longreads, Philosophy, politics, rights, Thoughts on Life

The Company Store

  Does an employer have the right to impose restrictions on the ways is which an employee uses the benefits and compensations that are earned by an employees labor?  Do they have any right to such privileged and private information?  I would like to think that this would not even be a question that ever needed to be asked in this country.  Most especially given all the fights in our history to gain workers rights to do with their pay as they see fit. This has, however, become an issue lately with church run hospitals, employers with religious beliefs feeling they are within their rights to make such mandates on how the compensation to their employees is used.   They offer health benefits, yet feel they can tell you that you cannot however, use it for birth control or other things they, as your employer, have “moral” issues with.  And many think that they are within their “rights” to make such conditions.  I don’t.  And they are backed by many vocal politicians who feel they are in their right to impose such conditions. There was a time in our history where companies owned entire towns.  The people they employed were required to live in their houses, buy their good from the company store, conduct all their business transactions through company approved sources.  Employee uprisings and union support eventually put a stop to that.  I am not a huge supporter of most of the unions today, but I give credit for the changes they made in the past that have carried over into the present day;  better safety standards, reasonable work hours, employee rights and the right to use your pay in any way and at any place you see fit. Your health care benefits are part of your compensation package.  They are a part of your paycheck.  That’s all there is to it, plain and simple.  They are the property of the employee.  An employer should have no more right to impose how your insurance is used than they should have in how you spend your earned dollars.  For, they are one and the same.  You earned them, they are your’s.  Stating that you can’t use those earned dollars to purchase birth control pills, get any other medication or procedure is the same as telling you what stores you can shop at, what purchases you can make, what you do for entertainment. Once you leave the company for the day, what you do is of no business to them.  You would have every right to cry foul if they handed you a list of “approved” stores where you could spend your money, activities you could engage in, food and sundry items you were allowed to purchase.  I doubt there is a single person who would not be outraged at such a concept. Yet, many seem unable to see that this is the same thing.  Its not “their” insurance”.  Its your’s.  Just as your pay is.  Its the same thing.  Its part of your earnings.  Period.  What you do with it is your business, not their’s  It is your funds to do with how “you” and you alone see fit.  You worked for them, you earned them.  You have the right to spend them where you want, squander them, gamble them away, give them to the beggar on the corner or make purchases from your employer’s competitor.  Your insurance is a matter that is only between you and your health provider. I don’t understand why or how this has ever become a question. Or are we on our way back to the company store?  
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