Newt Gingrich this week called Barack Obama a "food stamps" president and said he wants to help poor people learn "learn how to get a job, learn how to get a better job, and learn someday to own the job."
Kos readers probably will not be surprised to learn that Newt, once again, made a horse's hind end of himself. How did he do it this time? Well, he said poor people need to learn how to "own the job" when, in fact, most Americans cannot (by law) "own" their jobs.
The Legal Schnauzer blog helps explain:
Here is the reality that Newt Gingrich is ignoring: The overwhelming majority of Americans work under an "at will" arrangement. At-will employment is a legal doctrine that means either party in an employment environment can break the relationship without liability, unless a contract expressly states otherwise.
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), Montana is the only state where at-will employment does not prevail.
What exactly does this mean? It means almost all Americans are extremely vulnerable in the workplace, whether they are poor or pretty well off. Under the law, most Americans can't "own" their jobs, no matter how hard they try. More from Legal Schnauzer:
The basic tenet of at-will employment is this: "You can be fired for a good reason, a bad reason, or no reason at all." Talk to any employment lawyer, and you are likely to hear those words verbatim. The only exception, for the most part, is if an employer violates a federal discrimination law, and those generally are limited to characteristics such as race, gender, age, national origin, religion, or disability.
Having been fired in May 2008 from my job as a university editor, after 19 years on the job and with a spotless work record, I know first-hand how tenuous your hold on any job can be in the US of A.
The bottom line? Most Americans have zero protections in the workplace. If you have a well-crafted employment contract, that should protect you for the term of the contract. If you own the company, you probably own your job. If you fit into any of the discrimination categories above, an employer is likely to think twice before firing you. But I've learned that there is not much reason for many employers, especially large ones, to worry much about discrimination because they are likely to get away with it.
How is this possible? Well, the system is stacked against employees:
Check in your local phone book or do a Web search for "employment lawyers." Look closely for information about the kinds of cases a lawyer takes. Here's a helpful hint: A lawyer who represent plaintiffs, employees who allege to have been wronged in the workplace, usually will call himself a "discrimination lawyer" or something along those lines; a lawyer who represents defendants, employers who have been charged with wrongdoing in the workplace, usually call themselves "labor and employment lawyers."
My unofficial research indicates that for every plaintiffs' lawyer in the employment arena, there are probably 50 defendants' lawyers. And I think that is conservative. The ratio probably is more like 1:100. Plaintiffs' employment lawyers usually are solo practitioners or they work in a small shop of three to five lawyers. Employment defense lawyers tend to work in big firms, with 50 lawyers or more. Who do you think has more pull and resources?
Here is an even bigger kick in the pants for American workers: Discrimination usually is governed by federal laws, so that means employment cases almost always are heard in U.S. courts. Federal judges are appointed at the presidential level, so they tend to come from large, politically connected law firms. And what kind of clients do those firms tend to represent in the employment arena? They represent employers-- the bigger, the better because big companies tend to generate lots of discrimination cases, and that means more cash for the lawyers.
Newt defenders might say he didn't mean that the poor should literally strive to own their jobs; he was talking in a figurative sense. But Americans don't "own" their jobs in any sense of the word. They don't even "rent" their jobs. Remember, most Americans can be fired for "a good reason, a bad reason, or no reason at all." I'm not an expert on tenant/landlord law, but I suspect even the lowliest of renters have more protections than that:
When Newt Gingrich says Americans need to learn how to "own" their jobs, he is full of elephant feces. If you are in a union, you have some protections on the job. But you essentially pay dues in order to "own" union membership and the protection it affords; you don't "own" a job.
Is Newt Gingrich, in a roundabout way, advocating union membership? I doubt it.