Oh, please! The GOP did not "end the weekend."

In describing last week's budget, a number of commentators have suggested that the legislature has "ended the weekend." This is because state law will no longer forbid people from working seven days in a row without the permission of the government. Wisconsin will now permit them to do so voluntarily. Critics fear that consent will be "coerced."  Such coercion would, of course, be illegal and, while it would also be unlawful to fire an employee for complaining of coercion, some workers may be reluctant to do so and retaliation might be hard to prove. Coercion might have happened under the old law (i.e., employers demanded seven days in a row even though it was illegal), but it is certainly easier to establish that a person worked seven days in a row than to prove he did not "really" consent to do so.  One commentator went so far as to say that, under the new law, a day off  will be restricted to the "privileged few."

Here's a fact little known by our friends on the left. In the actual world (you know, the one we really live in), all sorts of good things exist that the government does not make mandatory. We know that the GOP did not end the weekend. We know that days off will not be limited to the "privileged few."  We know these things because there are 37 other states that permit people to work seven days in a row. The weekend is alive and well in each and every one of them. In the vast majority of cases, employers have to offer time off in order to attract workers.

It certainly is possible that there will be some cases in which persons who do not want to work a seventh day will feel pressured to do so -  just as, under the old law, there have been cases in which persons who did want to work seven days in row were prevented from doing so. I have no way of knowing which group is larger, but I am fairly certain that the government does not either. Even if we assume that the former group is much larger than the latter, I have no way of knowing how employers react to an absolute prohibition on people working seven days in a row. While it was possible for employers to ask the government for a waiver, doing so is expensive (for both taxpayers and employers) and there is absolutely no reason to think bureaucrats will have any way of knowing when permission "should" be granted.

Certainly a mandatory day off law will impose inefficiencies and increase the cost of labor. Perhaps instead of hiring a full time person, businesses hire two part-time employees. Others may reduce staffing levels. These effects are hard to identify, but they there.

So we know that a mandatory "time-off" law will prevent some workers from doing what they want. It will impose costs on some employees (for example, in the form of reduced hours) and businesses. Those businesses most effected may be Mom and Pops with few employees and less scheduling flexibility.

None of these costs can be ignored. They must be weighed against the benefits of a law that prohibits even voluntary work for fear that some workers will be illegally coerced and unable to prove it. Do the benefits of a mandatory day off requirement outweigh the costs? I don't know, but it seems very unlikely. Freedom should be the default rule. The legislature of Wisconsin - and 37 other states - has got it right.

Cross posted at Shark and Shepherd home page.