If passed by Congress and vigorously enforced by the U.S. Departments of Justice and Labor, an Employers Responsibility Act would ensure full-time, permanent and productive employment for millions of capable, job-seeking Americans.
Among its remaining provisions:
(10) CEOs whose companies employ illegal aliens would be held directly accountable for the actions of their subordinates. Upon conviction, the CEO would be sentenced to a mandatory prison term of at least ten years.
This would prove a more effective remedy for controlling illegal immigration than stationing tens of thousands of soldiers on the U.S./ Mexican border.
With CEOs forced to account for their subordinates’ actions, they would take drastic steps to ensure their companies complied with Federal immigration laws.
(11) The seeking of “economic incentives” by companies in return for moving to or remaining in cities/states would be strictly forbidden.
Such “economic incentives” usually:
- allow employers to ignore existing laws protecting employees from unsafe working conditions;
- allow employers to ignore existing laws protecting the environment;
- allow employers to pay their employees the lowest acceptable wages, in return for the “privilege” of working at these companies; and/or
- allow employers to pay little or no business taxes, at the expense of communities who are required to make up for lost tax revenues.
(12) Employers who continue to make such overtures would be prosecuted for attempted bribery or extortion:
- Bribery, if they offered to move to a city/state in return for “economic incentives,” or
- Extortion, if they threatened to move their companies from a city/state if they did not receive such “economic incentives.”
This would protect employees against artificially-depressed wages and unsafe working conditions; protect the environment in which these employees live; and protect cities/states from being pitted against one another at the expense of their economic prosperity.
(12) The U.S. Departments of Justice and Labor would regularly monitor the extent of employer compliance with the provisions of this Act.
Among these measures: Sending undercover agents, posing as highly-qualified job-seekers, to apply at companies—and then vigorously prosecuting those employers who blatantly refused to hire despite their proven economic ability to do so.
This would be comparable to the long-time and legally-validated practice of using undercover agents to determine compliance with fair-housing laws.
(13) The Justice Department and/or the Labor Department would be required to maintain a publicly-accessible database on those companies that had been cited, sued and/or convicted for such offenses as
- discrimination,
- harassment,
- health and/or safety violations or
- violating immigration laws.
Employers would be legally required to regularly provide such information to these agencies, so that it would remain accurate and up-to-date.
Such information would arm job applicants with vital information about the employers they were approaching. They could thus decide in advance if an employer is deserving of their skills and dedication.
As matters now stand, employers can legally demand to learn even the most private details of an applicant’s life without having to disclose even the most basic information about themselves and their history of treating employees.
* * * * *
Reform starts with facing the truth–however painful–for what it is. And with seeing one’s enemies–however powerful–for what they are.
For thousands of years, otherwise highly intelligent men and women believed that kings ruled by divine right. That kings held absolute power, levied extortionate taxes and sent countless millions of men off to war–all because God wanted it that way.
That lunacy was dealt a deadly blow in 1776 when American Revolutionaries threw off the despotic rule of King George III of England.
But today, millions of Americans remain imprisoned by an equally outrageous and dangerous theory: The Theory of the Divine Right of Employers.
Summing up this employer-as-God attitude, Calvin Coolidge still speaks for the overwhelming majority of employers and their paid shills in government:
“The man who builds a factory builds a temple, and the man who works there worships there.”
America can no longer afford such a dangerous fallacy as the Theory of the Divine Right of Employers.
The solution lies in remembering that the powerful never voluntarily surrender their privileges.
Americans did not win their freedom from Great Britain–-and its enslaving doctrine of “the Divine Right of Kings”-–by begging for their rights.
And Americans will not win their freedom from their corporate masters–-and the equally enslaving doctrine of “the Divine Right of Employers”––by begging for the right to work and support themselves and their families.
And they will most certainly never win such freedom by supporting right-wing political candidates whose first and only allegiance is to the corporate interests who bankroll their campaigns.
Corporations can–and do–spend millions of dollars on TV ads, selling lies–lies such as the “skills gap,” and how if the wealthy are forced to pay their fair share of taxes, jobs will inevitably disappear.
But Americans can choose to reject those lies–and demand that employers behave like patriots instead of predators.
2012 PRESIDENTIAL RACE, ABC NEWS, AFFORDABLE CARE ACT, BARACK OBAMA, CBS NEWS, CIA, CNN, CONTRAS, FACEBOOK, FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, FUNDRAISING, IRAN-CONTRA SCANDAL, MITT ROMNEY, NBC NEWS, NEW DEAL, NICARAGUA, OBAMACARE, OLIVER NORTH, PAPA JOHN'S PIZZA, Ronald Reagan, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WASHINGTON POST, TWITTER, USA TODAY, WHITE CASTLE HAMBURGER CHAIN, WILLIAM J. CASEY
THE CASEY DOCTRINE: MINIMUM COMPLIANCE
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on July 24, 2015 at 12:24 pmWhen William J. Casey was a young attorney during the Great Depression, he learned an important lesson.
Jobs were hard to come by, so Casey thought himself lucky to land one at the Tax Research Institute of America in New York.
His task was to closely read New Deal legislation and write reports explaining it to corporate chieftains.
At first, he thought they wanted detailed legal commentary on the meaning of the new legislation.
But then he quickly learned a blunt truth: Businessmen neither understood nor welcomed Franklin D. Roosevelt’s efforts to reform American capitalism. And they didn’t want legal commentary.
Instead, they wanted to know: “What must we do to achieve minimum compliance with the law?”
In short: How do we get by FDR’s new programs?
Fifty years later, Casey would bring a similar mindset to his duties as director of the Central Intelligence Agency for President Ronald Reagan.
William J. Casey
Congress had banned the Reagan administration from funding the “Contras,” the Right-wing death squads of Nicaragua.
Casey gave lip service to the demands of Congress. But privately, he and Marine Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North set up an “off-the-shelf” operation to overthrow the leftist government of Daniel Ortega.
For three years the operation stayed secret. Then it blew up in November, 1986, as the Iran-Contra scandal.
But the “Casey Doctrine” of minimum compliance didn’t die with Casey (who expired of a brain tumor in 1987).
It’s very much alive among the American business community as President Barack Obama seeks to give medical coverage to all Americans, and not simply the ultra-wealthy.
The single most important provision of the Affordable Care Act (ACA)–-better known as Obamacare–-requires large businesses to provide insurance to full-time employees who work more than 30 hours a week.
For part-time employees, who work fewer than 30 hours, a company isn’t penalized for failing to provide health insurance coverage.
Obama prides himself on being a tough-minded practitioner of “Chicago politics.” So it’s easy to assume that he took the “Casey Doctrine” into account when he shepherded the ACA through Congress.
But he didn’t.
The result was predictable. And its consequences are daily becoming more clear.
Employers feel motivated to move fulltime workers into part-time positions–-and thus avoid
Some employers have openly shown their contempt for President Obama–-and the idea that employers actually have an obligation to those who make their profits a reality.
The White Castle hamburger chain is considering hiring only part-time workers in the future to escape its obligations under Obamacare.
No less than Jamie Richardson, its vice president, admitted this in an interview.
“If we were to keep our health insurance program exactly like it is with no changes, every forecast we’ve looked at has indicated our costs will go up 24%.”
Richardson claimed the profit per employee in restaurants is only $750 per year. So, as he sees it, giving health insurance to all employees who work over 30 hours isn’t feasible.
Nor is Richardson the only corporate executive determined to shirk his responsibility to his employees.
John Schnatter, CEO of Papa John’s Pizza, has been quoted as saying:
“If Obamacare is in fact not repealed,” Schnatter told Politico, “we will find tactics to shallow out any Obamacare costs and core strategies to pass that cost onto consumers in order to protect our shareholders’ best interests.”
Consider:
Had Obama been the serious student of Realpolitick that he claims to be, he would have predicted that most businesses would seek to avoid compliance with his law.
To counter that, he need only have required all employers to provide insurance coverage for all of their employees—regardless of their fulltime or part-time status.
This, in turn, would have produced two substantial benefits:
The “Casey Doctrine” needs to be kept constantly in mind when reformers try to protect Americans from predatory employers.
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