Reforming the workplace, improve society
As the nation emerges from the pandemic and businesses start to open up for full capacity across the nation, many businesses are suffering labor shortages. Republicans argue that it is because of the added money some states have issued on top of standard unemployment compensation. In Michigan that is an added $300 week, effectively doubling the amount of compensation unemployed workers are getting. Yet there is a reluctance to go back to work. The right, of course, blames the added money as well as calling such hesitant workers lazy. But what is really going on is that people have been provided an opportunity to not be quite so desperate to go back to jobs where in many cases they are abused by the system and can’t make close to a living wage.
Lest some of you older workers who have professional style jobs forget, the service/retail industry takes advantage of workers at an awful rate! Here are just a few of the indignities and difficulties our fellow citizens have to put up with in the service and retail sector:
1. Up front, of course, is the wage which is far from a livable wage in ANY area of the country much less even close to $15 per hour in many places
2. Not enough hours- Heck, even with an increased hourly wage, many companies hold down hours per employee to keep them from being labeled full-time by labor standards of a given state, thus avoiding the often legally mandated benefits that would come with full-time status.
3. Not getting enough hours? Get a second job, right? But wait! Modern business managerial practice is to treat all employees as if YOU were their only employer. There is virtually NO effort on the part of managers to schedule their staff to facilitate them getting a second job conveniently to try to make ends meet.
4. More on scheduling which twins with item #3 above- scheduling software tied to the computerized data from a given retail/service sales data tells managers when to add staff and when to send them home. It is NOT uncommon for the scheduled hours to be in the middle of a shift and only for four (or even only TWO) hours a day, further making employees jump through hoops on transportation or childcare issues
5. Childcare- this issue has been widely discussed during the pandemic, but it is expensive and not often available for evenings and third shift workers. Half-day kindergarten classes also complicate the schedules and availability of parent.
6. Forced “on call” scheduling- in which the employee must remain available for a day or a shift, but may not be called in if the establishment is not busy. But the employee MAY be forced to come in on short notice, again for limited number of hours, yet still having to maintain the same costs in transportation as if they were on a regular scheduled work shift.
To all of these egregious scheduling activities, simply add poor management skills and ill-treatment of staff. One recent study illustrated that stable scheduling would enhance workers loyalty and productivity [1]
A couple anecdotes from my college days. I worked full time while going to university full time. One of my jobs was at a very busy Burger King in downtown Kalamazoo. Several of us university students who were to be on the restaurant's 3rd shift (10pm to close) started off on 2nd shift training. The 2nd shift staff was mostly high school kids managed by adult managers. These managers were some of the worst I’d ever seen. Bullying and yelling at the staff.
One incident, they told an Iranian immigrant college student to mop the floor which he proceeded to do. Apparently not fast enough because the manager rushed over at a point and STOOD on the mop and yelled at the new employee for several minutes asking why it was taking so long to mop! His tirade lasted longer than the task of completing the mopping would take.
Another example, we got behind on loading frozen burger patties onto the conveyor which moved the burgers through the flame broiler to cook. I rushed back and began loading the frozen patties and the manager (actually likely an assistant manager) began yelling at me “why did you let it run out?” and then demanding I stop loading burgers so I could more fully concentrate on his tirade. I simply said “do you want to stop loading burgers to listen to you or keep loading so we can catch up?”
Other employees in retail are routinely harangued for some alleged theft when the register doesn’t balance correctly even though it could be a simple error.
Then you have management that schedules staff for a start time but when the employee shows up, well it’s not yet busy enough- go sit over there until told to clock in.
And that is just management. Consider the CUSTOMERS. Yes, so many customers are rude, over-bearing, spiteful and overly demanding. They make employees jump through hoops as if the staff were personal serfs at their beck and call even though the worker may have responsibility for a large department or, in a restaurant, numerous tables. Some customers perhaps forgot their days in these businesses as youngsters or perhaps were fortunate enough to never have to work in the retail/service sector.
Finally, there is the myth that such jobs are ‘starter jobs’ for the unskilled and teenagers making a living wage, full time hours, benefits and decent work environment and supervision only a temporary blip on the long life of becoming a professional worker some day. Yet we know from data that the service/retail sector is increasingly populated by adults, often with children, trying to make livable incomes as manufacturing and other such jobs disappear. [2]
Consider trying to get health care coverage under the working conditions described above especially if one has children. Yes the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act (the PPACA, or often the ACA, aka Obamacare) helped millions to a large extent especially in (generally Democratic dominated) states where the governments took advantage of the Medicaid Expansion. Yet millions were cut out from that option in numerous (mostly Republican dominated) states who refused to enact the expansion. So increasingly, wage levels and access to health insurance are dependent on a workers zip code.
Also consider that the federal minimum wage has not been increased in decades. Yes some states have enacted higher minimums, but again, depending on which state a worker lives in, they can find themselves forced to work for only $7.25/hour and still deal with the conditions I cited earlier in this article. The myth arose perhaps in the 1970s that the minimum wage was a “starter wage” or a “teen worker wage.” This is completely false. Roosevelt and Congress, in 1938, MEANT for the minimum wage to be a minimum living wage for families! [3]
“Pew Research found that the average paycheck has the same purchasing power it did 40 years ago” [4] Purchasing power has eroded and workers across the spectrum have seen flat wages since 1980 as CEO and higher incomes exploded, and the worst to suffer are not the admittedly aggrieved middle-class, but front line service/retail workers!
While not all is perfect with the Biden Administration (and especially Republican policies) from a progressive perspective, it is clear that the USA needs a complete re-set of our mindset toward work, labor, paid time off, access to health care coverage, day care and schooling/education schedules. The USA is increasingly becoming a third world nation with a veneer of modernization. It’s time for increase in the minimum wage (and perhaps even universal basic income), single payer health care coverage, expansion of affordable daycare, review of school schedules perhaps away from the old “farming/harvest” model we currently utilize.
All such improvements would benefit the most vulnerable workers the most, of course, but would benefit all citizens. Unless, of course, one’s economic view is that it is best to keep people desperate.
[1] https://worklifelaw.org/publications/Stable-Scheduling-Study-Report.pdf
[2] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/18/what-its-like-to-live-on-minimum-wage-in-the-us.html
[3] https://www.dol.gov/general/aboutdol/history/flsa1938
[4] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/18/what-its-like-to-live-on-minimum-wage-in-the-us.html
