Note: This editorial is in response to the "No" side taken in our recent "Point-Counterpoint" piece. Click here to read it.
Mr. Provolone's flippant response to CAAA's lawsuit is more revealing than meets the eye.
It is the personification of California's corporate ruling class' attitude to all of the 18,000,000 employees and workers of the State.
To business, labor is a commodity or a piece of office equipment, just like a stapler. The cost of the commodity of labor affects the cost of production of what they produce, which in turn affects the cost of the product. The cost of the product directly affects the overall profit that can be derived from item being produced.
What SB899 says is that the people who work for business are not actually people, rather they are staplers. If your stapler breaks you have two choices. Either you fix it or buy a new one. Obviously, if it costs more to fix the broken one you toss it and buy a new one made by cheap labor in China. (In fact you pull up your stakes and move your whole business to China and leave an American city, like Flint Michigan, devastated. Not only did you achieve cheap labor but you also increased your market from 250,000,000 to 2 billion people. Could that be the true motive for outsourcing?).
The underlying premise for the implementation of SB 899 was just that. The Governor explained that the high cost of WC insurance was hindering established business as well as preventing new businesses from coming to our state. This is probably true, though there are many other high cost factors, such as energy, rent, housing and gasoline. California is an expensive place to live or to do business. Comp is but one factor in the larger equation. Finally, the high cost of WC insurance, one could argue, is a result of either the insurance carriers mismanagement or simply a scam to pocket billions.
Worker's Compensation insurance, from business's point of view, together with wages, benefits and so on, all add up to the cost of labor. The cost of labor is always a concern for business. Business is always looking for ways to reduce costs because costs reduce profit. Costs are to be limited, but there is no limit to profit. No company ever says, "Well, we've made enough profit this year." Business has an insatiable appetite for profit.
And herein is where the problem lies. Business is like a Ted Bundy or a Night Stalker. Its personality is sociopathic. A sociopath has no conscience and no concern for its actions and only one motive, which is to satisfy its appetite.
Workers' Compensation insurance was enacted for humane reasons. At its core is the empathy that a liberal democracy has for each individual in society. It recognizes human suffering as well as the need for food, shelter, health and the freedom and dignity of every individual human who work for the sociopath. It wasn't enacted because all of a sudden the sociopaths became human for an instant. It was enacted for fear that the communist revolution would make its way to the shores of the United States. Even Bundy had the sense to avoid capture and punishment.
The same is true for all concessions to labor. They were conceded because there were contingencies of reinforcement that forced them to do so (see Beyond Freedom and Dignity by B.F. Skinner or wait until I explain that concept at some time in the future).
But the sociopaths who made the deal had always intended to renege on it from day one. The CAAA suit cites the case that immediately followed the enactment of WC where the sociopaths sued to retain their rights to common law defenses.
The history of WC "reform," for the most part, is a history of the sociopaths taking back labor's benefit of the bargain while keeping the benefit they derived to wit: no personal injury lawsuits against employers. More so, it was a factor in staving off a communist revolution in capitalist United States. (Believe it or not, back then the concept of communism was in its infancy before Stalin and was very appealing to the working class here in America. In fact, the Rosenberg's were executed for that reason and the fear of communism was what led to McCarthyism.)
What SB 899 says is that the cost of production and profit for the company is more important than the human needs of the human individuals who are injured while making profit for the sociopath. In short, it's cheaper to get a new worker than to fix the broken one. It's a fiscal decision, not a human or moral one. What else would you expect from a sociopath whose sick obsessive fetish is profit without any other concern. Moreover, it displays the total disconnect of our corporate aristocracy to its subjects.
The queen of France made a similar remark as Mr. Provolone during the French revolution:
"So completely cut-off was the French Aristocracy at Versailles on the eve of the French Revolution, that when Marie Antoinette, the French Queen, was told that the rabble in Paris had no bread to eat, she was reported to have said, "Let them eat cake." But what most people do not realize today is that she did not mean that as a cynical jest, she had no idea that what was meant here was that the people had NOTHING to eat. This is how great the "disconnect" between the French Aristocracy and the French people had become in France on the eve of the Revolution; neither had that self-same aristocracy any real idea of how hated they were by the French people. They were soon to find out!" For those who are not history buffs, Ms. Antoinette had her head cut off!
CAAA's lawsuit is telling our corporate aristocracy that the people don't have Kraft sliced cheese to eat and their response:
LET THEM EAT PROVOLONE!
My response:
SHOVE THAT PROVOLONE WHERE THE SUN DON'T SHINE!
Does the CAAA lawsuit have merit? No more so than the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and the Gettysburg Address.
The original complaint should be removed from the court file and placed in the national archive for generations of Americans to view and remember that there once was a time when someone fought for the working class. A time when there was still the courage and the right to look the sociopath in the eye and say, "this is wrong. This is not what America stands for."
- J. Geller
March 10, 2005
