NationStates

Roland Schulz looks up from his desk, clearly bored. "Great, another one of thos working we.... oh, wait. This means no more of those? Yeah, allright, for, whatever."

We'll approve this.

Any tweaks on the wording needed? I've softened a couple of the clauses as I remember last time around there was considerable concern that I was forcing a "libertarian" resolution on everyone (somewhat unlikely from the pen of Lori Jiffjeff), but I haven't changed the main clauses - but am happy to do so.

Also, does anyone spot any legality issues? I've been reminded before that just because a proposal cleared the mods one time doesn't mean it will do so again, so I'd rather avoid having any questions of that sort arise.

In the Name of the Eternal Kawaii, may the Cute One be praised

We can support this proposal. The Diaspora Church does not concern itself with the conduct of petty material matters such as deciding the working hours of a business, and we see no reason the WA should intrude in such matters as well.

My government is choosing to support this proposal. My government is uncomfortable with the practice of blockers and generally considers them to be encouraging stagnation, and we would have preferred to see a draft proposal on working times that targeted only longer working hours of 50 hours or upwards, but we appreciate that is a failure of the authors of those proposals rather than a reflection upon this proposal.

OOC: I do hope Macwick appreciates how thoroughly they shot themselves in the foot thanks to their unwillingness to take a pragmatic approach.

Man....

As much as it pains me, I will have to support this endeavor. Why did it have to be Gruen that wrote it?

It will not surprise colleagues to know that my government is opposed to this. However it has been stated that there are two clauses that do things.

One says nations cannot have working time regulations that unfairly remove decision-making power from the individual level.

While the other says nations can have working time regulations in the general interest. I don’t see how the second can ever apply.

This seems to me to be a way to remove the working time regulations that many nations already enjoy. There could be regulations that state there is a maximum number of hours that can be included in an employment contract as we have. There could be regulations about the minimum wages to be paid that we have. There could be regulations about the minimum rates for overtime based on the normal time rate, such as Hakio has. If this proposal passes I cannot see how these regulations can be justified. I cannot see how my government can make employment contracts of 80 hours a week illegal.

Macwick wrote:One says nations cannot have working time regulations that unfairly remove decision-making power from the individual level.
...
If this proposal passes I cannot see how these regulations can be justified.

The qualifier "unfairly" is intended to allow each nation latitude in determining whether those restrictions are legal or not. If your nation believes that removing the ability of individuals to sign a contract committing them to excessive hours of work is fair, then the restriction is legal.

Nonetheless, seeing as there is so much confusion on this point I think it's easier to just edit the proposal.

Mandates the removal of working time regulations that serve only to reduce individual liberty and that do not serve any other purpose;

Just go ahead an submit this. It is not going to get any better, and you have overwhelming support....

Thank you for amending your proposal. How would you feel about just deleting the whole clause? If you believe it is not the concern of the WA what regulations nations have, why have the clause at all?

You would be left with

Reserves the right of all nations to choose whether to set specific regulations on workweeks and working time in the general public interest;
Endorses policies aimed at delegating decisions concerning working time regulations to the most local level possible;

These together leave each nation to decide themselves without any enforcement from the WA one way or the other. It would still block any future moves to impose working time regulations by the WA.

Macwick wrote:Thank you for amending your proposal. How would you feel about just deleting the whole clause? If you believe it is not the concern of the WA what regulations nations have, why have the clause at all?

You would be left with

Reserves the right of all nations to choose whether to set specific regulations on workweeks and working time in the general public interest;
Endorses policies aimed at delegating decisions concerning working time regulations to the most local level possible;

These together leave each nation to decide themselves without any enforcement from the WA one way or the other. It would still block any future moves to impose working time regulations by the WA.

I think I'd then be running the risk of making the proposal illegal. Every resolution has to have some effect so as to match the category. So while I'm happy to soften the language further, I can't complete remove all reference to "enforcement from the WA one way or the other", as the proposal would then no longer be legal.

Comrade, it is fine as it is written. I have examined it several times.

Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky
Chairman, Yeldan Committee for State Security

Iron Felix wrote:Comrade, it is fine as it is written. I have examined it several times.

While I'm too busy to support that statement 100%, I can definitely advice against making any changes suggested by the Macwickian ambassador. They've proven themselves incapable of being reasoned with.

We are ideologically opposed to the principle that the individual is paramount in all this. Each individual employee have responsibilities to the group of employees as a whole, to their employer, to the local and national economy, to national society and to international society. The same applies to each individual employer. We are trying to build and maintain a society, not a collection of individuals.

Whereas this legislation would wreck our collective bargaining system on which all our economic success is based. The organisations representing employers, the unions, the government, and any other relevant lobby or representative groups meet every five years and set out the plan for the next five years. Working time regulations have always been sorted out by this group and then given the force of law by the legislature which has never yet disagreed with the recommendations. It's a fantastic way of building consensus.

Yet, given the current wording of clause 3, we don't see that any part of our system would now be disallowed. We don't like the preamble but we are rather meh about the operative clauses. Therefore, we will neither support nor object to the proposal.

I agree with what you put in.

Tsarist Chernigov wrote:I agree with what you put in.

What who put in?

EDIT: Gruen, the text looks good to me. Go for it.

Take the "II" out when you submit. No reason to make others pointlessly wonder why it's there once this goes primetime.

I'm so looking forward to telling all the workweek people to shut the hell up once this passes. Get on with it already.

Once our Overseas Affiliate Territory has the requisite political capital, we'll submit this, title changed, but until then any last changes can still be made.

Omigodtheykilledkenny wrote:Take the "II" out when you submit. No reason to make others pointlessly wonder why it's there once this goes primetime.

I'm so looking forward to telling all the workweek people to shut the hell up once this passes. Get on with it already.

"You took the words right out of my mouth."

Gruenberg wrote:Any tweaks on the wording needed? I've softened a couple of the clauses as I remember last time around there was considerable concern that I was forcing a "libertarian" resolution on everyone (somewhat unlikely from the pen of Lori Jiffjeff), but I haven't changed the main clauses - but am happy to do so.

I see a couple of wording problems. In literally no particular order, they are ...

Mandates the removal of working time regulations that serve only to reduce individual liberty and that do not serve any other purpose;

I'm not sure if the red text is a restriction or a commentary. If it is the later, it's too vague to give the clause effect. (Almost every working time regulation has *some* excuse.) If it is commentary it does eliminate some necessary regulations for safety reasons such as times truck drivers can drive continually without a break.

Endorses policies aimed at delegating decisions concerning working time regulations to the most local level possible;

Do we really need a federalism clause in here? It might result in a derailment as people argue about national vs federal government structures.

Thank you Gruenberg for your answer. I am getting to quite like

Mandates the removal of working time regulations that serve only to reduce individual liberty and that do not serve any other purpose;

I wonder if you could clarify a couple of clauses in your proposal -

Reserves the right of all nations to choose whether to set specific regulations on workweeks and working time in the general public interest;
Endorses policies aimed at delegating decisions concerning working time regulations to the most local level possible;

Do you believe that “reserves” and “endorses” are such that if your proposal was passed no future proposal to regulate workweeks and working time could be passed?

Macwick wrote:...if your proposal was passed no future proposal to regulate workweeks and working time could be passed?

That has more or less explicitly been the intention of this from the start, no? It was stated up front that this resolution is a response to some prospective resolutions that proposed using a dull hatchet to perform brain surgery. Now, to protect themselves, everyone's looking into buying helmets that won't come off without a serious, serious effort, even if they're approached tomorrow by an accomplished neurosurgeon with micro-robotic tools, an electron microscope, and guaranteed success. Congratulations, ambassador - you've managed to destroy any goodwill your cause might have had. Insisting (by way of "No, I'm right, you just don't understand!") on using a battering ram to unlock a glass cabinet tends to have that effect.

Macwick wrote:...if your proposal was passed no future proposal to regulate workweeks and working time could be passed?

Henceforth the term blocker....

Frustrated Franciscans wrote:I'm not sure if the red text is a restriction or a commentary. If it is the later, it's too vague to give the clause effect. (Almost every working time regulation has *some* excuse.)

Yes, I'm aware this clause has a very big loophole. That's deliberate. It wouldn't be much of a blocker if it took a sharply anti-sovereigntist line.

Frustrated Franciscans wrote:Endorses policies aimed at delegating decisions concerning working time regulations to the most local level possible;

I'm inclined to agree, though I'd call it subsidiarist rather than federalist. I don't think the clause is needed, though, to meet the category requirements.

Macwick wrote:I wonder if you could clarify a couple of clauses in your proposal -

Reserves the right of all nations to choose whether to set specific regulations on workweeks and working time in the general public interest;

Do you believe that “reserves” and “endorses” are such that if your proposal was passed no future proposal to regulate workweeks and working time could be passed?

That's the intention. I can't say whether that will actually be the effect. National Economic Freedoms was a "blocker" resolution, but it was totally neutered by a moderator ruling. Something similar could happen to this proposal, and I would obviously be powerless to stop that. All I can say is that in my interpretation and the interpretation previously adopted the last time this passed, it would block most proposals to regulate working time.

Bananaistan wrote:Yet, given the current wording of clause 3, we don't see that any part of our system would now be disallowed.

It wouldn't. Collective bargaining was brought up last time (by Ardchoille, as a player) and despite the rhetoric of the proposal, the actual effect wouldn't prohibit working time arrangements being negotiated collectively rather than by individuals.

Chester Pearson wrote:Just go ahead an submit this. It is not going to get any better, and you have overwhelming support....

Ha, well, thanks! I don't actually think this has a chance of passing, but it will be submitted nonetheless. I'm going to wait till Monday though as I dislike submitting over the weekend.

OOC: Meh. I don't particularly like blockers, but I'll support this.