According to a press release by the Department of Industrial Relations, the first day of 2012 will see the launch of a new “task force,” named in such a way as to forever doom it to confusion with an illiterate group of left-handed supremacists – the Labor Enforcement Task Force (LETF).

LETF will include the DIR, Employment Development Department, Contractor’s State License Board and several others.  The stated goal is to cut down on the “underground economy” of unreported labor and the attached uninsured employees.

No doubt this is the result of earlier noises coming from Sacramento, promising to combat take the $7 billion of the underground economy and bring it once more into the light of the Golden State.  The effectiveness of this new unit will be revealed in the months and years to come, no doubt.

The press release fails to explain where California found funding for this new unit, but your cynical blogger’s guess places the source squarely in the bottomless well of California’s employers.

Honest employers in California always plot that dangerous course between Scylla and Charybdis.  Although LETF may cut down on the Scylla of a competitor’s lower overhead (reached through overhead cuts such as the illegal treatment of workers’ compensation insurance and tax obligations), the danger of Charybdis, an over-regulating and over-litigating workers’ compensation system, remains firmly present on every employer’s horizon.

To my dear Letfists – Bonne Chance!