Stop Trying To Help Me – You’re Killing Me Here!!!

Yesterday I pointed out some of the differences between liberals and conservatives, and today I want to stay on that line of thinking.

Now those of you familiar with my blog know that about 90% of the time – maybe more – I tend to beat up on the liberals. Actually, I tend to beat up on the liberal LEADERSHIP. But dispite that, I really have no problem with the overall philosophy of liberalism per se. I think most of the ideals that liberals try to put into place are based on good intentions, it’s just that most liberals are so narrow-sighted that they can’t see when their efforts to do good end up hurting those they are trying to help.

Lets look at labor. Several years ago overtime in the state of California was defined as anything over 10 hours in a day or 40 hours in a week, and then ex-governor Gray Davis – The one we threw out – changed it to 8 hours in a day or 40 hours in a week. Now the one thing to keep in mind is that in both cases anything over 40 hours was overtime in both cases. So what’s the big deal? Well, I had a number of single mothers working for me that choose to work four ten-hour days instead of five eight-hour days. Those went away, and ultimately we end up taking these parents away from their children for more hours in a week (i.e. ten commutes each week instead of eight – ohhhhh, doesn’t that also add to global warming?).

It also hurt production as well. Before, if we were really busy, we could have one of the workers stay an extra hour or two, and then give them those couple of hours off later in the week. Oh, we could still do this if we wanted to pay the overtime, but often that wasn’t an option, because most businesses have pretty tight payroll numbers they need to meet. Sure, I could pay a $10 an hour coworker $15 for an hour of overtime, I’d just need to cut that $15 from someone else later in the week. So in order to gain an hour, I lost an hour and a half later. Again, not good for production.

Then there is lunch time. According to the State of California, ALL hourly employees working more than six hours in a day MUST be given a meal period before they reach six hours of work, or else the business is going to get clobbered with huge fines. Since those penalties take place the second you go over six hours, many businesses, including the company I work for, instituted company policies stating that you have to take your lunch before you hit FIVE hours. Again, the idea was good. This was to protect employees from being forced to work more than six hours without a meal break. How many people were being forced to do this? I have no idea, although I am willing to bet there were some – just not a whole lot.

So again, how is this NOT a good idea? Well, at my company – and this same scenario is repeated and hundreds of other companies in the state, we will get a hefty fine if a coworker works more than six hours without a meal break. Notice that I didn’t say we had to force them to not work. If I as an employee have worked five hours and fifty minutes and I DON’T want to take a break, I put my company at risk. Oh, and here’s a good one. Lets say I’m working from noon to 6:00 – a six hour shift. At my company I work from noon to five, take a 45 minute lunch, and then go back to work for 15 minutes, BECAUSE if I just worked my shift, and I end up punching out at 6:01, I blew it. How many of you would choose to take a lunch break only to have to return for Fifteen minutes?

So here’s how it works. If an employee goes over five hours, even by a single minute, that person is counseled. If they do it a second time within 12 months, they are written up, and if they do it a third time in that 12 month period, they are terminated. We probably terminate 30 to 40 people a year because of this, and this practice is being repeated all over the state. And like I said, in most cases the employee is CHOOSING to keep on working, yet because the fines are so high, the company can’t take a chance. Why not have them sign a waiver saying it’s THEIR choice to not take a lunch? It’s been tried, but what ends up happening is a rouge employee gets fired for a legitimate reason and then comes back at the company claiming s/he was forced to sign the waiver. And whose side do you think the courts believe?

The bottom line is that the well meaning liberals “save” a handful of people – most of whom were to blame for their own time-management issues – while at the same time costing thousands of hard working folk their jobs.

Tomorrow we’ll look at more ways that liberal policies are helping Americans.