Nanny State Targets Nannies

With Record Unemployment In California, Legislature Erects Further Obstacles For Job Seekers

An opinion piece by state senator Doug LaMalfa in The Union describes a bill that has already passed the state assembly and is moving toward Governor Brown's desk. Assemblymen Ammiano and Perez introduced bill AB 889 that would require that nannies, housekeepers, babysitters (age 18 or over) and other "domestic employees" be subject to employment regulations similar to - and often beyond - those of more traditional employment and that the people who hire them (e.g. parents and homeowners) be regulated like more traditional employers and subject to those requirements. That will include providing workers' compensation, bi-hourly breaks (which, in the case of babysitters, may require hiring two "employees" to ensure adequate supervision of children); keeping detailed wage rates, time cards, and payment records and providing those records to any "current or former employee, upon reasonable request to the employer"; and so on. Basically, it appears as though paying the neighbor's college kid to babysit or paying someone known and trusted from church to come by and help with housework will now require compliance will the full panoply of California employment laws and will put into legal jeopardy any "employer" who doesn't properly do so.

Why does the legislature want to make it so much harder for people to find work as nannies, housekeepers, and babysitters? Not a single Republican voted for this bill. So, why do Democrats hate the traditionally younger, poorer, lower-skilled people that seek to support themselves or supplement their incomes with work in these fields? I know plenty of people who hire babysitters for a 6 hour stint once or twice a month who won't be able to do so now. Same deal for people who pay someone (often a friend known from the PTA or church or another such affiliation) to come in and help catch up with housekeeping for a few hours on a weekly or monthly basis. Will they still want to do that when it requires compliance with laws most people aren't aware of and when it exposes them legally if they have failed to comply? This bill would seem to encourage the use of dedicated service agencies instead of casual arrangements for these services. The casual arrangements are often preferable because they are easier to arrange with people who are known personally and are trusted in private homes and around children. Use of service agencies will inevitably drive up costs, discourage employment, and, in all likelihood, lead to tragedies involving unattended children as people skimp on babysitters, knowing they could be sued for failing to provide a detailed pay stub or adequate break time.

Outside of the state capitol, is there any reasonable person who really thinks that California employment is under-regulated? Is it really time to turn the screws on parents and homeowners and the people they casually employ? Frankly, the only upside I can see to this legislation is that it might expose many more people to the real costs of living in a world where legislators control every aspect of life. If the vast majority of people think of themselves as "employers" beset by compliance and reporting requirements, then some of the classist thinking that allows this sort of law (and the election of people who would propose it) will get the serious criticism it deserves. When enough people decide that professed good intentions are irrelevant to whether a law should be passed, then people like assemblyman Ammiano et alia will have to find honest work.

The real purpose behind class warfare

Thomas Sowell, as he so often does, has the Left's number:

....those who are taking away our freedoms, bit by bit, on the installment plan, have been incessantly supplying us with people to resent.

One of the most audacious attempts to take away our freedom to live our lives as we see fit has been the so-called "health care reform" bills that were being rushed through Congress before either the public or the members of Congress themselves had a chance to discover all that was in it.

For this, we were taught to resent doctors, insurance companies and even people with "Cadillac health insurance plans," who were to be singled out for special taxes.

Unless those plans were Automaker Union or government employee plans, of course. Then the Demunists fell silent.

Meanwhile, our freedom to make our own medical decisions — on which life and death can depend — was to be quietly taken from us and transferred to our betters in Washington. Only the recent Massachusetts election results have put that on hold. 

Another dangerous power toward which we are moving, bit by bit, on the installment plan, is the power of politicians to tell people what their incomes can and cannot be. Here the resentment is being directed against "the rich."

The distracting phrases here include "obscene" wealth and "unconscionable" profits. But, if we stop and think about it — which politicians don't expect us to — what is obscene about wealth? Wouldn't we consider it great if every human being on earth had a billion dollars and lived in a place that could rival the Taj Mahal?

Poverty is obscene. It is poverty that needs to be reduced —and increasing a country's productivity has done that far more widely than redistributing income by targeting "the rich."

You can see the agenda behind the rhetoric when profits are called "unconscionable" but taxes never are, even when taxes take more than half of what someone has earned, or add much more to the prices we have to pay than profits do.

The assumption that what A pays B is any business of C is an assumption that means a dangerous power being transferred to politicians to tell us all what incomes we can and cannot receive. It will not apply to everyone all at once. Like the income tax, which at first applied only to the truly rich, and then slowly but steadily moved down the income scale to hit the rest of us, the power to say what incomes people can be allowed to make will inevitably move down the income scale to make us all dependents and supplicants of politicians.

The phrase "public servants" is increasingly misleading. They are well on their way to becoming public masters — like aptly named White House "czars." The more they can get us all to resent those they designate, the more they can distract us from their increasing control of our own lives...