The Prejudice Against Midnight Dishwashing; R. Reiland

When my two sons were teenagers, I often thought how fortunate I was that on most Friday and Saturday nights, and plenty of school nights, my kids were here with us in our restaurant grilling shish kabobs and busing tables instead of out driving around. They were never forced to do it, but some how over the years my sons became as Ralph R. Reiland is an Associate Professor of Economics at Robert Morris College and owns AmeI's Restaurant in Pittsburgh. committed to the restaurant as my wife and I. It was a team effort and on Saturday nights it was as exciting and challenging for them as being on a basketball team. Serving 2S0 perfectly cooked meals in an atmosphere of hectic fun was our goal. One morning we got a call at the restau rant from the grandfather of one of our employees. "Jay was riding his bike home from a friend's house last night" he said, "and he was hit by a car." Jay, 15, was a dishwasher on school nights and a busboy on weekends. He had left work at nine o'clock. At eleven he was killed.

I think about the irony of that night when I hear Labor Secretary Robert Reich assail Burger King because some kid worked an extra hour. The reality is that kids can be a lot safer in a restaurant kitchen than they are in the streets. When it came to funding for Midnight Basketball many politicians understood the importance of keeping kids busy and off the streets. Far better to play ball than be drinking and driving, doing drugs, or getting some tenth-grader pregnant. But there's no three-hour limit on the games and the labor secretary won't be there at 4 a.m. to regulate the coaches or hand out multi-million dollar fines if someone cuts his finger. Those who get the largest number of kids dribbling till dawn willbe invited to the Rose Garden to pick up kudos from the president and a big check from the taxpayers. The 221 222 THE FREEMAN • APRIL 1995 most successful restaurateur, on the other hand, who creates real jobs for the largest number of kids, is more likely to find himself demonized.

"These kids will be learning sportsman ship," said a Labor Department spokesman when I questioned him about the double standard. "The difference is that you're involved in commerce." Somehow it's not commerce or trade when millions of dollars are extracted from a taxpayer's pocket to buy basketballs and pay coaches and ad ministrators. And because I have a bottom line, there's no White House ceremony when I keep a kid out of trouble by having him do real work-learning how to clean, cook, and work with people, seeing the connection between work and reward, earn ing tuition money, helping his mother pay the rent, building self-confidence by earning income. "The myth of the Triumphant Individual may have outlasted its time," proclaims Secretary of Labor Reich. "To the extent that we continue to celebrate the traditional myth of the entrepreneurial hero, we will slow the progress of change essential to our economic success .... We must begin to celebrate collective entrepreneurship. " Mr.

Reich is fond of hyperbole, condemning the private sector, indulging in wild accusa tions about companies' 'who sacrifice work ers on the altar of profits. " Since the healthcare debate, I've devel oped a sensitivity about public officialswho tour the land condemning business owners. "These are greedy people who have no social conscience," said California Con gressman Pete Stark. "These people don't care about their employees," said Senator Edward Kennedy. And it was, of course, the first time a First Lady has taken to the road to insult business owners as "freeloaders" if they weren't paying for health insurance for every worker. The assumption is that we are to be mis trusted and stereotyped as greedy profi teers. Midnight Basketball is smart and moral, while midnight dishwashing is ex ploitative and illegal. It's an ideology that has delivered billions of tax dollars to failed public sector programs and excessive fines, confiscatory tort law, and regulations to the business sector.

When Secretary Reich dismisses the" en trepreneurial hero," as he so cynically puts it, as a "myth," he ignores the reality that small businesses create the bulk of the jobs-and the virtues that go with these jobs-in this economy. Collectively the For tune 500provide fewer jobs than they did ten years ago. One can only speculate as to why Reich has such a distaste for triumphant individuals. The labor secretary has deliberately missed the key economic and political les son of our time. In every part of the world, the arrogant and counterproductive policies of overblown governments have flunked the test. Does anyone in the Labor Department ever wonder why the thousands of Cubans fleeing" collective entrepreneurship" never see anyone paddling in the opposite dkoctioo? D Spread the Word! A year's subscription to The Freemanis a perfect birthday or thank-you gift for dis cerning relatives, friends, and neighbors.

First gift (or your own new subscription or renewal): $30.00 Each additional gift $15.00 Call us at (800) 452-3518-or fax your order: (914) 591-8910. For orders outside the United States: $45.00 for the first subscription; $22.50 for each additional gift. L-- ~.~ THEFREEMAN IDEASON UBERTY First-ClassMail, Third-Class Competition by Robert A. Collinge and Ronald M. Ayers P icture a storefront in a strip mall. "Let ter Express" declares the fa~ade. On display in the window is the sign: "Why pay 32 cents and worry if it gets there on time? Guaranteed letter delivery anywhere in the country within two days for $3." You have a letter to mail. Not an urgent letter, but you'd just as soon have it get there sooner rather than later. You enter the store and hand over your letter and $3. "You're under arrest! You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to an attorney .... " Yes, you have broken the law, by stumbling into a "sting" operation by the United States Postal Service. You have stolen 32 cents from the Postal Service, and willbe forced to hand it over, along with a fine.