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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 13, 2016)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Thursday, October 13, 2016 OTHER VIEWS Founded October 16, 1875 KATHRYN B. BROWN Publisher DANIEL WATTENBURGER Managing Editor TIM TRAINOR Opinion Page Editor MARISSA WILLIAMS Regional Advertising Director MARCY ROSENBERG Circulation Manager JANNA HEIMGARTNER Business Ofice Manager MIKE JENSEN Production Manager OUR VIEW Government should stay out of worker scheduling Seattle last week joined San Francisco in requiring some employers to schedule shifts 14 days in advance and pay workers extra for certain last-minute scheduling changes, the Associated Press reports. This idea also has come up in Oregon. It is a kind-hearted step that comes with unintended consequences. Initially applying to retail and fast-food companies with 500 employees globally and to full-service restaurants with 500 employees and 40 establishments, the Seattle law is the latest effort to improve the lives of workers. Others include phasing in a $15 an hour minimum wage and requiring many irms to provide paid sick leave. Each of these ideas has some merit. It is argued that they fall within the spectrum of much older reforms, such as ending child labor and requiring overtime pay when regular employees work more than 40 hours a week. Irresponsible managers can make their workers’ lives unnecessarily dificult, for example by shifting schedules in ways that make it hard to ind childcare or by disrupting natural human rhythms in unhealthy ways. A study of irregular shift scheduling found about half of such workers report “serious psychological distress,” Bloomberg reported on Sept. 19. Too much disruption also leads to constant uncertainty about income. But laws like the new one in Seattle reach deeply into the sphere of internal business management. Faced with additional burdensome bookkeeping and ines for changing schedules, businesses confront a real prospect of having too many or too few workers on hand to deal with customers. Employers don’t make schedule changes for their own amusement, but because it is in the nature of economics that short-term luctuations in supply and demand are unpredictable. This month the U.S. Census Bureau reported that 3.5 million Americans were able to rise above the poverty line last year an historic indication that the hangover from the Great Recession is really fading. “More than seven years after the recession ended, employers are inally being compelled to reach deeper into the pools of untapped labor, creating more jobs, especially among retailers, restaurants and hotels, and paying higher wages to attract workers and meet new minimum wage requirements,” the New York Times said recently. This news tells us that capitalism is working, and that employers who unfairly jerk their workers around will suffer as employees jump ship to take up better positions elsewhere. Just as minimum-wage increases have extended farther into rural areas and into smaller business enterprises, there is a risk that scheduling requirements that start in big cities will migrate into our region’s small-business sector. It’s important to let lawmakers know about the risks of doing so. At the same time, citizens need to bear all these factors in mind if they are asked to support ballot initiatives that may sound good, but burden ma-and-pa businesses with big-business obligations. There is an old saying in the legal profession that “tough cases make for bad law.” Mandatory scheduling laws are rooted in humanitarianism, but threaten to make life worse instead of better for workers. Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the East Oregonian editorial board of Publisher Kathryn Brown, Managing Editor Daniel Wattenburger, and Opinion Page Editor Tim Trainor. Other columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not necessarily that of the East Oregonian. LETTERS POLICY The East Oregonian welcomes original letters of 400 words or less on public issues and public policies for publication in the newspaper and on our website. The newspaper reserves the right to withhold letters that address concerns about individual services and products or letters that infringe on the rights of private citizens. Submitted letters must be signed by the author and include the city of residence and a daytime phone number. The phone number will not be published. Unsigned letters will not be published. Send letters to 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or email editor@eastoregonian.com. Trump’s sad, lonely life T he point of town hall debates at intimacy are gruesome parodies, is that regular voters get to ask lunging at women as if they were questions. In every town hall I’ve pieces of meat. seen, the candidate turns to the voter, Most of us derive a warm listens attentively and directs the answer satisfaction when we feel our lives at least partially back to that person. are aligned with ultimate values. The candidates do that because it’s But Trump lives in an alternative, polite, because it looks good to be seen amoral Howard Stern universe where taking others seriously and because he cannot enjoy the sweetness that David most of us instinctively want to make Brooks altruism and community service can some connection with the people we are occasionally bring. Comment Bullies only experience peace when talking to. they are cruel. Their blood pressure Hillary Clinton, not exactly a drops the moment they beat the kid on the paragon of intimacy, behaved in the normal playground. manner Sunday night. But Donald Trump Imagine you are Trump. You are trying did not. Trump treated his questioners as to bluff your way through a debate. You’re unrelatable automatons and delivered his running for an ofice you’re completely answers to the void, even when he had the unqualiied for. You are chasing some glimmer chance to seem sympathetic to an appealing of validation that recedes ever further from young Islamic woman. view. That underlines the essential loneliness of Your only rest comes when you are insulting Donald Trump. somebody, when you are threatening to throw Politics is an effort to make human connection, but Trump seems incapable of that. your opponent in jail, when you are looming over her menacingly like a maioso thug on the He is essentially adviser-less, friendless. His campaign team is made up of cold mercenaries precipice of a hit, when you are bellowing that she has “tremendous hate in her heart” when at best and Roger Ailes at worst. His party it is clear to everyone you are only projecting treats him as a stench it can’t yet remove. what is in your own. He was a germaphobe through most of his Trump’s emotional makeup means he can life and cut off contact with others, and now hit only a few notes: fury and aggression. In I just picture him alone in the middle of the some ways, his debate performances look like night, tweeting out hatred. primate dominance displays — illed with Trump breaks his own world record for chest beating and looming growls. But at least being appalling on a weekly basis, but as the primates have bands to connect with, whereas campaign sinks to new low after new low, Trump is so alone, if a tree fell in his emotional I ind myself experiencing feelings of deep forest, it would not make a sound. sadness and pity. It’s all so pathetic. Imagine if you had to go through a single On Monday, one of Trump’s conservative day without sharing kind little moments with critics, Erick Erickson, published a moving strangers and friends. essay called “If I Die Before You Wake…” Imagine if you had to endure a single week Erickson has been the object of vicious in a hate-illed world, crowded with enemies assaults by Trump supporters. He and his wife of your own making, the object of disgust and are both facing serious health ailments and may derision. pass before their children are grown. Yet as You would be a twisted, tortured shrivel, the essay makes clear, both are living lives of too, and maybe you’d lash out and try to take love, faith, devotion and service. Both have an cruel revenge on the universe. For Trump this ultimate conidence in the goodness of creation is his whole life. and their grace-illed place in it. Trump continues to display the symptoms You may share that faith or not, but Erickson of narcissistic alexithymia, the inability to is living an attached life — emotionally, understand or describe the emotions in the spiritually, morally and communally. self. Unable to know themselves, sufferers are Donald Trump’s life, by contrast, looks unable to understand, relate or attach to others. supericially successful and profoundly To prove their own existence, they hunger miserable. None of us would want to live in for endless attention from outside. Lacking internal measures of their own worth, they rely the howling wilderness of his own solitude, no matter how thick the gilding. on external but insecure criteria like wealth, On Nov. 9, the day after Trump loses, there beauty, fame and others’ submission. won’t be solidarity and howls of outrage. In this way, Trump seems to be denied Everyone will just walk away. all the pleasures that go with friendship and ■ cooperation. Women could be sources of love David Brooks became a New York Times and affection, but in his disordered state he Op-Ed columnist in September 2003. can only hate and demean them. His attempts YOUR VIEWS PERS cannot be helped, must be axed The Public Employees Retirement System (PERS) funding can never be solved because 7.5 percent interest doubles the employer’s required contribution every ten years. Selling bonds per Greg Smith’s (R-Heppner) proposal only creates a bigger long-term mess. This state’s employee’s retirement program has put us in bankruptcy. It’s time for the taxpayers to say enough is enough. How can a government pass its own retirement plan, and then have the government judges approve their own retirement beneits without a vote of the people? Government does not care about our education system and public services. They only want earlier retirement ages and larger retirement checks. Why should government employees retire 15 to 17 years earlier, for 1.5 to 3 times more per month than the private sector? How can they simply opt out of Obamacare? Their retirement plan should be disbursed out to the individual members, so they can privately manage their own funds and receive market rates. They should all be placed into Social Security with the rest of us. It may take a ballot measure if the unions and legislature refuse to solve this. There really is no other solution. The private sector can never allow government to make them their slaves. We need to all get into the same row boat and row together or we will continue to have the private sector (us) vs. the public sector (them) arguments. We should all be treated equally. Vote no on Measure 97 as it will only let government get bigger. Kalvin B. Garton Pendleton Hold your nose and vote for Trump I am not at all surprised by what Donald Trump said. Anyone married as many times as he is not likely a moral man. I did not support him at the primary level because of the morals, but Trump won. So what do I do? My choice is between a disgusting unpredictable man as far as what he says, or a totally corrupt, continuously lying woman who has no trustworthy values who shouldn’t qualify for security clearance after her dangerous handling of classiied information. Her treatment of women is equally despicable. She demeaned, denigrated and destroyed every woman Bill got involved with enough to threaten his career. I have read she pays her women employees lower than her male employees. She has no moral high ground on the treatment of women. This is nothing but a sideshow. The real issues to me are security, economy, justice. On the subject of security, she supports an open border as proven in her speeches to Wall Street. So we let in terrorists, people who view women as their slaves and want to slaughter homosexuals and Christians. Why would anyone agree with that? She wants to continue sending money to our enemies and allowing them to gain access to nuclear weapons. She has a proven track record of failure in her involvement with the killing of our ambassador and military at Benghazi, and the mess with the Muslim Brotherhood. The vote on that subject goes to Trump. On the economy, no one has risen so fast from a failure, knows how to succeed, knows how to trim fat in large organizations that will improve the business climate, which will allow more tax money to low, which can then pay down the debt. She will continue to spend and borrow and spend and tax and waste money. That vote goes to Trump by his proven success. Justice in my opinion is that there is a rule of law, and everyone is expected to follow it. We need to return to where the rule of law is applied equally. On this, Trump talks a good talk. Hillary will increase the dismantling of the rule of law, choose judges of that mindset, gain more power and control for government and herself. She is all about power, control and money for herself. She is for sale to the highest bidder. She has no other core values. She was opposed to abortion before she was for it. She was opposed to homosexual marriage before she was for it. No subject is important to her but as a tool to gain those three things — not workers, not children, not the environment. She blows the way of the wind as long as it blows so she will gain power, control and money. Please do not let this dangerous person succeed. I will hold my nose and vote Trump. Granella Thompson Weston For every reason vote Hillary Clinton We must realize how very important this presidential election can be. The second debate shows us that Hillary Clinton’s opposition for the presidency will stop at nothing to be elected. In the debate, he threatened to jail Hillary if he is elected This is a new low even for this person. Is our country a third world banana republic? I believe we are still a democracy. If he is elected there will not be a Joe Biden to pass protective legislation for women and girls. Women’s rights are human rights as Hillary Clinton said in her speech in Beijing 20 years ago. These rights are worth protecting now as they were then. We are not chattel or objects owned by anyone, we have the same rights at this time due to our long line of presidents including President Barack Obama, who support the rights of all citizens. We have, in Hillary Clinton, the most qualiied person to become president. She is a caring, serious, steadfast person that has plans and policies to work for a better tomorrow. She will get the job done for us all. Please vote! Jan Beitel Umatilla Festival street will block church access To Byron Smith, Hermiston city manager: Would you please drive on Main Street and note all the churches there? Also, observe the First United Methodist Church on Gladys. The last Cinco de Mayo celebration interfered with disabled members of the FUMC’s ability to attend services, as access to the elevator was blocked by the roads being closed. As you must be aware, this is against the Constitution — hindering peoples’ freedom of religion. Why can’t the more sensible venue, McKenzie Park, be used for the festivals, freeing up people’s access to their churches including Victory Baptist Church in the old Burnham’s building? Susan Brooks Hermiston
