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Parent Article: Sustainable Solutions to Social Challenges
Social Pacifists Offer Alternative to Whitney's "Living Wage" : Full Employment!
Current rating: 0
23 Feb 2006
billboardMadison.jpg
Full Employment: A Better Alternative
A reply to the Green Party's
"Living Wage" proposal

The Problem: Worker Exploitation:

The exploitation of the modern worker comes in as many forms as there are products produced by the companies that do the exploiting. Despite the long history of recognition that these problems have had, little has been accomplished in the way of solving many of the most distressing of these issues.

As an illustration of this fact, consider the issue of the growing number of working adults who earn less than an acceptable living wage, as they struggle to make ends meet working multiple jobs for a total of 60 or 80 hours per week. Consider the issue of dwindling labor rights, as more and more companies take a hard-line stance against benefits such as health insurance in this uncertain time of economic down-turn. Consider the glaring, ever growing issue of corporate power, which continues to prove a danger as more and more jobs are cut without regard to what comes next for the victims of downsizing.

Attempts at Progress:

There have been several attempts over the years to change the course of this economic nightmare into something more favorable for the workers who depend upon the mercy of their employers for their daily bread. Perhaps the most notable has been the push for a legislated living wage. Fortunately, these attempts have been well received and have found some success, but they only go so far. Legislated living wage laws have only been able to improve the short-term living conditions in the communities that have enacted them. Without accompanying laws that regulate the price of goods and services provided by the employees earning these legislated wages, as well as laws intended to help smaller businesses that cannot compete with larger competitors in such a market, living wage laws can only improve the incomes of the poorest workers for a short time.

Unfortunately, this short-term improvement is the perfect ticket for politicians (themselves constantly struggling to stay employed) to ride into higher office. Many of them don't care, or don't care to realize that the improvements in income levels in their constituent communities are being matched by increases in the cost of goods and services, and trumped by a loss of the competition that small businesses driven from these communities provide. Larger businesses and corporations don't oppose living wage legislation because of the advantage it gives them over smaller, locally-owned businesses. They are able to absorb the added expense that paying a living wage entails, until such time as their less-secure competition falls by the way side, and the cycle of inflation (i.e. more money chasing the same number of goods and services) kicks in. Given this more complete picture of what higher wage laws really mean to big businesses, is it any wonder that this latest effort on behalf of labor to improve itself has found such popular success in political circles?

Full Employment & the 'A Job is A Right' campaign:

Similar to the living wage campaign, though not nearly as well received, is the campaign taken up in 1996, by the Labor Party USA. Unlike the living wage campaign, the "a Job is a Right" campaign takes into consideration the effects of simply mandating a higher wage for working people. The Labor Party's plan is one step better than the 'living wage' campaign in that it doesn't overlook the fact that it's not the amount of the wage being paid, but the effect of unemployment that enables employers to exploit the workforce. The party's attempt to solve this problem has come in the form of an effort to circulate petitions in an attempt to collect enough signatures to enact "the 28th constitutional amendment," guaranteeing every eligible, working-aged man and woman a job. Not surprisingly, the Labor Party has found little success in the six years since the plan's inception.

The Social Pacifists understand that the only way to bring about a truly sustainable solution to the problems of worker exploitation is to work towards a goal of full employment. However, the method adopted by the Labor Party has been met with dissension at every step of the way. Resistance to the plan has even been found among the very labor unions the party was created to represent - remember that, in a situation of full employment, there is no need for unionized labor. Full employment means that no one could be required to pay union dues in order to go to work. On the contrary, each employee is in a situation to demand specialized benefits that best meet his or her needs.

The Issue of Expendability:

The benefits to labor in a condition of full employment come from the fact that, at the root of all worker exploitation, lies the issue of worker expendability. The very fact that in a world of unemployment, there is almost always another worker waiting in line, ready to be hired into and take the place of any other worker; when viewed broadly, this makes all but the most specially-skilled employees expendable in the end. If there weren't a pool of eligible laborers waiting to step in and fill the shoes of any employee who dared to ask for too much, or dared to do too little in the eyes of management, workers wouldn't be so expendable. Keep in mind that employers need employees to do the labor, just as much as employees need employers to pay the bills. So long as this shortage runs in business' favor, the common laborer will continue to be the victim of exploitation.

To realize the advantage that full employment would bring to employees, consider the conditions faced by workers in the internet web design field, just before its virtual demise in late 2000. While workers were in short supply, and businesses were not in the position of enjoying the advantage of a sustained level of unemployment, employees were lavished with benefits ranging from in-office massages to expensive automobiles, on top of their exuberant salaries. Clearly this situation illustrates the inverse relation that exists between scarcity of labor, and worker exploitation.

'Unemployment' v. 'Unemployee':

Full employment of the labor force would mean that, when a company wanted to expand, it would have to do so by offering more attractive wages and benefits than other companies who employ similarly-skilled employees, in order to attract those employees away from their current jobs. This would result in a system of employer "wage wars," with companies fighting to make themselves more attractive to employees, in order to prevent laborers from looking for better incentives elsewhere.

The tables of unemployment would be turned on business, thus resulting just in the opposite problem - instead of "unemployment," the economy would suffer from "unemployee". Just imagine politicians trying to solve the problems of an economy suffering from high levels of "unemployee": Try and picture suit-and-tie-clad businessmen waiting in line at the unemployee office, waiting to receive their token labor; just barely enough to maintain a minimum level of production - small, poorly-printed signs along roadways, ignored by passing motorists, reading "will food for work." It could never happen - the problem could never be solved so simply. This is precisely why politicians insist upon maintaining "some level of unemployment" (roughly 4%) in order to "maintain a 'healthy' economy."

A 'Healthy' Economy???:

Unfortunately, the "healthy" economy that the politicians speak of does nothing to take into consideration the health of the workers it exploits in order to stay itself "healthy." The first step towards achieving a state in which labor is on equal-footing with the interests of business, is to achieve a state of full employment. However, the first step down the road to this condition may at first seem counterintuitive. In order to turn the tables on business, labor must empower itself by making itself scarce. All forces that exist to maintain unemployment must be opposed and defeated. This includes wage regulations, as well as any collaboration between the Federal Reserve and congress to use interest rates to maintain what is referred to as a "healthy" level of unemployment. If full employment can be achieved, any single laborer will be on equal footing with any businesses of any size to negotiate the benefits she or he desires.

Though it's true that at any given point in time, some minute level of unemployment would still exist (for a number of reasons), the goal of achieving full employment must at least be approximated if the problems we've cited are ever to find a sustainable end. The closer we come to full-employment, the better off the common laborer will be in the long run. As long as we allow political decisions to "maintain the health of the economy," the health of the entire labor force can never be guaranteed.