Dan

Calabrese

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November 8, 2007

Ferris Obama’s Days Off

“Oh boss, I don’t feel so good (cue fake coughing sounds from the synthesizer). Barack Obama says I don’t have to come in to work today. Or tomorrow, or the next day, or . . .”

Ah, the audacity of hope. Barack Obama’s America is apparently going to sniffle and wheeze its way to greatness. It certainly isn’t going to work its way there.

Obama’s latest economic proposals, which Reuters tells us uncritically are “designed to help struggling lower and middle class workers,” sound more like they are designed prevent people from ever seeing their place of employment. Obama wants to guarantee workers seven paid sick days a year, as well as extending the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) to “help working parents.”

In other words, turn them into non-working parents, whose jobs presumably could not be filled by someone who actually wants to work.

Much of what Obama proposes is consistent with what most companies offer anyway. People can’t help it if they’re sick, and no smart employer is going to dock a person’s pay for a few days here and there – provided it doesn’t become excessive.

FMLA is a different matter entirely. Enacted in 1993, it guarantees people up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave from their jobs to care for a newborn, care for a sick family member or recover from a physical malady. It forces employers to not only offer the person’s job back, but to continue paying benefits during the leave. Between paying the absent worker’s benefits and figuring out how to cover the job during the absence, FMLA compliance is no small expense for companies.

So what would it mean to expand it to cover “working parents”? Does Obama think people need to take an extended leave of absence just because they have kids? And if you’re a struggling working parent, how can you afford to take 12 weeks of unpaid leave? (Unless Obama wants to amend FMLA to mandate paid leave . . . oh, you don’t think . . . )

Even so, there are many companies who would willingly do all this for a valued employee, without being forced by the federal government. There are many others who would like to, but can’t afford it. And there are some mean, rotten bastards who would just as soon spit on you as sign the meager paycheck you’re supposed to be getting anyway.

Either way, whether it’s sick days or extended paid leave, it all involves private agreements that are made between private parties – employers and employees. If an employee can’t get what he or she wants from an employer, the employee should find a new employer. Unemployment is well under 5 percent. Unless you live in Michigan, you should have no problem finding a new job. You don’t need the federal government forcing your employer to do anything for you that the employer doesn’t want to do.

But the real story here is Obama’s emphasis on measures designed to make it easier for people not to work, and his naïve expectation that private companies can simply swallow these costs with nary a problem.

Obama keeps repeating in his campaign appearances: “Americans are working harder for less.” That means they’ve got it half right. Contrary to what Obama is telling them, there is nothing wrong with working harder. They just have to figure out how to work harder for more.

America did not become a great nation through the power of time off. If people are struggling economically, the solution is to find ways to become more productive and more valuable to those who have the capital to reward productivity. Obama’s priority is to make it easier for them to be less productive, while depleting the capital of their employers by making them spend more of it for non-work.

What does he think this is? France? Oh wait. That joke won’t work anymore. New French President Nicolas Sarkozy has taken to telling his people that, if they want to be great like America, they need to forget about the 30-hour weeks, get off their derrières and get to work.

So if Obama becomes president, even the French will outwork us. Blech. Come to think of it, if that ever happens, I don’t think seven sick days would be nearly enough.

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