You Don't Own Me

[warrior1]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/02/19/1065048/-You-don-t-own-me?detail=hide&via=blog_1

There's a basic, historical misunderstanding at the root of modern Republican philosophy. A little fact that seems to get overlooked. It's not their insistence that the road to fascism begins with good health care. It's not even the pretense that President Obama somehow masterminded an economic collapse, bank bailout, and massive deficit weeks, months or years before he came into office. No, the incident that the GOP has let slip is a little more basic.

The South lost.

See, Republicans seem to have mistaken "wage slavery" for ... that other kind of slavery. They must have, because anyone who understood that workers are employees, and not property, would recognize that workers have rights. Not just some rights, not a neatly restricted little subset of rights, but the same rights as the people who employ them. They would recognize that the rights of an employer do not include the ability to abridge the rights of an employee.

snip

As an employer, you have the absolute right to religious freedom. Attend any church, temple, synagogue or reading room you like. Give as you feel obligated. Worship as you please. Place on yourself any restriction in diet, activity or anything else that you feel is in keeping with your beliefs ... but only on yourself. You don't get to impose these restrictions on your employees.

[saras]

1. This applies across the board, not just to religion

"...that the rights of an employer do not include the ability to abridge the rights of an employee."

Why is this hard for people to understand?

An employer is basically admitting their incompetence - they're saying that they can't get done what they need done, and they will go so far as to offer you MONEY to help them. Any employment situation that doesn't have this emotional tone is exploitative.

And a healthy unemployment rate is one that creates this attitude in most employers. (i.e. everyone has enough good work that they don't NEED any more, and can pick and choose jobs depending on whether they look worth doing for the community or not). If someone wants to build a beautiful front yard that improves the whole neighborhood, it makes sense that a lot of people will want to work for them. If someone wants to build a hideous monstrosity that no one else wants built, they should have to build it themselves. They're free to build it, no one will stop them.

Real jobs, necessary jobs, never have any trouble being filled if they aren't subject to horribly exploitative conditions. There's always a large body of people who want to work to make things better.