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Who Owns The Job?

publication date: Feb 25, 2011
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author/source: Chris Prang
Who owns the job? What are you talking about? What do you mean, who owns the job? Many people mistakenly think (like those teachers in Wisconsin) that they own their job. They don't own their job, their employer, no matter who that may be, owns their job.


The last time I checked, you don't pay to acquire a job like you do a business, franchise or territory. The employer, business or government pays you to do a job. If you don't like the terms, then you are free to seek a higher or better bidder. That's the great thing about Free Enterprise. While the employer/the payer may own the job, they don't own you.


These teachers in Wisconsin think the government owes them something or that they are entitled to something they have not purchased or lawfully acquired. This is a socialist and communist mindset. These teachers have the same mentality that many people on welfare, medicare, medicaid, social security and unemployment have. And that mindset is "the government owes me something and I am going to get as much as I can from the system." I would liken it to thievery.

As followers of Christ we should be opposed to unions and not align ourselves with them. As an employee, if I don't like the wage, terms or working environment I have with an employer I have several options:

  1. Go to my employer in a Christ-like way and let them know the situation. I could ask them how I can make the arrangement a win-win situation. If the employer is doing something unrighteous, then I should go to them and let them know...even at the risk of losing my job, tenure and reputation.
  2. Seek other employment.
  3. And best of all, develop my own business. I would encourage every family to be praying about what kind of Christ-honoring business they can start. You can start small. Each family member can have their own business where there will be multiple streams of income coming into the family instead of just one. NOW THAT IS DIVIRSIFICATION.

Here is a post from Douglas Wilson on Who Owns the Job?


Just a quick note about "collective bargaining." The real question for those who would understand the nature of unions is the question of ownership. Say there is a particular job at the office building, or at the factory, or in the shop on Main Street. Who owns that job?

The assumption behind collective bargaining is that the one who holds the job owns the job. The biblical understanding is that the one who offers the job owns the job (Matt. 20:15). This is not the same as saying that the employer is a great guy. No, the owners of jobs are frequently evil, and they abuse their position of ownership (Jas. 5:4).

Labor/management disputes often fall into a false good guy/bad guy dichotomy, and it betrays a false understanding of the antithesis. In the Bible the owners are often the bad guys. But that does not mean they are not the owners of the jobs they offer. Bad guys can own things. And the commandment does not say, "Thou shalt not steal, except from bad guys."

So there is absolutely nothing wrong with employees collectively deciding that conditions on the job are horrendous, and deciding en masse that they don't want to work there anymore. And there is no problem with them negotiating with the owner from that collective position. Say they are asking for a raise, or for safer working conditions. That is fully legitimate as well. What is not legitimate is for them to lock up the job they have abandoned as though they are the owners of it. To refuse to work a job that you simultaneously lay claim to is a claim of ownership, which in this case is a false claim.

This sin (and it is a sin) is in evidence when strikers attack what they call "scabs." Scabs are workers looking for employment, and the horrendous conditions on the abandoned job would, in their instance, be an improvement.

In other words, collective bargaining is nothing but extortion, and Christians should do everything in their power to have nothing to do with it.

Go here for Douglas Wilson's blog.



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