Time and a half for hourly wage earners! Pro or con?

[eddie]

This is the grandeur neo-conservative and liberal coalition that passed this one. In a previous post, someone couldn't believe that such a coalition could exist. Maybe not on social issues but on economic ones, you betcha.

First off the liberal senators from Massachussetts like nothing more than government. The poorest workers are not supposed to be independant but are supposed to live off the government through social aid like free advanced education, low interest loans, welfare, ect. If you make too much, then you do not qualify. So poor people's income must remain low to expand government. Not for a second, did liberals ever believe that most business would pay time and a half over hiring part-timers and changing the dimensions of the workplace.

Econcomic neo-cons or fiscalists realized that ultimately this would save them money by hiring more part-time workers to fill the influx when more hours of labor were required during busy seasons. Thus employees that worked 50 hours were kept under 40 hours per week and health care coverage was next to be cut. At first, this did not affect the manufacturing base of the country because those jobs require a special skill and profit margins are higher. But as the nineties approach and Bush1 was elected, the manufacturing jobs were headed oversees with companies sighting comparative advantage as mere consilation.
Many big box retailers in the Forbes 500 expanded like companies have never done before. 401k plans and mutual funds generiously included these companies in their portfolios. The middle class income that a 50 hour week used to generate was transferred to earnings per share.

Bottom line: Middle class and lower class were devasted. Now it takes another part-time job in addition to your full-time job just to make it. With scheduling availability, commuting, and trying to advance education, life can be impossible.

Corrective action: Repeal the time and a half law and allow workers who want to work over 40 to do so at their own will or peril at their flat rate. Insist for religious reasons that no companies demand forced overtime over 40 hours. (That's how the bill should have originally passed.) I know some liberal would say this violates a concept called consideration. Chiefly one inferior party is giving up something for what appears to be nothing. But hey "give up something for nothing" should be the liberal slogan!