latitude in controlling workers off-the-job behavior. On the other
hand, workers in the USA have the ability to tell the employer to sod
off. I was surprised to find out that a friend in Germany didn't have
the right to quit. Here in the USA, you don't even have to give two
weeks notice.
There is a fundamental conflict between political and economic
protection of workers. The more political protection, the weaker the
economic protection. A friend of mine has employees at her plant
nursery. She also had to make a wall chart of all the deadlines for
this form, and that filing, and the other payment. All of the things
that are done in the name of worker protection also have the
characteristic of making it harder to employ people.
Political protection of jobs reduces the amount of jobs, making
political protection more necessary. Another path that the USA could
go down is to eliminate worker protections, making it extremely easy
to hire someone. This would increase the number of employers looking
for employees, which would inevitably allow workers to pick and choose
among the best jobs, and prevent employers from abusing their
workers. Counter-intuitive? Sure! Economics is a science and any
science worthy of the name will create counter-intuitive results. If
it didn't, why would anybody bother with it?
Who knows what's best for workers? A bureaucrat? Or the worker
themselves? Are workers adults, able to look out for themselves? Or
do they need protection like babies?
posted at: 03:13 |
path: /economics |
permanent link to this entry
