As A Man Thinketh - James Allen

While IR laws are a matter of balance, would an employer dismiss a hard-working employee?

"Here is a man who is wretchedly poor. He is extremely anxious thathis surroundings and home comforts should be improved, yet all thetime he shirks his work, and considers he is justified in trying todeceive his employer on the ground of the insufficiency of hiswages. Such a man does not understand the simplest rudiments ofthose principles which are the basis of true prosperity, and is notonly totally unfitted to rise out of his wretchedness, but isactually attracting to himself a still deeper wretchedness bydwelling in, and acting out, indolent, deceptive, and unmanlythoughts." (James Allen, As a Man Thinketh)

Isn't the matter more one of ensuring that there is proper payment for overtime?

"Here is an employer of labour who adopts crooked measures to avoidpaying the regulation wage, and, in the hope of making largerprofits, reduces the wages of his workpeople. Such a man isaltogether unfitted for prosperity, and when he finds himselfbankrupt, both as regards reputation and riches, he blamescircumstances, not knowing that he is the sole author of hiscondition." (James Allen, As a Man Thinketh)

Ultimately, there are limits to what law can achieve in IR - motivation and honesty are moral values that have their own just reward:

"I have introduced these three cases merely as illustrative of thetruth that man is the causer (though nearly always is unconsciously)of his circumstances, and that, whilst aiming at a good end, he iscontinually frustrating its accomplishment by encouraging thoughtsand desires which cannot possibly harmonize with that end. Suchcases could be multiplied and varied almost indefinitely, but thisis not necessary, as the reader can, if he so resolves, trace theaction of the laws of thought in his own mind and life, and untilthis is done, mere external facts cannot serve as a ground ofreasoning." (James Allen, As a Man Thinketh)