Have You Tried Paying Your Workers More, Sweetie?
Have You Tried Paying Your Workers More, Sweetie?
I'm sick and tired of small business tyrants crying to the media.
Americans are brainwashed from a very early age to worship at the altar of Business. One of the capitalism’s holiest saints are “small business owners.” The phrase alone conjures images of a mom-and-pop diner where everybody is one big happy family.
Unfortunately for that mirage, America made a business decision a long time ago to allow corporations to roll over a majority of our local businesses. (Next time you’re driving into small-town Ohio, be sure to note how many businesses are corporations that extrapolate local wealth and ship it back to executives at its coastal headquarters.)
This has put pressure on your small-time entrepreneur in a way that led the geniuses at Street Fight Radio to coin the term “small business tyrant.” It’s one of those brilliant phrases to which nobody needs a definition unless they themselves are the subject at hand.
I know one such tyrant in Marion. I grew up with him, actually. He recently built a massive house and seems to spend a majority of his time on social media posting pictures about his kids (good) and griping about how hard it is to find decent help these days (bad). The latter is a curious decision to say the least for a man that pays roughly $10 an hour in 2021.
My interest was piqued when I saw our eugenics-experiment-gone-wrong of a Lieutenant Governor tweet some prime small business tyrant propaganda:
Hilarious take from the lieutenant governor of a state that’s unemployment system was so archaic we had to enlist nerds at Google, IBM and Experian to sort the system out while hundreds of thousands of Ohioans went weeks and months without the money to which they are legally entitled.
I don’t think it’s hard to figure out why people are hesitant to work indoors among strangers in a state that has let coronavirus run amok in order to maintain business profits. But hey, let’s see what these tyrants in Watesrville think their problem is.
From Steve Hayes of thedispatch.com (not to be confused with The Columbus Dispatch):
But the Andersons—and the dozen small and medium business owners we spoke to for this report—say generous unemployment is the primary problem. A line cook at Dale’s Diner starts at $11 per hour, up $2 per hour over what it was before the pandemic, according to Bill Anderson.
Wow! This man is surprised people don’t want to work for the princely sum of $11 in the middle of a pandemic. For those scoring at home, that’s $21,000 a year — before taxes.
Meanwhile, in downtown Columbus, here is the floor plan of an apartment “starting at” $965 a month:
Let’s assume I work for the Andersons at $11 for 40 hours a week. It’s assuredly closer to 35-38 hours a week to avoid classifying me as “full-time” but let’s give them the benefit of the doubt. That gives me $1760 before taxes a month. I could spend over half my income and get a 488-square-foot apartment in Columbus and have $765 left over for things like food, bills and health insurance.
Maybe working for a nice mom and pop would make up for my beggars wages?
The Andersons have had to ask more of their current staff. More hours, more flexibility, more patience. But they lived in such fear of an employee quitting that they were reluctant to ask them even to do routine jobs. “You tiptoe around,” says Liz. “You say: ‘Can you clean this … please?’ You’re very cautious.” They preemptively offered financial rewards to some of their key employees, including a $1,500 loyalty bonus to their kitchen manager. It didn’t work. “The last straw,” says Liz, “our kitchen manager just walked. When she walked, I said—‘We just can’t do this anymore.’ Our life was really being negatively affected by this.”
Oh my fucking god. The absolute horror of having to say please to somebody that works for you. In the olden days you could simply call them a lazy piece of shit and threaten to fire them. These days you can’t even be toxic enough to entice your employees to work under you for a $1,500 “loyalty” bonus.
*Touching my ear piece.* Wait, hold on… receiving some breaking news over the wire about the Andersons’ other business in Maumee, Ohio.
From toledoblade.com in October 2020:
A video shot during last week’s Ohio State University football game showing bartenders not wearing masks led to viral debate, and so has a response by bar owner Bill Anderson on Facebook.
…
Mr. Anderson wrote that state restrictions on businesses are unconstitutional and criticized such restrictions’ impacts on businesses and employees.
“While the vulnerable need to shelter and protect themselves during this pandemic, I believe others need to live each day, celebrate and find the joy in life that is quickly being stripped away from all of us,” he wrote.
No wonder workers are walking away from starvation wages and $1,500 bonuses. The Andersons are assholes who aren’t offering people jobs, they’re offering exploitation.
They can’t run a business any other way so instead of taking a pay cut themselves and paying living wages, they’re going crying to the media about how America’s paltry social safety net is the real problem despite having their business saved multiple times by the Paycheck Protection Program.
You’ll notice every single piece on the fictional “labor shortage” always centers around business tyrants whining about the help these days. They never ask them have they ever considered offering potential workers more money? And they never, ever find workers to ask them why they don’t want to work in a warehouse with sweatshop conditions for $12 an hour and no benefits.
Maybe one day America will stop worshiping at the altar of business. All we have to do is look around to see where that has lead us.
THOSE WMDs. The original Associated Press report on Lincoln’s assassination… Some of Matt Gaetz’s high school classmates could see his sex scandal coming… Deep cleaning isn’t a victimless crime… The blue states that make it hardest to vote… On DMX: A man named Earl… How to stay sane as a female deckhand in Alaska.
Wow, can't believe someone doesn't want $21k a year to work in a COVID hotspot for a dude that spouts that masks are unconstitutional. It really is a wonder
The article about Gaetz is behind a pay wall.