Please send your comments on the Hours of Work policy brief to the author. Below is a sampling of responses to the fable, Time and a half and a tooth fairy, too, which was based on the analysis contained in the brief:
"I want to thank you for sending us this piece over the EH.Disc listserv a few weeks ago. My colleagues and I (Labor Economists all) enjoyed it very much and plan to hand it out to our classes in the future. Thanks again."
"I'm afraid you have grossly misread Ron Ehrenberg's
work . . .
As for your story, it is an interesting
example of loose logic leading to questionable
conclusions."
"I am afraid the tale has much merit. The New Directions movement in the UAW has been trying to point this out to the UAW membership and to Solidarity house for over a decade. Alas the tale falls on deaf ears."
"The notion that this is a deliberate strategy invoked by overtime (with the implicit laissez-faire lunancy that employers should be able to make workers work as long as they want without paying overtime) doesn't stand up to the most minimal of historical and social investigations."
"I hope you will do a complete write-up of your analysis
of the overtime pay issue so that it will have the
trappings which seem to be required these days in order
to receive serious consideration by economists . . .
In
the future, I will incorporate your piece as a
supplementary reading."