aggravating the disparity, a short follow-up
Topics: Labor
24 Jan 2000
From: Ervan Darnell
Today's San Jose Mercury had a piece stating that the labor department is
considering changing the law to make it harder in effect to give hourly
workers stock options [1]. Stock options are one of the engines of
the growing wealth. It's ironic the government, in the interest of
protecting workers, is cheating them out of the gain.
I wonder how much wages are suppressed for hourly (as opposed to
salaried) workers in general because of the frictional cost of added
labor law? Another example is the flexible work schedule.
California recently reversed course (or was trying, I forget if it went
into effect) and said that more than 8 hours / day constituted overtime,
instead of merely more than 40 hours per week. Beyond the darned
inconvenience of not being able to schedule time for the kids' doctor's
appointment, or simply half a day for shopping, how does this impact
people trying to work their way up? At the end of the day, you have
to leave regardless. It's the old union mentality: productivity is
fixed no matter how hard we work, so why bother working at all? If
engineers had to quit at a given time, everyone would be a lot less
happy.
[1]
http://www.mercurycenter.com/premium/front/docs/options24.htm
===============================================================
Ervan
Darnell
|"Term limits are not enough.
ervan@iname.com
| We need jail."
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