Should the government interfere in employer-employee relations?

Obviously, if left to their own devices, big corporations will take any advantage of employees that they can. And before unions, they did so. Blue collar workers do not sign individual contracts. The jobs are always take it or leave it. The Government needs to step in with some guidelines, especially regarding employee safety and working conditions. Minimum wage is also becoming a major issue that needs to be addressed by the Government. Vacations, leave, etc. are still left open. The US is one of the few developed nations, that does not guarantee vacation time.

There have to be limits to the employer/employee contract. Since most employees in the US work At Will, without any contract, then the government has to have some basic intervention in the system. The difficult part is to figure out where the line between not enough and too much intervention is.

Without government regulation, employers would be back to where we were in the late 1800's. Read "The Junge" by Upton Sinclair. This is what happens when the free market system is allowed to operate with minimal or (too) limited regulation.

The free market cannot provide fairness for everyone. A fully free market would have employees as slaves, serfs and indentured servitude.

A "free market" approach would only work if everyone has enough money to be able to turn down offers that don't appeal to them. For companies that means not selling goods for less profit than they want (meaning it's very expensive). For employees that would mean not taking jobs that don't compensate them properly. For employers that means not hiring people that want more than they want to pay out.

Since in the real world all the money seems to start in the hands of the people doing the hiring, they get to dictate the terms of employment, and if prospective employees don't take what they're offered, they will soon be homeless and will starve.

People used to be able to farm for their own food and trade excess to make their living, so they didn't need to depend on others for employment. But that's not really possible today without the large amounts of money needed to start such an endeavor: the land, equipment, seeds and water for farming cost more money now than they ever have in history.

Without a government involved as a third party, people with excess money will always be able to dictate terms to those without, and can keep them in that state. This isn't necessarily out of any nefarious will on the parts of those with the money, though it frequently is. How else can we explain American companies (Hanes and Levis most prominently) fighting to keep Haiti from instituting a $.21/hour minimum wage? Less than $2.00 a day - this is far less than street buskers can make in any large American city. I've met some that make more than 50 times that from street performances.

The problem with government involvement is when those with money are allowed to influence the government with it - which is how Hanes and Levis were able to persuade the US State Dept. to pressure Haiti to not institute that minimum wage. Imbalances of money caused failures in government for both the US and Haiti to protect individuals.

For heaven's sake!

Before 1940's where did employees get "health coverage"? They bought their own. Do you know why employers started offering health coverage? They did it because the government froze wages! Yes, your beloved government froze wages, so "corporations" had to find another way to compensate employees so that they, you guessed it, didn't leave. Employees need to look out for themselves. If this means they unionize, then so be it.

Every time you say "we need a law" to FORCE (men with guns will do the enforcement), you give up a liberty. I will not give up any liberties. So, I oppose this idea, STRONGLY.

Yes.

This is such a minimalistic question that those who answered "No" should be ashamed of themselves, because they do not believe it.

Even minimally, government is going to be used as a mechanism to enforce contracts between employers and employees. There's hundreds of years of precedent for both common and civil law to bound the range of permissible contracts. It is reasonable to demand that no worker be asked to work in a workplace that is markedly less safe than would be reasonably possible.

But government should also bound the market in broader ways too. I eventually believe in replacing capitalistic work relations with more just institutions (specifically parecon institutions), but for now the government should amplify justice by constraining the market.