Sunday, September 01, 2013

YOUR EMPLOYER'S BUSINESS PLAN SIMPLIFIED: FEAR, GREED AND HERD INSTINCT.


The fast food workers of the world, or to be specific, those who have stood up and demanded a living wage for their labor, are in my opinion the bravest and most righteous workers that I have seen or heard of from in a long, long, time.

Fast food: it's not a teenager's rite of employment passage anymore. Nowadays the college educated head of a family is out flipping burgers and running the register. Why? Well, it's the economy, stupid. As manufacturing and tech jobs make their way overseas and corporations get greedier and more skinflint-like with their strategy, many companies are hideously understaffed on purpose. For any of the work still paying anything halfway decent, and even (or rather especially) for skilled occupations, the jobs are limited thanks to the psychopathic level of profit taking and preservation.

The pathetic environment created by this economic idiocracy is only further cultivated by the cowards remaining in the labor pool who can (usually barely) pay their bills. They are scared shitless to address staffing issues, or the ongoing decimation of their pensions and health benefits, or the numerous other cost cutting stunts seemingly only in action in order to ensure that executives get fat paydays, with management thrown a semi-meaty bone occasionally for aiding in the bloodletting.

I have a suggestion for resolving the fast food plight. The gummint can do the following: specifically reach out to fast food employees earning starvation wages. Give each and every one of these employees food stamp assistance, free or greatly reduced cost health care, and as many forms of assistance as can be conceived to help their financial shortcomings. In return, tax the FUCK out of the franchise owners paying these pitiful wages. Give them an alternative, though. If they raise pay to a living wage for their employees, the taxes are reduced to an amount which would give them incentive to do so.

The alternative to that plan would be if rank and file workers from all areas finally had the spine to organize and address the shortcomings and employment tactics in their respective workplaces. The power of today's social media, combined with good old fashioned in-person meet and greet networking, can go a long way to lash back against the fools who are trying to squeeze the sponge of the economy.