National Clothesline

The nation’s labor and employment laws need a radical overhaul, but not the radical overhaul that this Congress would give us.

The Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier for unions to organize non-union workers and increase penalties for unfair labor practices, is still on the legislative agenda.

This Congress has already taken steps to make the nation’s anti-discrimination laws more expansive and easier for employees to use against their employers.

No, the kind of overhaul this nation needs is a complete rethinking of how our labor and employment laws are enforced, and how we select the people to enforce them.

Currently, our lawmakers seem to think that employers are evil, malevolent entities that either fire or refuse to hire competent people because of their race, sex, age, marital status, religion, national origin, disability, or some other improper reason.

Every action of an employer is met with suspicion in the offices of the EEOC, and every action of the employee is treated with compassion and understanding.

In fact, employees are nearly always given the benefit of the doubt when their conduct is brought before a government agency or mentioned in opposition to a new law being proposed to take away more rights from companies trying to run their business.

When employees give excuses for making mistakes, they are accepted. When employers try to explain why they made a particular decision, any inconsistencies in the explanation are used to paint them as liars.

It is rare these days to hear anyone argue that employees need to work harder and be more responsible to keep their jobs.

Every day, I read about employees being returned to work by an arbitrator, a court, or the EEOC where the employee lied, abused drugs, destroyed company property, or otherwise engaged in conduct that you would not tolerate from your children.

Union contracts frequently contain provisions that an employee cannot be fired until the third day he or she fails to report to work without calling in. Do we really want to reward employees who fail to show up for two days without calling in?

The First Amendment’s right of free speech no longer has any relevance in the workplace. Imagine what a court would do if a company fired an African-American employee, and it came out that the employer had said, like Senator Harry Reid in reference to President Obama, that he was “light-skinned,” and “didn’t talk with a black dialect.”

The former employee’s attorney would be using such comments, deemed “innocent” in the case of Senator Reid, to show that the employer was a racist. The EEOC would agree without question.

I hear politicians all the time talk about “leveling the playing field” by increasing the rights of employees. This is wrong-headed.

We need to level the playing field by putting the need of businesses to have reliable, competent employees ahead of the needs of employees who believe they are entitled to their jobs, regardless of their performance.

Employers should be able to make reasonable employment decisions without getting legal advice every time.

The country’s labor laws should not be used to prop up unions that are on the decline. The only place where unionism is a growth industry is in the government sector. Unions contribute to politicians who encourage government workers to join those unions in a conflict of interest that boggles the mind.

The country’s discrimination laws should be rationally administered. Agencies and judges should not be predisposed to believe employees over employers, and the laws should be tightened to make it more difficult for employees to prove discrimination, not easier.

Employers should have incentives to have a diverse workforce, not disincentives that make it dangerous to employ minority employees with more rights than the employer.

Right now, Congress is tied up with healthcare, a rotten economy, and ridiculous responses to airport security risks.

Eventually, Congress may get around to the promises it made to organized labor during the last presidential election.

I suspect that when they are done, none of my suggestions above will be followed. I should not really complain because it will be good for my business. I just hope enough of my clients survive to pay those legal fees.