The Racket Protection Racket
 
The campaign of labor law seeks the elimination of wrongdoing from the workplace, work being an acceptable casualty in the struggle of good over evil. The laws that seek to protect the dignity, sovereignty and security of employees succeed to some extent, although at the expense of the dignity, sovereignty and security of the employees. Sexual harassment laws, discrimination law, trade law, immigration law, collective bargaining, the minimum wage and mandated benefits all share both the intent to undermine evil bosses (among whom, number this writer) and a history that clearly demonstrates why they’ve been needed in the past. Nonetheless, they depend on several assumptions that in the United States, today, it is fair to question. First, the assumption is that there is an unfair advantage in favor of the employer against the employee. I’m sure this remains true in some parts of the economy but not in most. Employers look for ways to improve health benefits, increase wages and suffer fools gladly as necessary in order to maintain staffing levels. This costs the best employees appropriate distinction and managers the freedom to be entirely scoundrels or entirely effective. Second, there is the assumption that employment should be continuous. This is a chestnut from a Christmas past. Anyone my age or younger who expects uninterrupted employment with one employer may have been lied to by someone, but shouldn’t have believed the lie. My first memory of economic news was massive downsizing of iron workers and car builders. Since then, the pace at which employers and employees change hands has quickened to become a barn dance for young people. People quit, get laid-off, get fired, start their own businesses, embezzle or get replaced with foreign workers, immigrants, robots and milk crates. Marriages and jobs are no longer the most durably sinister thing one person can impose on another, leaving education as the only lifelong impediment. Anyone currently working should know by now that preparation for the next job should start right after you turn in your W-4. Third, while it remains true that full-time employment between diaper and diaper is the critical part of a person’s worklife, many people work for years of traditional childhood and continue working after retirement. For many in the modern labor force work is more of a way to stay busy or gain experience rather than a livelihood. Protecting those jobs is like trademarking this blog. The problem is not only that these laws make sense primarily to an economy that no longer exists, but the costs of the irrelevancy. Once upon a time, I jiggered my agency’s budget to increase compensation by 10%. I asked staff to vote on how they wanted the new compensation choosing from a basket of better health insurance, dental and vision, better leave and wages. Unanimously, the young staff expressed a preference for a pure wage bump. Soon after that, the California legislature went on a spree of creating new mandates which cost more than any future kindness I might have tricked them with. The problem with much labor “protection” is of preventing employees and employers from negotiating a mutually optimum compensation package. Plus, it gives staff a lot of rights to enumerate if you catch them stealing or want to plant your own theft on them. The least-learned lesson in law and government is this: Policies are started to solve real-world problems but create new ones. In particular, the advocates for the initial policy become entrenched interests immediately upon success. Everything that ever needed regulation becomes over-regulated to the detriment of past accomplishments. The only illustration of this principle you’ll ever need is to hire someone. The Prattler Wordbook UNMANAGEABLE, adj. Compliant. VIOLATION, n. Any potential cause of death, dismemberment, disability, dysthymia, dyspepsia, disillusionment or discomfort. WAGES OF SIN, n. An out-of-court settlement. X-CHROMOSOME, n. The genesis of the nipple in biology and law. YANK, v. To tug at a dog on a leash or man with a lease. ZIPADEEDOODAH, int. The song of the well-regulated employee.
Saturday, May 13, 2006
From the collection of Richard Samuel West / Periodyssey.