HEAVY-HANDED FEDS GO AFTER VOLUNTEERS

WASHINGTON -- Autumn, season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, this year will also be a season of mayhem as congressional Republicans reach the climax of their attempt to get the government on a shorter leash. To get in the mood to enjoy this blood sport, consider the way the people at radio station KTOZ-AM in Springfield, Mo., spent their summer. They spent it suffering the attentions of the U.S. Department of Labor, which caught KTOZ's people committing the unspeakable faux pas of doing volunteer work.

Last year the little 500-watt daytime station, which covers an 80-mile radius, was bankrupt, but was cherished by a smattering of people fond of its music format of big bands, jazz and blues. Nineteen of them who fancied the chance to be amateur disc jockeys scraped together $35,000 to buy the station from a bankruptcy court, invested $60,000 in new equipment and began volunteering their time to keep it on the air.

This came to the attention of a commissar in the Labor Department's Kansas City outpost. He was gnawed by the fear that this volunteerism was a low and cunning dodge to evade the rigors of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, thereby mocking justice and jeopardizing American prosperity. So he saddled his charger and rode to the rescue of the volunteers, undaunted by the fact that they, in their unregenerate state, did not want to be rescued.

They were having fun, and that was not even the worst of it. They were not being paid the minimum wage of $4.25, and the law is quite strict about the fact that all "employees" of a for-profit business must be paid at least that so America can be a land fit for heroes and so the government can collect its FICA taxes.

Speaking as if to a particularly dim 5-year-old -- slowly and with precise enunciation -- the people at KTOZ explained that they were not employees and the station was not making a profit and would the commissar enjoy hearing some Glenn Miller? But your tax dollars buy bureaucrats made of sterner stuff than the Springfield scofflaws supposed; the bureaucrats cannot be deflected from their duties merely by reasonable explanations.

The commissar told them that the government is large-spirited and latitudinarian, willing, when the spirit moves it, to give specific exemptions to the minimum wage requirement. But KTOZ's volunteers had not tugged their forelocks and said, "Mother may I?" to the government. Therefore the station might have to pay back wages and interest and maybe a fine. The implication was that they should thank their lucky stars that Alcatraz has been closed.

Now, you might think that even a commissar would have sufficient sense of the absurd to note this: It is pathetic but true that the achievement of which President Clinton is proudest is AmeriCorps, the oxymoronic little program that seeks to enkindle the spirit of volunteerism in this country (in which about 90 million people do volunteer work) by hiring about 20,000 "volunteers." So why is his Labor Department trying to stamp out true volunteerism in Springfield?

Because it is all so unfair, as an unrepentant Labor Department official in Washington stoutly insisted in a letter to the congressman from that district, explaining that the investigation of KTOZ has been discontinued but was virtuous:

"The Department's decision not to pursue this matter should not be viewed as condoning work for no pay. There are very good and strong policy reasons why for-profit companies are not allowed to employ people for no pay. First of all, those practices take wages out of worker's (sic) pockets and force everyone's wages down."

Amazing, is it not, how migraine-inducing the government's reasoning can be? Yo, Labor Department: What do you -- what can you -- mean by the phrase "employ people for no pay"? Let's take this slowly: They. Are. Not. Employees. (Are we going too fast?) Concentrate: V-o-l-u-n-t-e-e-r-s. And what wages are being taken out of whose pockets by people donating labor without which the station would be stone silent?

KTOZ's listeners burn with the spirit that chased the redcoats back to Boston from Concord bridge. One suggested organizing a KTOZ fan club: "To get the feds' attention, we could call it the `KTOZ Militia'." Many lawyers volunteered -- that dread word again -- to help defend KTOZ without pay. Can they be disbarred for that offense?

This week a congressional committee will consider changes to the 1938 law to make volunteerism less obnoxious in the squinty eyes of the government. And if in coming weeks you wonder whence springs the passion behind the grinding down of government, remember KTOZ's story, and imagine how many Americans have had comparable experiences.

George Will is a columnist for the Washington Post.