Many thanks for your comments.
CB: There is a Constitutional provision barring the feds/states from impairing the rights of contracts, so the govt. can't interfere with the employment contract might be another argument.
=======
So where's the bar to self-enslavement contracts and vote selling, prostitution, drugs etc. come from as these can be considered "welfare enhancing" under neoliberal econ.?
********* CB: CB: Equal protection does not apply to private parties. There must be state action.
======
Why? Isn't it state action to say EP doesn't apply?
It seems, following Diane Elson's great essay in the latest Socialist Register collection, that this is one of those fissures we should be pressing against in an accessible way to the younger wage slaves...
BTW Elson's work is great to read alongside David Ellerman's critique of capitalist employment theory as a violation of democratic theory.
Ian