Hello, DSeid. Please note my views may not reflect all of “Libertaria” as you put it. This is my viewpoint.
I’m assuming you are harvesting these harmful toxins because doing so will result in a profit for you and your shareholders. It serves your purposes to provide the most efficient and safest way to harvest these toxins, because by doing so you will get the most profit for your company.
An employee hurt on the job due to your negligence means one less employee to harvest the toxins. This will slow down your productivity and ultimately hurt your bottom line. Therefore, I would think, as the owner of this company, that the well being of your employees is very important to you.
Let’s assume, however, that you couldn’t care less about the well being of your employees. Someone gets hurt by the toxins, and instead of rushing them to the hospital and paying for their care and investigating the accident to prevent it from happening again, you shove them out the door and say “You’re on your own.”
The other employees see this, and morale starts to drop. They begin to question the wisdom of working there, and begin to investigate their options. Employees begin to leave, productivity drops.
In the meantime, the fired employee begins to talk to the press. 60 Minutes does an expose, your customers cancel their orders in protest. The Appalachian Squid Ink Harvesting Company goes out of business.
Now, I am in no way an expert on poverty levels in Appalachia. I have no way of knowing what they would consider their options. However, in my experience, no matter how good the job, when you can’t tolerate it any more, no amount of salary raises would make a difference.
This is of course, an extreme example. Libertarians believe that you can do what you like, as long as what you do does not deprive someone else of life, liberty, or property. If the work environment is such that you deprive your employees of any of the three, then yes, you are breaking the law.
I still submit the employer-employee relationship is not coercive. No one forces me to go to work…I go because I enjoy it and because I have bills to pay and things I want to do. If I don’t want to work there anymore, I will quit. It is then solely my responsibility to take care of my bills and anything else that crops up.
Please note, I do not presume to speak for all Libertarians. This is my view. Others may have differing opinions.