitors would simply cease on the opportunity to point out the ridiculous wages, and use their high wages in comparison to attract more customers and employees.

From a Wal-Mart employee's perspective, they are going to say "well, now I have a pathetic wage, but I can simply quit and go work for Target instead". The point of competition is that companies can only undercut each other so far. If companies make their prices too low, they risk losing profit, or not being able to hold onto their employees. There are multiple factors which keeps wages high.

FYI, there is a good article here on Wage Laws: http://mises.org/daily/6364/Waging-War-on-Work