'Sorry for the wait times'

I knew a business owner whose philosophy was to pay a few top people — ”star performers” or “alpha dogs,” he called them — a decent wage to keep them loyal and productive.

The rest of the business’ positions were designed to be transient — lower-paying, entry-level spots for people to learn the ropes, gain some skills and then go elsewhere. They would then be replaced by another crop of newbies.

It was a pretty good plan, I guess, if the owner’s main goal was to sleep at night.

It didn’t work out so well in the waking world. The expected churn of eager new recruits, who gain marketable skills and go forth to greater renown and salaries, didn’t occur. Instead, the newbies stayed and stayed, growing more disgruntled with each paycheck.

This flawed business strategy is similar to the one embraced by Americans who object to paying workers a living wage. They will argue, like the business owner in my example, that some jobs are designed as starters, that people in these jobs will eventually move along, and that paying them more only devalues the workers who have improved themselves through further training.

The sad reality is that many Americans are trapped by low wages. They can barely afford to keep body and soul together, let alone budget for reliable transportation or additional education. Any hope for the future is buried by the day-to-day challenges of the present.

So they remain, toiling at low-paying job or a series of them, suffering the indignity of being “essential” without the salary that should accompany the designation. Maybe if they worked one position with a living wage, they could afford the training to transition into better employment.

That so many Americans refuse to recognize the deleterious impact of low wages betrays the contempt they have for the very people who keep the wheels of industry turning.

This contempt is apparent in the reactions of many owners who are competing with a $300 federal weekly bonus, scheduled through June 26 in Ohio, during this global pandemic. The bonus means it is temporarily more cost-effective for many workers, especially in the service industry, to stay home and collect benefits than to resume minimum-wage drudgery.

Smart employers, meanwhile, are finding ways to entice workers back with flexible hours, real pathways to advancement and even — gasp! — competitive wages.

Less savvy employers take to the signs and chalkboards in front of their establishments, whining to customers about how sorry they are for long wait times, but “nobody wants to work.”

These passive-aggressive missives shift the blame for the company’s faulty business model onto the back of the workforce. A more honest message would be: “Sorry for the wait times. Workers aren’t willing to be taken advantage of right now.”

But have no fear — the capitalistic urge toward exploitation is reasserting itself. Many states, including Ohio, soon will require workers to prove they are looking for work while collecting unemployment. In effect, these states are forcing workers back into poverty a few months earlier.

Other states are cancelling the $300 weekly bonus altogether, citing alleged employee shortages that are keeping the economy from bouncing back fully.

Taking money away from struggling Americans is not the answer. Instead, we as a society need to address the inequalities of a system where, in 2018, the average CEO made $265 for every dollar the average worker made, the largest such gap in the world.

Fixing a broken system doesn’t mean all jobs are worth the same salary or that workers should be disincentivized from trying to better their situations. It does mean that everybody deserves fair wages based on the cost of living in the place they live.

If this idea is somehow radical or revolutionary, it speaks to how far we’ve traveled down a road where workers are valued less as human beings and more as capital to be exploited.

chris.schillig@yahoo.com

@cschillig on Twitter