Chapter 18 - Labor Laws

It had been a week and Raymond had not fired her yet. So he probably got over it. She could see that while he was eating the sandwiches, he began to relax and appreciate his surroundings. They actually stayed a lot longer than Lilith predicted and when he was done, he got up with a sigh.

But that was when he remembered what Lilith had done and he sent a scowl at her before walking back into the house and going back to work.

Feeling successful, Lilith picked up the empty tray and went back to the kitchen. Mrs. Potts said that she was happy that Lilith did that and Gloria told her that she was glad that Lilith worked with them.

And now, there was something else that Lilith needed to convince Raymond to do. Go to his father’s banquet. She heard the other staff talking about it and how they wondered if he would be going this year. And since the King was going to be killed within his year, she wanted Raymond to see him on his birthday. When he died he would feel guilty for not going and that would really bother him, so Lilith wanted to get him to go.

But it didn’t seem to be going very well. He used the fact that she kept him outside for all that time as an excuse to needing to do more work to make up for all the time he lost.

“How many times a year do you see your father?” Lilith asked him.

“I’m not sure,” he mumbled.

“See, that should be enough for you to go. He’s your parent, you should at least visit him on his birthday.”

Raymond shook his head. “Well he does not visit me on my birthday, so why should I see him.”

“That was… the most childish thing I have ever heard you say.” she cracked a smile.

“Well it’s true.” he scribbled something on one of his papers.

“It’s just for a day. And can’t you find someone to take over for you. Do your work just for a day. That’s not impossible. Creona is a place filled with smart people.”

“And that’s the most childish thing I have heard you say. Have someone take over my work. Impossible.”

“Oh, it can’t be that hard.” Lilith rolled her eyes.

“Really?” He raised an eyebrow.

“I mean I’m sure a lot of brainpower comes with it, but all I see you doing all day is reading papers and signing them, and then I have to mail all the letters you send.”

“And what do you think I’m doing all this time? Since it can’t be that hard, why don’t you take over for me while I go to the banquet?”

Lilith knew exactly what he was doing. She was a history major and in that she had studied the politics that went behind Creona in order to understand the past better.

“Sure.” Lilith went up to the desk and looked at the papers in his hand.

They were about the labor laws currently in place. She knew it was all in anticipation of his brother’s ruling. Lilith admired him for wanting to protect the rights of the people. She would have thought him indifferent, but at least he was trying to do his part before things would get worse. And to some degree, what he did actually helped, but it was not enough.

“I know that you are trying to put in place better labor laws for the citizens. And so, you’ve had to go back and forth between different officials so that you all can agree on one thing before it gets signed off permanently.”

The thing about studying history was that Lilith got to see where people went right and where they went wrong. And with the wrong, came the solutions by the historians as to what they should have done and now it would have had an impact in the future.

“I also know that one of the officials is giving you a hard time because the way the labor laws are right now is working for him and so he does not want to agree to anything.” Lilith looked over his papers. “Hmm, yes, Mr. Downey-Briggs, I’ve learned about him with all the time that I was made to help clean up the mess of papers you have.”

Gently taking the papers from his hands, she looked over it. “Trying to adjust the laws a bit here and there to try and make him happy isn’t going to make a difference because if it’s a small change then he can just work around them. So, my suggestion would be not to change the hourly wage but make it so that the forty-hour workweek is spread out evenly among the days, with Sundays and Saturdays off, and then pay the workers based on how much of the given work they completed during the forty hours.

“Of course, there should be measures in place to make sure that employers do not take advantage of that, but I’m sure you can figure out all the bells and whistles of that. I would also suggest making it so that workers can choose between working for eight hours for five days or for five and half hours every day. So that they can test out their workload and see how much they get. Let me tell you, with some of these jobs making their workers work for twelve hours a day, that’s just inhumane and wrong. But anyway, I think that should be enough to satisfy your Mr. Downey-Briggs.”

Lilith placed the papers back in between Raymond’s hands and smiled. “Now that that’s settled. I expect to be seeing you leave to go to your father’s banquet when the day comes.”

Raymond just stared at her with his mouth slightly open. There was no way that she should have been able to come up with that solution like that. Raymond had been so busy trying to work around Mr. Downey-Briggs that he had not considered going in from a new angle. How could someone with the education level that Lilith had come up with a solution like that. Or was the answer that obvious that he completely missed it?

And Lilith just went back to organizing the books on the floor next to him. As if she had not just taken a week’s worth of headache away from him.