May 27th, 2011 at 2:34 pm
Firing Your Best Workers & Other California Absurdities
Mercury News opinion writers David Houston and Jot Condie give a sense of the near impossibility of doing business in California. Andy Puzder is the CEO of CKE Restaurant, the parent company of Carl’s Jr., a popular hamburger eatery in California.
Even after businesses have gotten off the ground, California’s regulations continue to pigeonhole business owners in how they operate. For example, California’s strict work rules classify general managers as employees, requiring that they take breaks at specified times, harming their ability to manage the business effectively. Puzder said he has had to fire managers who insisted on working more hours than the state allows.
The reason managers would have to be fired for working hard is that it makes businesses vulnerable to litigation. With more than 1 million lawsuits filed every year, California is one of the most litigious states in the country, and its countless regulations make business owners a magnet for abusive lawsuits. No matter what type of business you are in, it seems like there is a lawsuit waiting for you.
If you own a restaurant and your bartender chooses to forgo a break to collect extra tips, you can be sued for wage-and-hour violations. If your trash can is moved by someone else in your store, you can be sued under the Americans with Disabilities Act. If you try to bring renewable energy to the desert, you can be sued by environmentalists and unions. Is it any wonder that many owners are deciding doing business in California is not worth it?
Firing managers who want to work more hours for more money because the law makes litigation almost mandatory? Now that’s Progressivism!
December 4th, 2010 at 12:10 am
Obama Labor Department Announces Business Harassment Strategy
There are two kinds of licensed professionals you don’t want to see the word “creative” describe: accountants and lawyers. Unfortunately, the top lawyer at the Obama Labor Department just released a to-do list that could double as a well-conceived strategy memo for business-hating bureaucrats concerned they may not have enough power.
In Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund’s recent article the solicitor at Labor proposes the following actions to increase the regulatory burden on private enterprise:
- Identify a public affairs liaison in each Regional Office to send stronger, clearer messages to the regulated community about DOL’s emphasis on litigation.
- Engage in enterprise-wide enforcement. (A euphemism where multiple sites of a business are visited by surprise on the same day by more than one enforcement agent.)
- Engage in greater use of injunctive relief (i.e. litigation and court orders), while also identifying and pursuing test cases to “stretch the meaning of the law.”
With the workforce experiencing 9.8% unemployment, this kind of strategy – and heaven forbid, enforcement – will only make matters far worse.
July 23rd, 2010 at 1:46 pm
How Do You Solve a Problem Like Underemployment…for Lawyers?
The Obama Administration’s answer is to impose a blizzard of new regulations on industries like higher education, health care and now private business that make the federal government a national repository of TMI – too much information.
With news today that the White House is “backing legislation that includes regulations requiring U.S. businesses to provide to the government data about employee pay as it relates to sex, race and national origin of employees” another Democrat strategy is becoming clear.
Goal:
- Enforce liberal social engineering through complex litigation and class action lawsuits against for-profit and non-profit institutions that fail to promote the “uniform diversity” mandated by liberal elites.
Means:
- Pass laws that require the targeted institutions to self-report every possible way they interact with favored liberal interest groups.
- Data mine those reports for evidence of unsatisfactory compliance with political correctness standards. Then label it “discrimination”.
- Pass more laws prohibiting the newly discovered discrimination.
- Allow liberal law firms like the ACLU – or the Holder Justice Department – to sue on behalf of the groups discriminated against.
This is not a joke. Each time the Democrats in Congress pass a new “comprehensive reform” one of the components requires detailed self-reporting. Right now, we’re told it’s just for information purposes. In a year or two…
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