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Bill: Freedom of Industry Act, 2157
Details
Submitted by[?]: Liberal Imperialist Party
Status[?]: defeated
Votes: This is an ordinary bill. It requires more yes votes than no votes. This bill will not pass any sooner than the deadline.
Voting deadline: September 2158
Description[?]:
| It is not in the interests of business, for PR as well as practical reasons of caring for their workforces, not to introduce safety regulations. However, the current arbitarily-enforced government regulations are not specific to any business, and undoubtably are unnecessarily restrictive in a way that regulations written up by individual businesses themselves would not be. Therefore we propose this act to free business from red tape and allow Rutanian industry to flourish. |
Proposals
Article 1
Proposal[?] to change Health and safety legislation for industry.
Old value:: The government introduces and actively regulates health and safety legislation in all areas of industry.
Current: The government introduces and actively regulates health and safety legislation in all areas of industry.
Proposed: The government recommends health and safety legislation, but they are not actively enforced on industry.
Article 2
Proposal[?] to change Government regulation of pollution in industry.
Old value:: The government enforces moderate pollution restrictions.
Current: The government enforces moderate pollution restrictions.
Proposed: The government provides pollution prevention guidelines, but does not enforce them.
Debate
These messages have been posted to debate on this bill:
| Date | 19:36:30, December 18, 2005 CET | From | Grand Republican Party | To | Debating the Freedom of Industry Act, 2157 |
| Message | The Grand Republican Party will tenatively support the second article. However, the first article is a concern to us; we are deeply concerned that no health and safety regulations would mean empolyers treating employees badly and giving no health and safety equipment or training, neglecting them and harming their inalienable rights to a safe environment. |
| Date | 20:05:12, December 18, 2005 CET | From | Liberal Imperialist Party | To | Debating the Freedom of Industry Act, 2157 |
| Message | If workers are treated badly, they can leave and join companies that treat them better. It is not in the interests of a company to train a work force and then put it at unnecessary risk, but equally it is not an \"inalienable right\" for someone else to be forced to silly and arbitary government health and safety standards when it is easy to put in place guidelines that are much more relevant to your own business. |
| Date | 20:08:16, December 18, 2005 CET | From | Grand Republican Party | To | Debating the Freedom of Industry Act, 2157 |
| Message | The GRP ishes to enquire about contracts; all workers sign somekind of contract when entering a place of employment, and it may be difficult or even impossible for an employee to leave a company with poor health and safety issues without great difficulty and legal issues. |
| Date | 20:20:45, December 18, 2005 CET | From | Liberal Imperialist Party | To | Debating the Freedom of Industry Act, 2157 |
| Message | Then they should research the company before applying for a post. If people are too lazy to enqurie about health and safety before they apply, then they can ahrdly complain that health and safety regulations are too lax for them. However, as I have already stated, it is in the interests of companies to maintain APPROPRIATE health and safety regulations for the following reasons: 1) PR - an unsafe company is unlikely to sell their goods as widely, as they will gain a bad reputation. 2) Hiring - people are unlikely to want to work at a company with a poor safety record. 3) Protecting their investment - recruiting and training people takes time and money. Companies will want to protect that. 4) Protecting their machinery - Accidents rarely just involve employees. Usually they involve damage to equipment which is expensive and time consuming to replace, resulting in lost production. So what can we conclude from this? Firstly, we can conclude that it is in a company\'s interests to maitain adequate health and safety, and that a company that does not will probably lose out in the long run to one that applies APPROPRIATE health and safety regulations upon itself. On the other hand, if health and safety regulations are INAPPROPRIATE and arbitarily applied by an outside body (such as the government) then the pendulum is likely to swing the other way and unecessarily impair business and producivity. We arent saying we oppose health and safety regulations, just that they should be applies by individual businesses, not by blanket government legislation that covers all business, regardless of whether or not the law is appropriate or not. |
| Date | 20:29:29, December 18, 2005 CET | From | Grand Republican Party | To | Debating the Freedom of Industry Act, 2157 |
| Message | Whilst the LIP speaker makes excellent points, the GRP agrees that these points are excellent in regards to small and medium-sized companies. However, large companies such as Nike and Nestle (We\'ll say they exist here to avoid OOC chatter) are well-known for treating employes badly and having extremely poor and oftem non-existent health and safety requirements. It is in fact often cheaper for them to employee new workers when ones die from accidents; their products are so cheaply manufactured that the occasional destruction of a warehouse or workplace from poor health and safety is never more than a tiny blow to their profits. Many people are so desperate for work to feed themselves and families and significant others that they will ignore or even not enquire about health and safety conditions for fear oflosing employment opportunity. |
| Date | 20:37:05, December 18, 2005 CET | From | Liberal Imperialist Party | To | Debating the Freedom of Industry Act, 2157 |
| Message | This the case only because they operate in countries where labour is cheap and unskilled, which is not the case in Rutania. In a country where manufacturing is likely to be mechanised, a skilled machinist or mechanic is likely to be highly valued. |
| Date | 20:39:20, December 18, 2005 CET | From | Grand Republican Party | To | Debating the Freedom of Industry Act, 2157 |
| Message | Some areas of Rutania may well be in this state, we do not know (OOC: We don\'t actually, do we?) and thus may be affected. |
| Date | 20:40:12, December 18, 2005 CET | From | Grand Republican Party | To | Debating the Freedom of Industry Act, 2157 |
| Message | OOC: If Rutania is a westernised, skilled labour market and not like China ans the far east, then I guess I\'ll tentatively support this bill. |
| Date | 20:47:14, December 18, 2005 CET | From |  Freedom Party | To | Debating the Freedom of Industry Act, 2157 |
| Message | How about a change in article 1 to the government sets down guidelines that can act as a standard for employees to know what they should be. Thus similar to article 2. If that is changed, we would support this bill |
| Date | 20:58:52, December 18, 2005 CET | From | Grand Republican Party | To | Debating the Freedom of Industry Act, 2157 |
| Message | The GRP likes the suggestion of the Freedom Party; if this sensible change weremade, the GRP would fully support this bill. |
| Date | 21:25:18, December 18, 2005 CET | From | Liberal Imperialist Party | To | Debating the Freedom of Industry Act, 2157 |
| Message | \"Some areas of Rutania may well be in this state, we do not know (OOC: We don\\\'t actually, do we?) and thus may be affected.\" OOC: No, but we generally assume that Rutania is at least moderately wealthy. FP and GRP - We would agree to that. |
| Date | 21:42:37, December 18, 2005 CET | From | RSDP - Democratic Front | To | Debating the Freedom of Industry Act, 2157 |
| Message | OOC: I'll respond to the new bills in the morning, I have neither the time nor the patience to address this capitalist dribble at the moment. |
| Date | 23:23:46, December 18, 2005 CET | From | Liberal Imperialist Party | To | Debating the Freedom of Industry Act, 2157 |
| Message | OOC: I think you mean "capitalist *drivel*". ;-) |
| Date | 00:35:21, December 19, 2005 CET | From | Radical Freedom Party | To | Debating the Freedom of Industry Act, 2157 |
| Message | We must oppose this proposal in the strongest terms. Health and safety regulations are vitally important in guaranteeing the rights of workers. This proposal would severely strengthen the position of big corporations which want to abuse workers. If there is somethign wrong with the standards imposed we urge the Freedom Party to propose measures adressing them. This is throwing away the child with the bathwater. Likewise, we strongly believe that the government ought to impose reasonable pollution standards. We have a fight against Global Warming which would be compromised by lowering our pollution standards. OOC: you assume Rutania is like the U.S. but if you look at the infrastructure settings etc it isn't really very developed at all :/ |
| Date | 00:37:28, December 19, 2005 CET | From | Radical Freedom Party | To | Debating the Freedom of Industry Act, 2157 |
| Message | We find the arguments of the LIP weak. The reality of the situation is that in a market with unemployment, it is employers and not employees which can pick and choose their companies. A Rutanian who is a trained engineer for example does not really have an infinite choice of applications, and could be branded as "troublesome". The RFP favours the free market, but do we really need to go back to 19th century exploitative industrial capitalism? What is next? Child labour? |
| Date | 09:41:46, December 19, 2005 CET | From | Liberal Imperialist Party | To | Debating the Freedom of Industry Act, 2157 |
| Message | Just because there is unemployment in the general populace does not mean that there will be unemployment among specific skill groups. Trained engineers and mechanics, for example, are likely to be much rarer than "employment" in general. This is true of any society. With regards to child labour; if children want to work they should be allowed. Obviously they should not be forced. No one would propose that. |
| Date | 19:40:15, December 19, 2005 CET | From | Liberal Imperialist Party | To | Debating the Freedom of Industry Act, 2157 |
| Message | Since there are no more comments, I shall put this to vote. |
| Date | 21:04:20, December 19, 2005 CET | From | Freedom Party | To | Debating the Freedom of Industry Act, 2157 |
| Message | OOC: RFP, those settings mean absolutely jackshit IC: These guidelines will be there for employers to follow, if they follow them, then good, employees will be more willing to work there, if they dont follow them, then employees will know and will be less inclined to work there. |
| Date | 21:33:01, December 19, 2005 CET | From | RSDP - Democratic Front | To | Debating the Freedom of Industry Act, 2157 |
| Message | You are talking utter bullshit. Your entire reasoning is based on generalisations and assumptions. It is not in my interest to call you a stupid idiot, yet if you piss me off that is exactly what I will do. There will always be companies which try to find sneaky ways to pollute the environment or cut back on health and safety because they think that will save them money. We must not allow the health and safety of our Rutanian citizens, or our beautiful Rutanian environment, to be compromised by pure greed. Enforcing these standards is the only way to protect the rights of our citizens, whether you like it or not. The only alternative is allowing companies to put their employees and the entire Rutanian people at risk. Numerous scandals involving companies have proved this. |
| Date | 01:03:02, December 20, 2005 CET | From | Conservative Party | To | Debating the Freedom of Industry Act, 2157 |
| Message | OOC: Does this mean the stats are getting a reset before they go 'live'? |
| Date | 15:36:50, December 20, 2005 CET | From | Liberal Imperialist Party | To | Debating the Freedom of Industry Act, 2157 |
| Message | RSDP are you even going to attack my points, or just dismiss them as "utter bullshit" with nothing to back that up, and then threaten to call me a "stupid idiot" if I retort? |
| Date | 18:35:19, December 23, 2005 CET | From | Freedom Party | To | Debating the Freedom of Industry Act, 2157 |
| Message | RSDP, your entire arguments and reasoning on capitalism are assumptions and massive generalisations. |
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Voting
| Vote | Seats | |||||
| yes |
Total Seats: 126 | |||||
| no |
Total Seats: 342 | |||||
| abstain | Total Seats: 131 |
| Random fact: Google Translate can help you with those language translations: https://translate.google.com/ |
| Random quote: "The moral justification of capitalism does not lie in the altruist claim that it represents the best way to achieve 'the common good.' It is true that capitalism does, if that catch-phrase has any meaning, but this is merely a secondary consequence. The moral justification for capitalism lies in the fact that it is the only system consonant with man's rational nature, that it protects man's survival qua man, and that its ruling principle is justice." - Ayn Rand |