• printer friendly
• mail this article
• iPod format
• digg

By John MacDougall

I have been interested in Kenneth Hurst’s Viewpoint submissions, “Wine workers’ demands irrational, unproductive” (May 31), and “UC workers’ demands lack logic, rationality” (April 8), and in the pro-labor responses, which did not directly respond to his points. Hurst’s views raise a key question: Is labor simply a commodity, like oil, steel or widgets, or do employers have a duty to their employees that goes beyond simple free-market supply and demand?

There is a very long, established tradition, going back at least as far as the Old Testament, that requires that a master fulfill his duty to his servants and slaves by taking care of them.

Most religions and cultures, including secular philosophies, include rules on how masters should treat their servants.

In feudal times, lords had great power over their serfs. But the lords also protected the serfs. They had a duty, though they did not always honor it, to provide for at least the basic needs of their serfs. Thus, Scrooge was a socially unacceptable employer.

Today, the majority of us are not bound to our employers by slavery or feudal power. In return, employers have escaped some of their duty to protect and care for us. Still, that does not reduce labor to a pure commodity.

In practice, most employees lack the pure free-market freedom to leave at will. In good times, they don’t need to leave. In bad times, they can’t. For many laborers, there are no good times.

Hiring an employee is more important than buying a mule. But even a mule needs to be treated humanely and given a “living wage” of sufficient food and shelter.

Surely, we should not treat humans worse than we would treat mules. Hiring means accepting responsibility for compassionate and humane treatment of employees.

Employers provide benefits such as retirement and health insurance not purely for economic or competitive reasons, but as a part of their social duty. Treating employees by the Golden Rule is not merely good business practice, it is a moral necessity.

Of course, the laws of economics cannot be ignored. If employers are forced to pay more for labor, they may not be able to compete in the marketplace. They can’t afford wages and benefits that their competitors don’t match.

Higher wages could increase the price of the product to the point that no one buys it at all. To some degree, the government has to step in to set certain minimum standards for all employers, so that there is a level playing field among competitive employers.

Still, the bottom line remains: If you cannot make a profit while treating your employees decently, then you should not be in business.

When minimum wages and benefits are increased, we all pay for them. Similarly, if decent wages and benefits are not provided, we all pay the social costs of poverty, crime, ignorance and disease. Furthermore, we pay the spiritual cost of ignoring the plight of our exploited fellows.

Not every union demand is a matter of a fundamental right and human decency. Employees are every bit as greedy as employers, and will take everything they can get. Wants quickly get re-categorized as needs.

Both sides of such disputes tend toward simplistic statements about problems and trade-offs that defy such simplistic answers. But labor is not just a commodity – labor is people and their lives.

MacDougall is a member of the UCLA Capital Programs staff.