Griffin Would Keep “Labor Costs” Low in Arkansas
John Brummett exposed the root of the problem with Tim Griffin in an editorial last Friday, accurately depicting the Congressional candidate as “a Rovian operator who knows and espouses the right-wing boilerplate.” There’s that. And the related fact that he was embroiled in a Bush II-era political scandal. If that’s not enough to turn voters away, there’s also the little issue of his political philosophy. At the Political Animals luncheon last week in Little Rock, Griffin said that being a low-labor-cost state is an advantage that Arkansas should keep. Brummett made the assumption that “low labor costs” is a euphemism for low wages. Griffin disagreed, and, it turns out, he’s right. Labor costs do include much more than wages. They represent the total value of a workers compensation and benefits.
Labor costs include more than just the hourly wages and salaries paid to a company’s employees. The cost of labor also includes employee benefits packages. Health insurance, disability insurance, PTO (paid time off) and 401-K plans all fall under the umbrella of labor costs.
And there’s workers compensation insurance, the premiums for which stay lower either if not so many of your workers get hurt or you don’t get hit with big payouts when they do get hurt.
Griffin is saying it helps Arkansas economically that employers invest less in their workers here than they do in some other places. He is saying we need to keep this situation intact. [Opposing candidate Joyce] Elliott presumably believes we should aspire to have our people assigned greater value, and perhaps she will talk about that when she addresses this same Political Animals Club on Thursday. Griffin probably would be better off to couch this Arkansas advantage in a general cost of living.”
It’s one thing (not necessarily the right thing) to be anti-Obama, Arkansas. It’s quite another to support out of spite a candidate that wants to keep the real value of the people that make the economy run (the workers) artificially low in order for business to profit.
Griffin wants to keep us arkies more in line with Chinese and Mexican labor costs.
Why not fight for something like a worldwide minimum wage?
Nah, we can’t have that because it messes with corporate profits and that’s the only thing those on the right-wing care about.