Are Employees Productive Labor Units?

Do corporations own their employees? In some regards they do, of course often this is an agreed upon deal at the time of hiring. Plus, there are regulations that the government places on corporations and thus, they must safeguard against accidents, mishaps, and fraud in the workplace, therefore place additional restrictions on their employees, which will include their free-time or leisure time away from work.

Also, often the employers due to intellectual property issues cannot, or will not allow their employees to do other jobs. So back to the original questions:

1. Are employees merely "productive labor units" in the eyes of the corporation?
2. Do the corporations own their employees?

Now the, perhaps you can see where contract law, civil law, and civil rights all clash in a myriad of instances, scenarios, and circumstances, often understood, make sense, and feel right - but not always, and some are after the fact, that is to say additional restrictions after hiring, and one could easily call such rules, regulations, and restrictions unacceptable. So, what are there all these rules then?

Some of the reason is the over-regulation, it's just amazing, and anyone with a professional license often has to just do what they do, nothing else, otherwise the government will pull their licenses, for instance those in the financial industry. Indeed, it's not just their either. I just read the DHS won't let people have a second job, or income, or even run a small home-based business unless approved. I understand why, but holy heck what about the "right to free contract" as that is in our constitution, it's still there last time I checked.

Even in small businesses, they maintain the reasonable requirement that you don't moon-light, sign a non-compete clause, and do not use the training that they pay for to work in the industry for someone else. Meanwhile, at the corporate level, head-hunters are busy stealing each other's employees for their competitors. And let's not forget "loose lips" sink ships and therefore, there really are good reasons for all this.

If employees are merely "productive labor units" then they should be able to take those labor units elsewhere for better pay, leaving a free-market for employment, but if the corporation pays for training, then the employee should understand the reasoning for the non-compete terms. Either way it appears to be a fine-line in the law, and it seems to change from state to state, and country by country. Indeed, I hope you will consider this branch of law from a more philosophical perspective.

Lance Winslow has launched a new provocative series of eBooks on Future Concepts. Lance Winslow is a retired Founder of a Nationwide Franchise Chain, and now runs the Online Think Tank; http://www.worldthinktank.net