Worker "Apathy"

There's a local business owner expressing his/her thoughts on the corvallis craigslists rant and rave board. (Check it out and offer up your own thoughts.) On the one hand, this person is pretty progressive in their supporting of a single payer health care system and unions. However, out of the other side of their mouth is a very judgmental, harsh, critical analysis of today's "apathetic" worker. Gone is the work ethic, they observe. No wonder employers prefer to hire those from Mexico, he/she says.

Uh huh. How progressive is this person, really? That was my question. Below is what I posted in response to their words.

Like you, I support unions and a single payer health system.

I would like to say though that the reason for the decline in the work ethic is because people are no longer paid a wage that has kept up with the cost of living. In today's market, the minimum wage would need to be around $15/hour. In the 1960's, the minimum wage was 94% of what the living wage was. Today, it's hovering around 50%.

Workers feel enslaved today because their wages are so pitifully low and benefits are a luxury, which leaves many to fend for themselves for health care coverage. Do you have any clue how scary it feels to be unable to afford health care? To think that when you're sick, you hope it's just a cold and that it doesn't turn into an infection. To hope and pray you don't get some serious illness because god knows you won't be able to afford it. THINK before you speak please.

People who come here from Mexico think a minimum wage job is a luxury because IT IS--compared to where they come from. And frankly, employer's treat so many of these folks like cattle--paying them below the minimum wages, under the table (to avoid taxes), working them long hours, all to save a buck. WE ARE TALKING ABOUT HUMAN BEINGS HERE.

Please don't insult today's workers and their work ethic without taking into consideration the very realities of what has happened to wages and benefits.

Honest to god, if employers truly want a reliable, responsible employee, you have to be willing to pay a living wage and offer some benefits, and at the very least, FIGHT FOR THESE RIGHTS for your workers. Now I realize offering health care benefits has become out of reach for many of today's small business owners and our government needs to be as equally supportive of these folks as they are of their corporate minions.

Stop insulting the american worker online and instead get involved politically, as a business owner. Join in with other small business owners. Organize! Fight for the changes you claim you are for!

Until such changes take place, worker apathy will continue. Rather than gripe about such attitudes, have some compassion and understand the struggle. It is exhausting. Point the finger where it belongs--at the System, instead of at the worker.

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Honest to god. What do these moronic employers expect from us? They expect us to show up, work hard and pay us $10...$11/hour (or less) while offering us no health care insurance and little, if any, vacation? When, 25 years ago or so, the SAME situation would be bringing us a LIVING WAGE AND FULL BENEFITS?! WHY IN THE HELL WOULD ANY SANE PERSON CONTINUE TO WORK UNDER SUCH CONDITIONS AND MAINTAIN THAT AMERICAN "WORK HARD" ETHIC??!!! We're not fucking cattle! We're not fucking computers! WE ARE PEOPLE WITH EMOTIONS, FEELINGS, DESIRES. AND LIMITS!!

Maybe we should call it for what it really is. Worker fatigue. It isn't a result of a poor work ethic. No, it is not. It is, indeed, a result of a System that no longer supports Joe and Jane American Worker.

So there you go employers, big and small. STOP POINTING THE FINGER AT YOUR WORKERS AND POINT IT AT THE SYSTEM. Quit your bitching and organize with other small business owners, organize with your workers, and FIGHT to change the system together. We'll ALL benefit this way.