We all love lawyers, don't we? -- when they make up those clever, mind-expanding arguments by way of increasing social justice. The
International Union of Operating Engineers has sued Indiana’s governor, attorney general, and labor commissioner, asserting novel theories under which the state's right-to-work laws are slavery prohibited by the Thirteenth Amendment. First, the union is required to negotiate on behalf of all workers, regardless of what percentage of them have elected not to join the union. Okay, I at least understand why that one gets up their noses, even if I can't quite buy calling it slavery. But the second argument is that the law requires union workers to labor alongside non-union workers. If that's slavery, too, we've got a whole lot of restructuring to do.
What should we call it when taxpayers are forced to work to support other people? If we start calling it slavery whenever someone imposes a free-rider element on the system, let alone whenever we're forced to endure the company of people we disapprove of in public places, we're going to need a new word for real slavery. By this theory, the Jim Crow laws were an admirable anti-slavery measure.
*Updated to substitute a better link for the broken one above (thanks, Valerie!).
6 comments:
Actually, I think there's a case here. The 13th Amendment bans not just slavery but "involuntary servitude," which the case law apparently holds to include "threatened or actual state-imposed legal coercion."
So.... that covers a pretty broad ground, doesn't it?
What should we call it when taxpayers are forced to work to support other people?
Why, we call that Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Oh, and unemployment insurance. And food stamps. And non-union member dues to the union. And 20% paying 70% of the nation's income taxes while 50% pay close to zip.
...the union is required to negotiate on behalf of all workers, regardless of what percentage of them have elected not to join the union.
This is an accurate summary of the law (says me, the non-lawyer). However, the correct answer is to emancipate both groups of slaves--strike down the law and let the union only represent the union members and collect nary a dime from the non-union employees.
This waste of taxpayer money and time is pirma facie evidence for decertifying the public disservice unions.
Eric Hines
Why, we call that Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Oh, and unemployment insurance. And food stamps. And non-union member dues to the union. And 20% paying 70% of the nation's income taxes while 50% pay close to zip.
Naah, no one is forcing you to work...you can always quit and starve to death, or become a tax-eater yourself...(The best term for these things is younger than "slavery": Legal Plunder.)
But never fear. The evil private lawyers may be trying to coerce the state into giving unions more coercive powers...on the theory that curbing their powers is slavery...but the good old government lawyers are looking out for you. They're suing to ensure that firefighters don't have to pass any written tests in order to get their jobs. Because if you require that then it will have a "disparate impact" by race.
(This isn't based on the Constitution, but the '64 Civil Rights Act, so Congress could get rid of this nonsense tomorrow by amending the Act. Also, Hell won't burn so much once it freezes over.)
It's beyond dispute - amongst people who study these things - that good written tests really do measure G (general intellectual functioning), and that this is a good (if not perfect) predictor for almost every kind of work performance (that is, statistically speaking, higher G means better performance is likelier, nothing more and nothing less). But that won't stop my professional colleagues, not as long as the law creates the perverse incentives it does.
Bastiat's formula is striking:
"The safest way to make laws respected is to make them respectable. When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law. These two evils are of equal consequence, and it would be difficult for a person to choose between them."
I'm with him up until that last sentence. I'm not sure it's at all difficult.
I hear you. It doesn't hurt my feelings at all to lose respect for a law. That's not to say that I enjoy facing penalties for breaking dumb laws, but the lawlessness itself doesn't trouble me. What does trouble me is the foreboding I feel about a society that tries to organize itself with laws its citizens hold in contempt.
Well, it's no use pretending that that's something new. Different societies choose different dumb laws.
The link above was bad, here's one that has a bunch of quotes from the complaint.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/union-vs-indiana-lawsuit-claims-right-to-work-law-violates-anti-slavery-amendment/
Lawyers who make weak arguments make the rest of the profession look bad.
This is nothing but a SLAPP suit, brought solely for the purposes of getting publicity and costing the state money. The arguments are frivolous. The state should treat this seriously, argue back, and demand damages for abuse of process.
Yes, this can be done.
Valerie
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