The complex body of laws described in the first edition has evolved significantly during the past few years. It will doubtless remain in flux, as regulatory solutions to old and new problems are devised, implemented, interpreted, assessed and amended. Last year the national Commission on the Future of Worker-Management Relations noted the rapid expansion since 1960 of broadly applicable employment laws that promise assorted benefits to workers throughout the American economy. Additional legislation has reduced differences that long prevailed between employee protections in the farm and nonfarm sectors. Moreover, the creation of new obligations specific to agriculture has placed it among the most heavily regulated of industries.
Farmers make no secret of feeling increasingly encumbered by government requirements.
They typically devote several staff hours each month to completing employment-related reports and spend untold time trying to fathom what they must and must not do when managing people. Mostly designed to protect workers by controlling employers, the laws discussed in this book have been enacted also to serve public interests in curbing unfair competition among producers and reducing social costs that stem from the labor market. Realities in the workplace and marketplace, as in other regulated domains, often deviate from the prescriptions of public policy. Employers, workers, and third parties alike have expressed frustration with the dictates as well as impacts of laws, variously contending that they are onerous, inequitable, and improperly administered. Economic incentives, principled objections, and irregular enforcement may all breed disregard of the law.