I wrote not long ago about the continuing saga of Rhea Lana Riner of Conway and that the U.S. Department of Labor lawyers and bureaucrats contend the volunteers in her children's consignment sales events are paid employees.
The mother and lots of others said that's another preposterous government overreach and sued the agency in federal district court. Her lawsuit was recently dismissed. She's, understandably, appealing.
In agreeing with Riner that the illogical bureaucrats at the Labor Department must have been sipping from the swill of the polluted Potomac River, I wrote a column supporting her cause and wondered where our elected congressional representatives has been in coming to her aid.
Well, I'm pleased to report that GOP 2nd District Rep. Tim Griffin and Sen. John Boozman, and the rest of the state delegation, have answered that question in the best way they can.
Griffin and Boozman both introduced bills more than a year ago specifically aimed at eliminating the federal government's ability to deprive Rhea Lana from using volunteers who gain shopping advantages (but not salaries or direct compensation) from their contributions to the sales events.
Griffin's co-sponsored bill is officially known as the Children's Consignment Event Recognition Act. At its heart lies pure-dee, old-fashioned common sense.
The congressman and senator both are standing with the rest of our state's delegation against the numbskull bureaucracy of Labor regulation wonks who contend the volunteers who are allowed to shop for consignment clothes as gratitude for their services fall under the nation's Fair Labor Standards Act. That means they are subject to that agency's regulations and harassments, which, of course, include penalties.
In a press release issued at the time, Rep. Griffin introduced his bill (that continues to wander through committees and subcommittees on the Hill), the state's newly elected lieutenant governor said: "President Obama's Department of Labor is attempting to apply decades-old regulations to new and innovative companies like Rhea Lana's in Conway, and thousands of moms who are able to find high-quality, affordable clothing for their children are the ones most likely to suffer from it. It's not fair to them, and my legislation would exempt children's consignment events from these costly, unnecessary and burdensome regulations so that our economy can continue to grow naturally, from the bottom up."
Those who've followed the wholly un-American case know Mrs. Riner's franchises hold the periodic children's consignment events in more than 60 locations nationwide.
The consignors volunteer their services as salespeople at Rhea Lana events, and receive early shopping privileges and 70 percent of their total sales. Griffin's statement said this "allows consignors to set up and operate these events and to serve brief shifts. This facilitates the sale of low-cost children's clothing to families."
The congressman emphasized that the Labor Department has allowed exemptions from the Fair Labor Standards Act for volunteers who receive minimal compensation for their services, but unfortunately the agency "concluded that these consignors are FSLA-covered employees, requiring substantial alteration to Rhea Lana's business model and affecting thousands of families that rely on Rhea Lana's consignment events."
Co-sponsored by GOP Reps. Womack, Crawford and GOP Senator-elect Tom Cotton, Griffin's bill, as well as Boozman's companion legislation in the Senate, would ensure the consignors are exempt and the nation's consignment events like Rhea Lana has nurtured can continue without unnecessary, burdensome regulation.
Riner has said how grateful she is that Griffin and Boozman and the state's delegation have stood up to be "incredibly supportive of the rights of moms to use their personal time to benefit their families."
As we await the appeal results of her lawsuit against the Department of Labor (that should never have been dismissed) it's reassuring to me and the people of Arkansas that all of our elected representatives to Congress acted to support the entrepreneurial mother from Conway.
Yes, Mrs. Riner, good for each of these public servants and, well, bad for me for not initially realizing they each had acted to defend your interests more than a year ago.
This ongoing dispute also affirms my belief that the biggest obstacle to ever overcoming the gross dysfunction in Washington, D.C., always has been its entrenched armies of agency bureaucrats who realize if they can hunker down long enough, they invariably survive those elected to represent we the people.
The needless hamstringing and intimidation in the Riner case also provides a prime example of the lack of fair play and common sense that exists in so many agencies bloated beyond reason with these well-compensated minions constantly striving to validate their positions.
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Mike Masterson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at mikemasterson10@hotmail.com.
Editorial on 12/16/2014