The Latest Idiocy
I swear that when I saw this in the NY Times yesterday I thought I had jumped to The Onion by mistake:
Obama Proposes Protecting Unemployed Against Hiring Bias
But no, it's true enough. As part of his No-More-Jobs Bill, our Dear Leader is proposing to make it a federal crime to discriminate in hiring against an individual due to his or her "status as unemployed." According to the Times, "Unsuccessful job applicants could sue and recover damages for violations, just as when an employer discriminates on the basis of a person’s race, color, religion, sex or national origin."
The thought -- no, that's too generous a word -- the emotion behind this, presumably, is the fact, given a bit of publicity of late, that the longer people remain unemployed, the harder it is for them to find new jobs. And the fact that a few employers have posted job listings explicitly excluding currently unemployed applicants. And, well, that's just not fair.
But this "solution" is absurd for a whole host of reasons -- the main one being that while there certainly are individual cases out there where an unemployed person is "unfairly" excluded from consideration, there are plenty of other cases where the unemployed person has less in-demand expertise, or has been a below-average performer in the past, or has allowed his or her skills to atrophy, or any combination of the above. And now the courts -- with cumulative business experience of zilch -- are supposed to become the arbiters of these distinctions? Does any sentient being outside the adolescent fantasy world of the White House think this is going to make one single employer, anywhere, more likely to add one single job to our struggling economy? (Aside from trial lawyers, that is.)
Look, I have great sympathy for the unemployed -- especially those who have worked hard to acquire useful skills, have worked hard and diligently in their careers, and have run into the buzz-saw of a recession, foreign competition, or changing technology. I have been laid off and have also been a layer-offer. The vast majority of my friends -- almost all of them Ivy-educated and very hard-working -- have been laid off at some point in their careers. If they've been lucky enough to have this happen in a growing economy, they've usually been back at work within a few months. If not, it can take quite a bit longer. Yes, luck often does have a lot to do with it, and that's not "fair."
But life, as John Kennedy reminded us, is not fair. Unattractive people are treated "unfairly." Shy people are treated "unfairly." People in the wrong place at the wrong time are treated "unfairly." Where does this nonsense stop?
This is what liberalism has sunk to -- no rational thought, no balancing of costs and benefits, just a constant looming dread that life is somehow, somewhere being "unfair" to someone, and a Pavlovian response to "do something" about it -- that "something" almost always involving judges and trial lawyers. But not Barack Obama, not all the members of Congress, not all the judges in the country can define a single objective standard of "fairness." When you "solve" one unfairness, you almost always create another. Net gain -- zero. Net cost to the economy -- substantial.
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Jul '10
Re: The Latest Idiocy
You are possibly aware that there is a campaign afoot to make "ugly" people a protected class in the workplace. Its advocates, first confined to the Fat Acceptance Movement, coined "lookism" to describe the wrong they wish to crush.
Jun '10
Re: The Latest Idiocy
Obama's bill with its proposed protected class of unemployed is not merely the death of common sense. It is the murder of common sense.
Apr '11
Re: The Latest Idiocy
If anything, this will make things worse. Why would an employer risk hiring at all if it will expose him to even more lawsuits for not hiring the wrong person. Could be be sued for hiring one unemployed person over another? This is a disaster waiting to happen.
I was listening to the Rabbi Daniel Lappin show this weekend, and he was discussing this topic. A caller, who owned a business, mentioned he would interview unemployed people, and they'd tell him they wouldn't start work for five weeks or more: that would be when their unemployed benefits ran dry, and they would tell him as much. The Rabbi stated he had similar problems, he advertised a position with a certain pay rate, and he'd get unemployed applicants who would tell him they would require more as they wouldn't work for less than they earned in Unemployment Benefits.
Although these are both anecdotal stories, I suspect there's more like them out there. I know there's some hiring policies that are unreasonable, but the interminable extension of unemployment benefits have created a whole new Entitled Class whose expectations are formed by the government handouts they receive.
Mar '11
Re: The Latest Idiocy
Obama has had some dumb ideas, but this may take the cake. No employer would even *interview* an unemployed person if this law passed. They would prefer not to hire at all than to get into a situation where they have to lawyer up.
Jul '10
Re: The Latest Idiocy
Overheard in the Oval Orifice: You know what we could do? We could ______________. That’ll raise the poll numbers – just the idea of us doing something, anything.
No thought given to the consequences – seen and unseen – no one in hushed tones advising a bit more work on the idea. Just, Let’s do it.
These ideas are pulled from the air, or from where ever. How often can we say, this is a bit frightening? Most of us have lost count.
Jun '11
Re: The Latest Idiocy
Right, because there are never legitimate reasons for not hiring someone like them not being qualified...it's always that the employer is discriminating in one way or another. Thanks Obama, this will really fix the unemployment problem!