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
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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