We learned that if workers back out of a job and cause a loss to the person who hired them, they are penalized. But if they back out of a job and there is no loss to the employer whatsoever, they can back out without that penalty, as long as they did not start the job. But if they started the job, they are penalized, as this Mishnah will teach us. The Mishnah says: If somebody hired workers to do a job and they started the job, but eventually backed out because they did not want to finish it, then these workers have the lower hand in terms of their compensation.
The calculation of what they should be paid can be done in two different ways. Let’s say they left the job after completing 50% of what they were supposed to do. They could either be paid for that 50% of the job. Let’s say they were going to paint a house, and painting the house costs $5,000. They could be compensated for 50% of that, or $2,500. That would be one way of taking care of their payment. The other way would be to calculate how much it would cost to hire new employees to take care of the other 50% of the job. Whatever that cost, minus the cost they were supposed to do it for, would be the amount I give them. So basically, I pay them in full minus the amount it would cost to hire another person to finish the job. If they backed out in the middle of the job and the cost for the new workers was more than 50% of what they didn’t do, then they would be paid less than $2,500.
We’ll illustrate it just to make this a little more understandable. Again, the full job was $5,000 for the paint job. They backed out halfway, so now we have to take care of the second 50% of the job. If I hired workers and they cost me $3,000, then according to that way of slicing things, I would give the new workers the $3,000 and give the original workers only $2,000. As the employer, I wouldn’t want to go beyond my $5,000 budget. That’s what we mean by yado al hatachtona (the lower hand). However we calculate it, they are going to have the lower hand in the compensation.
And let’s say the opposite. Let’s say I find workers who would do the second half of the job for $2,000. That doesn’t mean that I now give the painters $3,000 because I was willing to pay $5,000 originally. That just means the employer saves $500 on this job, because those second workers are willing to do it for $2,000 for the 50%, as opposed to $2,500 for that 50%. So no matter how you calculate it, the craftsmen have the lower hand in what they’re compensated when they’re the ones who backed out. But if it was the employer who changed his mind and fired the workers in the middle of the job, then he has the lower hand. However wages are calculated, the pay goes to the workers, not to the employer himself. So you could take the opposite example that we had before. However the calculations work out, the workers are going to get the better end of the deal.
Another way that a worker has the lower hand is if a craftsman or a worker deviates—he changes from the instructions he was given. Let’s say a worker was given a piece of wool and told to dye it red, but instead he dyed it black. There are two ways to calculate this. How much do we have to compensate him for the wrong job of dyeing the piece of wool the wrong color? Either we reimburse him for his expenses—the dye and the equipment that he used—or we pay him for the value of the wool. What is its current value? Whatever ends up being lower is what we end up giving him.
Let’s say there’s a piece of land being sold and part of the payment has been made. Whoever then backs out of the deal is the one who has the lower hand in the negotiation. Let’s say there was a piece of land being sold for a million dollars, and the buyer came and paid $200,000 for that piece of land. But then one of them backed out and decided not to go through with the sale. If the seller backed out, then the buyer has the upper hand. He could choose how he wants the $200,000 he spent on this piece of land to function: either he can get his money back, or he can own a piece of the land. For this million-dollar piece of land, he paid $200,000, so he would own one fifth of that piece of land. But if it was the buyer who backed out, then the seller has the upper hand. The seller could say, “You know what? I want to give you back your money, and I want to take the piece of land.” Or he could say, “I want to keep the money, and I want to give you the one fifth piece of land. It’s yours to keep.” The person who backs out loses the upper hand in the situation, and the person who was backed out on has the upper hand.