WEBVTT NOTE 29. The Fat Capitalist-Pig Employer 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.040 PART VIII. LABOR. 2 00:00:03.040 --> 00:00:09.040 Chapter 29. The Fat Capitalist Pig Employer. 3 00:00:09.040 --> 00:00:24.040 If not for the minimum wage law and other progressive legislation, the employers, the fat capitalist pig exploiting employers, to be precise, would lower wages to whatever level they wanted. 4 00:00:24.040 --> 00:00:28.040 At best, we would be pushed back to the days of the sweatshop. 5 00:00:28.040 --> 00:00:38.040 At worst, to the days of the Industrial Revolution and before, when mankind waged an often losing battle with starvation. 6 00:00:38.040 --> 00:00:44.040 So goes the conventional wisdom on the merits of minimum wage legislation. 7 00:00:44.040 --> 00:00:50.040 It will be shown, however, that this conventional wisdom is wrong, tragically wrong. 8 00:00:50.040 --> 00:00:53.040 It assumes a villain where none exists. 9 00:00:53.040 --> 00:00:59.540 What does the law actually accomplish, and what are its consequences? 10 00:00:59.540 --> 00:01:05.360 The minimum wage law is, on the face of it, not an employment law, but an unemployment 11 00:01:05.360 --> 00:01:06.600 law. 12 00:01:06.600 --> 00:01:13.240 It does not force an employer to hire an employee at the minimum wage level, or at any other 13 00:01:13.240 --> 00:01:14.240 level. 14 00:01:14.240 --> 00:01:22.000 It compels the employer not to hire the employee at certain wage levels, namely those below 15 00:01:22.000 --> 00:01:24.000 The Theory of Money and Credit 16 00:01:52.000 --> 00:01:59.600 How would wages be determined in the absence of minimum wage legislation? 17 00:01:59.600 --> 00:02:06.380 If the labor market consists of many suppliers of labor, employees, and many demanders of 18 00:02:06.380 --> 00:02:11.920 labor, employers, then the wage rate will tend to be set in accordance with what the 19 00:02:11.920 --> 00:02:17.100 economist calls the marginal productivity of labor. 20 00:02:17.100 --> 00:02:22.360 The marginal productivity of labor is the extra amount of receipts an employer would 21 00:02:22.360 --> 00:02:26.240 have if he employs a given worker. 22 00:02:26.240 --> 00:02:32.480 In other words, if by adding a given worker to the payroll, the employer's total receipts 23 00:02:32.480 --> 00:02:41.320 rise by $60 per week, then the marginal productivity of that worker is $60 per week. 24 00:02:41.320 --> 00:02:47.560 The wage rate paid to the worker tends to equal the worker's marginal productivity. 25 00:02:47.560 --> 00:02:53.520 Why is this so, in view of the fact that the employer would prefer to pay the worker virtually 26 00:02:53.520 --> 00:02:57.440 nothing, no matter what his productivity? 27 00:02:57.440 --> 00:03:01.920 The answer is competition between employers. 28 00:03:01.920 --> 00:03:08.460 For example, assume the worker's marginal productivity is equal to $1 per hour. 29 00:03:08.460 --> 00:03:15.640 If he were hired at $0.05 per hour, the employer would make $0.95 per hour profit. 30 00:03:15.640 --> 00:03:18.880 Other employers would bid for that worker. 31 00:03:18.880 --> 00:03:25.260 Even if they paid him $0.06, $0.07 or $0.10 an hour, their profit would still make the 32 00:03:25.260 --> 00:03:27.440 bidding worthwhile. 33 00:03:27.440 --> 00:03:31.780 The bidding would end at the wage level of $1 per hour. 34 00:03:31.780 --> 00:03:37.800 For only when the wages paid equal the worker's marginal productivity will the incentive to 35 00:03:37.800 --> 00:03:40.960 to Bid for the Worker, Stop. 36 00:03:40.960 --> 00:03:48.620 But suppose the employers mutually agree not to hire workers at more than 5 cents per hour. 37 00:03:48.620 --> 00:03:54.440 This occurred in the Middle Ages, when cartels of employers got together with the aid of 38 00:03:54.440 --> 00:04:01.580 the state to pass laws which prohibited wage levels above a certain maximum. 39 00:04:01.580 --> 00:04:07.200 Such agreements can only succeed with state aid, and there are good reasons why this is 40 00:04:07.200 --> 00:04:14.680 So, in the non-cartel situation, the employer hires a certain number of workers, the number 41 00:04:14.680 --> 00:04:18.700 which he believes will yield the maximum profit. 42 00:04:18.700 --> 00:04:24.360 If an employer hires only ten workers, it is because he thinks the productivity of the 43 00:04:24.360 --> 00:04:30.720 tenth will be greater than the wage he must pay, and that the productivity of an eleventh 44 00:04:30.720 --> 00:04:33.900 would be less than this amount. 45 00:04:33.900 --> 00:04:40.220 If then a cartel succeeds in lowering the wage of workers with a marginal productivity 46 00:04:40.220 --> 00:04:48.500 of one dollar to five cents per hour, each employer will want to hire many more workers. 47 00:04:48.500 --> 00:04:52.620 This is known as the law of downward sloping demand. 48 00:04:52.620 --> 00:04:57.140 The lower the price, the more buyers will want to purchase. 49 00:04:57.140 --> 00:05:03.340 The worker whose productivity was, in the eyes of the employer, just below one dollar, 50 00:05:03.340 --> 00:05:09.400 and therefore not worth hiring at a dollar per hour will be eagerly sought at five cents 51 00:05:09.400 --> 00:05:11.500 per hour. 52 00:05:11.500 --> 00:05:15.220 This leads to the first flaw in the cartel. 53 00:05:15.220 --> 00:05:21.460 Each employer who is a party to the cartel has a great financial incentive to cheat. 54 00:05:21.460 --> 00:05:25.900 Each employer will try to bid workers away from the others. 55 00:05:25.900 --> 00:05:30.040 The only way he can do this is by offering higher wages. 56 00:05:30.040 --> 00:05:31.500 How much higher? 57 00:05:31.500 --> 00:05:37.980 All the way up to one dollar, as we have seen before, and for the same reason. 58 00:05:37.980 --> 00:05:43.140 The second flaw is that non-members of the cartel arrangement would want to hire these 59 00:05:43.140 --> 00:05:49.700 workers at five cents per hour, even assuming no cheating by members. 60 00:05:49.700 --> 00:05:55.780 This also tends to drive up the wage from five cents to one dollar per hour. 61 00:05:55.780 --> 00:06:06.780 Others, such as would-be employers in non-cartel geographical areas, self-employed artisans who could not before afford employees, 62 00:06:06.780 --> 00:06:16.780 and employers who had previously hired only part-time workers, would all contribute to an upward trend in the wage level. 63 00:06:16.780 --> 00:06:21.780 Even if the workers themselves are ignorant of wage levels paid elsewhere, 64 00:06:21.780 --> 00:06:28.100 are located in isolated areas where there is no alternative employment. 65 00:06:28.100 --> 00:06:30.540 These forces will apply. 66 00:06:30.540 --> 00:06:37.820 It is not necessary that both parties to a trade have knowledge of all relevant conditions. 67 00:06:37.820 --> 00:06:44.500 It has been said that unless both parties are equally well informed, imperfect competition 68 00:06:44.500 --> 00:06:49.220 results and economic laws somehow do not apply. 69 00:06:49.220 --> 00:06:51.460 But this is mistaken. 70 00:06:51.460 --> 00:06:57.580 Employers usually have little overall knowledge of the labor market, but employers are supposedly 71 00:06:57.580 --> 00:06:59.740 much better informed. 72 00:06:59.740 --> 00:07:02.500 And this is all that is necessary. 73 00:07:02.500 --> 00:07:08.380 While the worker may not be well informed about alternative job opportunities, he knows 74 00:07:08.380 --> 00:07:12.260 well enough to take the highest paying job. 75 00:07:12.260 --> 00:07:18.020 All that is necessary is that the employer present himself to the employee who is earning 76 00:07:18.020 --> 00:07:27.060 and this is exactly what naturally happens. 77 00:07:27.060 --> 00:07:34.580 The self-interest of employers leads them as if by an invisible hand to ferret out low-wage 78 00:07:34.580 --> 00:07:39.140 workers, offer them higher wages and spirit them away. 79 00:07:39.140 --> 00:07:45.340 The whole process tends to raise wages to the level of marginal productivity. 80 00:07:45.340 --> 00:07:51.180 This applies not only to urban workers but to workers in isolated areas who are ignorant 81 00:07:51.180 --> 00:07:56.820 of alternative job opportunities and would not have the money to get there even if aware 82 00:07:56.820 --> 00:07:58.460 of them. 83 00:07:58.460 --> 00:08:04.700 It is true that the differential between the wage level and the productivity of the unsophisticated 84 00:08:04.700 --> 00:08:11.340 worker will have to be great enough to compensate the employer for the costs of coming to the 85 00:08:11.340 --> 00:08:28.300 The Mexican wetbacks are a case in point. 86 00:08:28.300 --> 00:08:33.540 Few groups have less knowledge of the labor market in the United States and less money 87 00:08:33.540 --> 00:08:37.140 for traveling to more lucrative jobs. 88 00:08:37.140 --> 00:08:43.300 Not only do employers from Southern California travel hundreds of miles to find them, but 89 00:08:43.300 --> 00:08:48.620 they also furnish trucks or travel money to transport them northward. 90 00:08:48.620 --> 00:08:55.700 In fact, employers from as far away as Wisconsin travel to Mexico for cheap labor, workers 91 00:08:55.700 --> 00:08:59.420 receiving less than their marginal product. 92 00:08:59.420 --> 00:09:04.920 This is eloquent testimony to the workings of an obscure economic law they have never 93 00:09:04.920 --> 00:09:06.640 heard of. 94 00:09:06.640 --> 00:09:11.760 There are complaints about the poor working conditions of these migrant workers, but these 95 00:09:11.760 --> 00:09:19.280 complaints are mainly from either well-intentioned people who are unaware of the economic realities, 96 00:09:19.280 --> 00:09:26.600 or from those not in sympathy with these hapless workers receiving full value for their labors. 97 00:09:26.600 --> 00:09:32.960 The Mexican workers themselves view the package of wages and working conditions as favorable 98 00:09:32.960 --> 00:09:36.060 compared to alternatives at home. 99 00:09:36.060 --> 00:09:41.300 This is seen in their willingness year after year to come to the United States during the 100 00:09:41.300 --> 00:09:44.200 harvesting season. 101 00:09:44.200 --> 00:09:50.300 It is not the minimum wage law, therefore, that stands between Western civilization and 102 00:09:50.300 --> 00:09:52.860 a return to the Stone Age. 103 00:09:52.860 --> 00:09:59.240 There are market forces and profit-maximizing behavior on the part of entrepreneurs which 104 00:09:59.240 --> 00:10:05.060 ensure that wages do not fall below the level of productivity. 105 00:10:05.060 --> 00:10:11.500 The level of productivity is itself determined by technology, education and the amount of 106 00:10:11.500 --> 00:10:17.980 capital equipment in a society, not by the amount of socially progressive legislation 107 00:10:17.980 --> 00:10:20.240 enacted. 108 00:10:20.240 --> 00:10:25.660 Minimum wage legislation does not do what its press claims. 109 00:10:25.660 --> 00:10:27.660 What does it do? 110 00:10:27.660 --> 00:10:30.740 What are its actual effects? 111 00:10:30.740 --> 00:10:37.220 That will be the reaction of the typical worker to a legislated increase in wages from $1 112 00:10:37.220 --> 00:10:38.940 to $2. 113 00:10:38.940 --> 00:10:43.500 If he is already fully employed, he may want to work more hours. 114 00:10:43.500 --> 00:10:48.500 If he is partially employed or unemployed, it is virtually certain that he will want 115 00:10:48.500 --> 00:10:50.620 to work more. 116 00:10:50.620 --> 00:10:55.420 The typical employer, on the other hand, will react in the opposite way. 117 00:10:55.420 --> 00:11:01.820 He will want to fire virtually all of the workers he is forced to give raises to. 118 00:11:01.820 --> 00:11:06.320 Otherwise he would have granted raises before he was compelled to. 119 00:11:06.320 --> 00:11:13.900 Now he has to keep production up so he might not be able to adjust this situation immediately. 120 00:11:13.900 --> 00:11:21.340 But as time passes he will replace his unexpectedly expensive unskilled workers with fewer but 121 00:11:21.340 --> 00:11:27.620 more skilled workers, and with more sophisticated machinery, so that his total productivity 122 00:11:27.620 --> 00:11:30.900 remains constant. 123 00:11:30.900 --> 00:11:36.420 Students of an introductory economics course learn that when a price level above equilibrium 124 00:11:36.420 --> 00:11:40.220 is set, the result is a surplus. 125 00:11:40.220 --> 00:11:46.860 In the example, when a minimum wage level above $1 per hour is set, the result is a 126 00:11:46.860 --> 00:11:55.780 The Surplus of Labor, otherwise called Unemployment. Iconoclastic as it may sound, it is therefore 127 00:11:55.780 --> 00:12:04.300 true that the minimum wage law causes unemployment. At the higher wage level it creates more people 128 00:12:04.300 --> 00:12:12.700 willing to work and fewer jobs available. The only debatable question is, how much unemployment 129 00:12:12.700 --> 00:12:19.100 What does the minimum wage law create? This depends on how quickly the unskilled workers 130 00:12:19.100 --> 00:12:26.180 are replaced by equivalently productive skilled workers in conjunction with machines. 131 00:12:26.180 --> 00:12:31.900 In our own recent history, for example, when the minimum wage law increased from 40 cents 132 00:12:31.900 --> 00:12:39.940 to 75 cents per hour, elevator operators began to be replaced. It has taken some time, but 133 00:12:39.940 --> 00:12:43.100 But most elevators are now automatic. 134 00:12:43.100 --> 00:12:46.820 The same thing happened to unskilled dishwashers. 135 00:12:46.820 --> 00:12:53.380 They have been and are still being replaced by automatic dishwashing machinery, operated 136 00:12:53.380 --> 00:12:57.860 and repaired by semi-skilled and skilled workers. 137 00:12:57.860 --> 00:13:00.180 The process continues. 138 00:13:00.180 --> 00:13:06.500 As the minimum wage law is applied to greater and greater segments of the unskilled population 139 00:13:06.500 --> 00:13:13.300 and, as its level rises, more and more unskilled people will become unemployed. 140 00:13:13.300 --> 00:13:20.140 Finally, it is important to note that a minimum wage law only directly affects those earning 141 00:13:20.140 --> 00:13:23.460 less than the minimum wage level. 142 00:13:23.460 --> 00:13:30.540 A law requiring that everyone be paid at least $2 per hour has no effect on an individual 143 00:13:30.540 --> 00:13:33.180 earning $10 per hour. 144 00:13:33.180 --> 00:13:40.580 But before assuming that the minimum wage law simply results in pay raises for low-wage earners, 145 00:13:40.580 --> 00:13:47.340 consider what would happen if a $100 per hour minimum wage law went into effect. 146 00:13:47.340 --> 00:13:53.900 How many of us have such great productivity that an employer would be willing to pay $100 147 00:13:53.900 --> 00:13:56.780 for an hour of our services? 148 00:13:56.780 --> 00:14:01.540 Only those thought to be worth that much money would retain their jobs. 149 00:14:01.540 --> 00:14:13.540 The example is extreme, of course, but the principle which would operate if such a law were passed does operate now. 150 00:14:13.540 --> 00:14:20.540 When wages are raised by law, the workers with low productivity are discharged. 151 00:14:20.540 --> 00:14:23.540 Who is hurt by the minimum wage law? 152 00:14:23.540 --> 00:14:30.540 The unskilled, whose productivity level is below the wage level legislated. 153 00:14:30.540 --> 00:14:37.540 The unemployment rate of black male teenagers is usually underestimated at 50%, 154 00:14:37.540 --> 00:14:42.540 three times the unemployment level of the 1933 depression. 155 00:14:42.540 --> 00:14:47.540 And this percentage does not even begin to take into account the great numbers 156 00:14:47.540 --> 00:14:53.540 who have given up searching for a job in the face of this unemployment rate. 157 00:14:53.540 --> 00:14:58.540 The lost income that this represents is only the tip of the iceberg. 158 00:14:58.540 --> 00:15:04.540 More important is the on-the-job training these young men could be receiving. 159 00:15:04.540 --> 00:15:12.540 Were they working at $1 per hour, or even less, instead of being unemployed at $2 per hour, 160 00:15:12.540 --> 00:15:20.540 they would be learning skills that would enable them to raise their productivity and wage rates above $2 in the future. 161 00:15:20.540 --> 00:15:25.540 Instead, they are condemned to street corners, idleness, 162 00:15:25.540 --> 00:15:31.540 Learning only those skills which will earn them jail sentences at some early future time. 163 00:15:31.540 --> 00:15:37.540 One of the greatest hurdles facing a black teenager is looking for his first job. 164 00:15:37.540 --> 00:15:45.540 Every employer demands work experience, but how can the young black get it if no one will hire him? 165 00:15:45.540 --> 00:15:51.540 This is not because of some employer conspiracy to denigrate minority teenagers. 166 00:15:51.540 --> 00:15:54.540 It is because of the minimum wage law. 167 00:15:54.540 --> 00:16:03.540 If an employer is forced to pay for an experienced level worker, is it any wonder that he demands this kind of labor? 168 00:16:03.540 --> 00:16:12.540 A paradox is that many black teenagers are worth more than the minimum wage, but are unemployed because of it. 169 00:16:12.540 --> 00:16:21.540 In order to be employed with a $2 an hour minimum wage law, it is not enough just to be worth $2. 170 00:16:21.540 --> 00:16:28.300 You have to be thought to be worth two dollars per hour by an employer who stands to lose 171 00:16:28.300 --> 00:16:35.300 money if he guesses wrong, and may go broke if he guesses wrong too often. 172 00:16:35.300 --> 00:16:41.460 With a minimum wage law, an employer cannot afford to take a chance, and unfortunately 173 00:16:41.460 --> 00:16:47.300 black teenagers are frequently viewed as risky as a class. 174 00:16:47.300 --> 00:16:53.540 When confronted with a reluctant employer, a Horatio Alger hero could stride over manfully 175 00:16:53.540 --> 00:17:00.020 and offer to work for a token salary, or even for nothing, for a term of two weeks. 176 00:17:00.020 --> 00:17:05.480 During this time, our hero would prove to the employer that his productivity deserved 177 00:17:05.480 --> 00:17:07.780 a higher wage rate. 178 00:17:07.780 --> 00:17:14.660 More important, he would bear with the employer part of the risk of hiring an untried worker. 179 00:17:14.660 --> 00:17:20.300 The employer would go along with this arrangement because he would be risking little. 180 00:17:20.300 --> 00:17:26.180 But the Horatio Alger hero did not have to do battle with a minimum wage law, which made 181 00:17:26.180 --> 00:17:28.780 such an arrangement illegal. 182 00:17:28.780 --> 00:17:34.980 The law thus ensures that there is less chance for the black teenager to prove his worth 183 00:17:34.980 --> 00:17:37.680 in an honest way. 184 00:17:37.680 --> 00:17:43.360 The minimum wage law hurts not only the black teenager, but the black ghetto merchant and 185 00:17:43.360 --> 00:17:49.560 and Industrialist as well. Without this law he would have access, in a way which his white 186 00:17:49.560 --> 00:17:57.100 counterpart would not, to a cheap labor pool of black teenager labor. The young black worker 187 00:17:57.100 --> 00:18:03.040 would be more accessible to him since he tends to live in the ghetto and would have easier 188 00:18:03.040 --> 00:18:09.440 access to the job site. He would undoubtedly have less resentment toward and a smoother 189 00:18:09.440 --> 00:18:16.720 Another Work Relationship with a Black Entrepreneur Since this is one of the most important determinants 190 00:18:16.720 --> 00:18:22.840 of productivity for jobs of this type, the black employer could pay his workers more 191 00:18:22.840 --> 00:18:28.280 than the white one could and still make a profit. 192 00:18:28.280 --> 00:18:33.500 Unfortunate as the effects on young black workers are, a greater tragedy of the minimum 193 00:18:33.500 --> 00:18:41.120 Minimum wage law concerns the handicapped worker, the lame, the blind, the deaf, the amputee, 194 00:18:41.120 --> 00:18:44.760 the paralyzed and the mentally handicapped. 195 00:18:44.760 --> 00:18:50.680 The minimum wage law effectively makes it illegal for a profit-seeking employer to hire 196 00:18:50.680 --> 00:18:53.280 a handicapped person. 197 00:18:53.280 --> 00:18:58.200 All hopes of even a modicum of self-reliance are dashed. 198 00:18:58.200 --> 00:19:04.080 The choice the handicapped person faces is between idleness and governmentally supported 199 00:19:04.080 --> 00:19:11.760 make-work schemes which consist of trivial activities and are as demoralizing as idleness. 200 00:19:11.760 --> 00:19:17.240 That such schemes are supported by a government which makes honest employment impossible in 201 00:19:17.240 --> 00:19:22.920 the first place is an irony few handicapped people would find amusing. 202 00:19:22.920 --> 00:19:30.020 Recently, certain classes of handicapped people, the slightly handicapped, have become exempt 203 00:19:30.020 --> 00:19:32.360 from the minimum wage law. 204 00:19:32.360 --> 00:19:37.560 It is therefore in the interest of employers to hire the slightly handicapped, and they 205 00:19:37.560 --> 00:19:39.760 now have jobs. 206 00:19:39.760 --> 00:19:45.820 But if it has been realized that the minimum wage law hurts the employment chances of slightly 207 00:19:45.820 --> 00:19:51.840 handicapped people, surely it should be realized that it hurts the chances of others. 208 00:19:51.840 --> 00:19:56.520 Why are seriously handicapped people not exempt? 209 00:19:56.520 --> 00:20:03.080 If the minimum wage law does not protect the individual it seems designed to protect, whose 210 00:20:03.080 --> 00:20:05.280 interests does it serve? 211 00:20:05.280 --> 00:20:08.880 Why was such legislation passed? 212 00:20:08.880 --> 00:20:14.600 Among the most vociferous proponents of minimum wage legislation is organized labor, and this 213 00:20:14.600 --> 00:20:17.600 must give us pause for thought. 214 00:20:17.600 --> 00:20:24.120 For the average union member earns much more than the minimum wage level of $2 per hour. 215 00:20:24.120 --> 00:20:30.360 If he is already earning $10 per hour, as we have seen, his wage level is in accordance 216 00:20:30.360 --> 00:20:34.700 with the law and is not, therefore, affected by it. 217 00:20:34.700 --> 00:20:39.320 What then accounts for his passionate commitment to it? 218 00:20:39.320 --> 00:20:42.840 His concern is hardly with the downtrodden worker. 219 00:20:42.840 --> 00:20:48.560 His black, Puerto Rican, Mexican-American and American Indian brethren, for his union 220 00:20:48.560 --> 00:20:56.360 is typically 99.44% white, and he strenuously resists the attempts by members of minority 221 00:20:56.360 --> 00:20:59.120 groups to enter his union. 222 00:20:59.120 --> 00:21:05.680 What then stands behind organized labor's interest in minimum wage legislation? 223 00:21:05.680 --> 00:21:12.020 When the minimum wage law forced up the wages of unskilled labor, the law of downward sloping 224 00:21:12.020 --> 00:21:18.700 Sloping demand caused employers to substitute skilled labor for unskilled labor. 225 00:21:18.700 --> 00:21:25.180 In the same way, when a labor union composed mainly of skilled laborers obtains a wage 226 00:21:25.180 --> 00:21:32.580 increase, the law of downward sloping demand causes employers to substitute unskilled laborers 227 00:21:32.580 --> 00:21:35.080 for skilled laborers. 228 00:21:35.080 --> 00:21:42.020 In other words, because skilled and unskilled laborers are, within certain bounds, substitutable 229 00:21:42.020 --> 00:21:47.560 for each other, they are actually in competition with one another. 230 00:21:47.560 --> 00:21:54.520 It might well be that it is 10 or 20 unskilled workers who are in competition with, and hence 231 00:21:54.520 --> 00:22:01.900 substitutable for, two or three skilled workers, plus a more sophisticated machine. 232 00:22:01.900 --> 00:22:09.380 But of the substitutability itself, especially in the long run, there can be no doubt. 233 00:22:09.380 --> 00:22:14.780 What better way to get rid of your competition than to force it to price itself out of the 234 00:22:14.780 --> 00:22:16.240 market? 235 00:22:16.240 --> 00:22:22.060 What better way for a union to ensure that the next wage hike will not tempt employers 236 00:22:22.060 --> 00:22:29.220 to hire unskilled, non-union scabs, especially minority group members? 237 00:22:29.220 --> 00:22:34.900 The tactic is to get a law passed that makes the wage of the unskilled so high that they 238 00:22:34.900 --> 00:22:41.380 cannot be hired, no matter how outrageous the wage demands of the union are. 239 00:22:41.380 --> 00:22:47.900 If minority groups could get a law passed requiring all union wages to rise ten times 240 00:22:47.900 --> 00:22:53.020 their present amount, they could virtually destroy the unions. 241 00:22:53.020 --> 00:22:56.700 Union membership would decline precipitously. 242 00:22:56.700 --> 00:23:09.700 Do the unions purposefully and knowingly advocate such a harmful law? 243 00:23:09.700 --> 00:23:12.660 It is not motives that concern us here. 244 00:23:12.660 --> 00:23:15.660 It is only acts and their effects. 245 00:23:15.660 --> 00:23:19.540 The effects of the minimum wage law are disastrous. 246 00:23:19.540 --> 00:23:26.140 It adversely affects the poor, the unskilled and minority group members, the very people 247 00:23:26.140 --> 00:23:28.620 It was supposedly designed to help.