November 20, 1996
Let's ask a question: Do we help others with meager choices by eliminating their best-known choice? While you ponder that, how about an example? If there's a person with only one slice of bread, and we all think he should really have five, do we improve his situation by taking that one slice? “Williams,” you say, “you've got to be crazy; nobody's that stupid!” If we accept the idea that we shouldn't destroy a person's best choice, let's talk about actions of the U.S. Department of Labor.
The Cleveland Plain Dealer (October 20, 1996) carried a story, “Halt to Screw Work Sad.” R.P. Coating Corporation of Cuyahoga Heights, Ohio, had been paying inner-city Cleveland residents a piecework rate of about $1.50 for every thousand screws and washers they assembled in their homes. Some screw workers used that meager pay for beer and bingo money, while others depended on it to live. Most of the workers were elderly, disabled, or welfare recipients. It was attractive work to homebound people, especially single mothers, many of whom had their children helping out.
In September, the Labor Department investigated R.P. Coating for possible violations of minimum-wage and child-labor laws. Dave Elsila, spokesman for the United Auto Workers (UAW), said, “We've been following for years the movement of work outsourced to parts plants in the Third World and Mexico, and to find the same kind of work going on in our own back yard is shocking to us.” As a result of the investigation, R.P. Coating has stopped their homework screw-assembly operation.
Cheryl Hall, a single welfare parent of four, said, “We felt cheated, but it was a chance to make money.” She and her sister, also a single parent, earned $120 a month assembling screws. Now without any work, Hall said, “I'm not doing much of nothing now but staying home with four kids. I really don't know what I'm going to do yet.” Others among the fifty households doing assembly work expressed similar regrets about the cessation of their chances to earn extra money.
Here's our question: If these people had superior alternatives, why in the world would they be doing the tedious, monotonous, and hand-aching work of assembling screws? Obviously, they saw it as their best alternative. In comes the Labor Department to destroy their best alternative without offering them something superior.
The liberal mentality would say, “Williams, if they need more money, we ought to increase welfare!” Is that really a superior alternative? Let's look at it. The children who were helping their parents were learning discipline, responsibility, and cooperation rather than being out on the streets doing mischief, drugs, and crime. The adults were exercising the correct moral initiative—trying to be at least partially financially independent. How decent is it to destroy these benefits, as humble as they are? Is handout money a superior alternative to honest work and family cooperation?
The Labor Department actions are in part a result of misguided good intentions. But a more important motivation is that it's protecting the interests of labor unions who'd rather see contract work go to its members at much higher pay. Government-backed job destruction helps explain why there is so much spiritual poverty where it did not exist yesteryear. Years ago, the values held by blacks were expressed by what my stepfather used to say, “Any kind of job is better than begging and stealing.” That's a message roundly denounced by the actions of black politicians and white liberals.