Re: Global Financial Crisis II

[Ellen Dannin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>]

On Fri, 28 Nov 1997, Doug Henwood wrote:

> >It's magic: lower incomes + higher labour force participation = a lower rate
> >of unemployment. This precisely confirms the right-wing nostrum that there
> >is no such thing as involuntary unemployment. At a low enough wage, there is
> >a job for everyone who wants to work. Kick out the "barriers" to "labour
> >flexibility" and unemployment will fall.
> 
> The "right-wing" analysis is not entirely untrue. Provide no welfare state,
> or dismantle an existing one, and you can force lots of people to work any
> kind of crappy job at any kind of crappy wage. The problem with this isn't
> its untruth but its brutality.
> 
Anecdotal evidence at least from New Zealand's experience with the 
Employment Contracts Act 1991 would seem to confirm what Doug is saying. 
At least in its early days as employers were dismantling penalty rates 
(overtime, shift premiums, etc) workers were lining up for no-wage, 
experience-only jobs. The problems was especially acute for younger 
workers for whom the law provided NO minimum wage. By 1993, even the 
conservative National Government, the author of the law, recognized that 
conditions were so bad they had to enact a Youth Minimum Wage.

I have copies of some contracts that, aside from wages, provide some 
amazing provisions. My personal favorite is the contract that exists 
minute to minute and can be terminated at any time. One can only 
speculate about the meanness of the company that would want to employ its 
workers in this way and the conditions of the workers that makes them 
willing to accept this.

Ellen J. Dannin
California Western School of Law
225 Cedar Street
San Diego, CA  92101
Phone:  619-525-1449
Fax:    619-696-9999