Thursday, February 04, 2010

Over-Regulated? You Be the Judge

Not "news", but an ongoing joust. Why?

At least a couple of reasons. Unions and unionized contractors. Not to mention typical bureaucratic loutishness.

The [Wisconsin] statute on reporting requires contractors provide their names, the type of work performed by every employee on a prevailing-wage project, an accurate record of all hours worked and the wages paid for that work.

But DWD’s reporting spreadsheet, which was finalized last month, contains 50 fields for contractors to complete, including requests for Social Security numbers, straight and overtime hours for each day, weekly wage and hour totals, union status and union affiliation.

FIFTY-column spreadsheet? FIFTY??

We all know why the law was passed in the first place: so that the Building Trades unions could contact non-union workers and "help them" decide to organize. That's not news. It's Jim Doyle and Mike "the Date" Sherman.

DWD's fifty-column requirement lets us speculate that Wisconsin's unionized contractors are happy campers since DWD is adding lotsa paperwork-burdens to their non-union competitors. Forcing the competition to add cost is a common trick in the "rent-seeking" bag.

Beyond that is the loutish DWD mentality. To State agencies, adding a few bodies here and a few bodies there to fill out FIFTY COLUMN SPREADSHEETS is no big deal. Simply walk up to the taxpayer, place your gun to his head, and demand the money.

Simple, right? So what's the problem?

Oh, I dunno. Maybe being #3 in job-loss ratio nationally?

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