Dear Susan,
Thank you for your comments on my press release regarding the folly of
the "living wage". You raised a number of issues.
You mentioned "anti-union" places. Please know Libertarians fully
endorse the rights of workers to organize for the benefit of themselves
and the organizations they serve. According to the AFL-CIO charter, they
are bound to serve their members, industries and the public. I trust you
understand that a government mandated minimum wage at any level is not
the equivalent of collective bargaining. So this has nothing to do with
unions and the right of workers to organize.
You also mentioned your experience in a "third world country". My wife's
deaf Amazonian Indian grandmother supported her family by stitching rags
into flowers and selling them to visitors at the local cemetery. If the
government mandated customers to pay more than she charged, she would
have starved to death. It is not possible to legislate the value of
someone's labor. It would be easier to declare the oceans "pink". The
reason this country grew and flourished was not because of government
mandated wages or even collective bargaining. It was our broad and
diverse specialization of labor. Living wage legislation threatens this
labor environment and our country's competitiveness at the expense of
the poorest in our society.
It appears you believe government has the authority to determine what
employers pay and workers charge for work. There are few choices more
personal than this. It's strange that people who call for "choice" in
most areas of their lives think government can improve on choice when it
comes to how much people pay and earn. It doesn't make sense. Here's an
example.
My wife is working temporarily in Taipei and we have a Philippine nanny
to help us. We pay her $800 per month plus room and board for 6 days per
week of on-call work and a month paid vacation. This is 3 times the
Philippine minimum wage and 4 times the Brazilian minimum wage. While
this seems like a small amount of money in the US, she has more money
than us, owns a house in the Philippines and has a retirement plan. My
wife and I rent and have no savings. If we were to hire her according to
US labor laws, it would cost nearly $50,000 per year in pre-tax income
which we simply can't afford. So when my wife moves back, our nanny will
lose her job and we will have to do all the work ourselves. With four
kids and working parents, this is a big job. And the nanny is 56 and
highly unlikely to get as good a paying job again. This is a lose/lose
situation for employer and employee alike. We may not seem poor, but US
labor laws make us too poor to hire people who would gladly do the work
and prosper by receiving what we can afford to pay. This is a crime
against everyone who doesn't have the money to play the government's
employment game.
A high mandated wage makes it nearly impossible for the poorest in our
society to get the work experience they need to get ahead. "Living wage"
laws help the politically powerful "not so poor" by falsely using the
seriously poor as justification for this misguided legislation.
Politicians and special interests are cruel to use the public's sense of
compassion for their own purposes at the expense of the needy in our
society. It must stop.
Thank you for caring for the needs of poor workers. Your heart is in the
right place. If you bringing your understanding of economics to the
level of your compassion, you will go far to help those you care about.
Best regards,
Michael F. Denny
Libertarian Candidate for San Francisco Mayor
Ph: (415) 986-7677 x123
Fax: (415) 986-4004
Mike@...
www.MichaelDennyforMayor.com