From: jwh@citi.umich.edu (Jim Howe)
Subject: Re: Family leave farce (was a most pressing COncern)
Date: Fri, 09 Oct 92 10:02:12 EDT
Organization: IFS Project, University of Michigan
Reply-To: jwh@citi.umich.edu

In article <BvuHG5.KHw@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu>, pfister@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (tom pfister) writes:
|> [A bunch of irritating, near-sighted arguments on both sides deleted]
|> 
|> First of all, I am all for family values.  Who isn't!?  Of course, my
|> family values differ significantly your family values.
|> As for the family leave bill, it is a wonderful idea and I'm sure any
|> employer who implemented it would be revered by its employees.  But it
|> is NOT the governments job to be regulating employer/employee relationships.
|> Let the unions or individual employees bargain with the employer for such
|> benefits.

I agree 100%.  It is not the job of the government to impose itself
on the contractual arrangements between two parties.  I, for example,
may want to have family leave and would be willing to give up some
other item for it.  Someone else may be willing to forgo family leave
for some other item.  

It is also unreasonable to assume that all businesses can afford to
hold job positions open.  A lot depends on the nature of the business,
and the position held by the employee.  A family leave bill will simply
increase the dependence of these companies on temporary workers.
Temporary workers generally don't receive the same level of benefits
as full-time employees.  The net effect is to hurt people more than
they are helped.  As an example, a relative of mine was working for
a hospital.  She was working close to full-time hours.  However, recently
she had here hours cut back.  They weren't cut back because they didn't
need her, they weren't cut back because she was doing a bad job, they
were cut back because they didn't want to make her full-time and give
her full benefits.  I'm sure this was due either to a union contract
or government regulations (or both), but the point is that she is
worse off than if the company hadn't been required to pay her benefits
when she became full time.  You can claim that the hospital did 
a slimy thing, and that may be true.  However, it shows that businesses
will find was to control costs, and reducing the number of full time
employees is one way to do it.  Bills such as the family leave bill
will simply hurt many workers because fewer full time jobs will be
available.  Unfortunately, these workers are hard to see.

|> One reason it is not a good bill is that it does not cover so many people.
|> One post here asserts that 75% of the people work for exempted small 
|> businesses.  So why are people at larger businesses more deserving or
|> or more needful of such a plan?  With 75% of workers exempt, any problem(s)
|> that the bill addresses is/are far from solved.
|> 

Another good point.  Proponents like to claim that family leave is a 
'right'.  If so, then *everyone* should be entitled to it, not just
those working at companies larger than 50 employee, or making less 
than $x.  Of course, family leave is *not* a right.  A right does
not require that someone else provide it.

|> What the government should be trying to do is foster an environment in which
|> our economy is strong and a family can be supported on a single income.
|> THAT will do more more family values than strangling businesses with 
|> costly regulations.  (The cost of doing business in this country is already
|> too high, which is why so many jobs are being exported.)

If the economy is strong then there will be high demand for workers.  The
more demand there is for workers, the easier it will be for a fired
worker to find new work, or the greater the incentive will be for a
company to keep the worker in the first place.  A sluggish economy
hurts both the business and the worker, but it hurts the worker more.


James W. Howe                  internet: jwh@citi.umich.edu
University of Michigan             uucp: uunet!mailrus!citi.umich.edu!jwh
Ann Arbor, MI   48103-4943         
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc