Employers Are Not the Bad Guys
Washington State recently became the eleventh state to require employers to provide paid medical leave for its employees. Thus if an employee needs time off to care for a new child or an sick or injured family member, the boss must continue to pay their regular salary. Nationwide, some 80% of voters say this is a good idea, and should become federal policy for all U.S. workers.
How is it that, in America, founded on the ideals of limited government and free enterprise, people have so little understanding of how business works? From whence comes this “gimme-gimme” attitude where people feel entitled to something for nothing? Why are they so quick to villainize, harass, exploit, and persecute employers? There’s a myth that says that all employers are like Ebenezer Scrooge: filthy rich slave-drivers who abuse and torment their overworked, underpaid employees. Therefore, they say, it is imperative that governments at all levels take aggressive action against them.
Here is a smattering of the things required of employers:
They must pay special per-employee taxes, such as Social Security and Unemployment benefits. They may also be required to purchase other services such as Workers’ Comp insurance.
They must collect withholding taxes from workers’ paychecks, and make the required quarterly payments. Any related accounting and bookkeeping costs are at the employer’s expense, of course.
They must adhere to wage controls. The minimum amount is set by legislative whim, not the going market rate for any particular job. If the minimum wage makes it uneconomical to hire low-skilled people, then entry-level jobs are eliminated.
If employees are unionized and the union makes demands, then they must negotiate with the labor union. If there is a strike and workers picket rather than work, employers cannot fire them and hire someone who will show up to work.
Even if their home state does not (yet) require paid medical leave, they must (per the FMLA) hold a position open, for up to twelve weeks, for employers requiring leave.
They must provide resources and training to ensure and promote Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), and also to prevent sexual harassment.
Per the EEOC, they must provide demographic statistics on their employees, so that the government can ensure that their workforce has the correct blend of racial, ethnic, gender and sexual-orientation criteria.
They must verify citizenship status, and could face stiff penalties for hiring undocumented workers.
All of this is in addition to the usual governmental burdens unrelated to the number of employees, such as all sorts of taxes, regulation, bureaucracy and unstable currency problems. And we haven’t even touched on all the per-employee expenses (beyond wages) that will be incurred.
Whew. Why would any rational human even consider hiring an employee?!?
A modern healthy, functioning economy depends on jobs and employment. Gone are the days when everyone was a farmer, a hunter, or ran a one-person craftsman shop. The goods and services we all depend on - like groceries, cars, boats, airplanes, houses, retail markets, electricity, running water, furniture, electronics, toys, restaurants, medicine, banking, news & entertainment media, and everything imaginable - requires big businesses, big factories, and big processing plants. Employees are what makes it work. Employment makes the world go ‘round.
Enter the employer: the risk-taker who makes civilization possible by creating jobs and paying workers money. Employers should be considered our Biggest Heroes - yet society treats them like criminals (see above).
Much of this employer resentment dates back to the Industrial Revolution. During that period, as society transformed from agrarian to urban, many jobs were grueling, dangerous, monotonous, and paid very little. Employers took the blame, but ... the fact is, workers willingly and voluntarily lined up and gladly accepted these jobs. Nobody forced or coerced them. After all, if an offered job was too harsh or paid too little, the potential worker could always say “No way, Jose!” and simply go back and do whatever it was he/she did before the job existed, when life was so much better. Right?
What happened next was that the Industrial Revolution created immense wealth, and with it, the opportunity to raise one’s standard of living far beyond the meager choices that limited previous generations. This economic growth caused wages and working conditions to improve dramatically.
Yet the liberal left just doesn’t “get it”. A recent article by liberal commentator Paul Krugman illustrates the phenomena. Krugman rattles off some statistics about how jobs are up and unemployment is down, undeniably good news. The credit for this, he says, all goes to Joe Biden. But what exactly did President Biden actually do to create this? Did he personally hire millions of workers and pay their salaries out of his pocket? Um, no. Did he roll back any of the edicts and requirements and taxes listed above? Um, no. Krugman never really says exactly what. If anything, taxes and bureaucracy and unstable currency problems have only increased under Biden.
A lot of these harsh employer dictates, fortunately, are imposed at the state and local level, not federal. Thus many firms can and DO “vote with their feet” and relocate to more business-friendly states and localities. Now if only voters and politicians could only make the connection, and learn the important lessons therein.
The correct path is for government, at all levels, to adopt policies that promote a Strong Economy. No, that does notmean to pile on subsidies and bailouts and special interest legislation to protect some businesses from competition. Free enterprise means that government butts out and delivers neither help nor hindrance. And realize that employers are the good guys. Stop harassing them.