A week ago a boss cut his salary so he could raise the salary of his workers to 70K/year. Most responses said YEA... some people did not like it. It sounds good to me! The most significant criticism I read was that it would "likely inspire resentment among colleagues who once sat on the higher end of the pay divide". That is possible but really? I ask really because sometimes (even legally) it is not clear who is making what.
Furthermore - I don't think this is socialism nor charity. I think it may primarily be what Dan Price said it is... a way to highlight the great pay/income divide which our country is experiencing and to try to change that divide.
Rather then consider that there may be happier employees who may be more productive at Gravity Payments (the company which Dan Price owns) I would look at other employers where CEOs and other high level administrators get outrageously high salaries and where those salaries are based, not on work done or productivity, but is based on what others in that class get... AND THEN when regular workers ask for pay increases based on what others doing similar work are getting elsewhere these same CEOs/Administrators have and exercise the power of NO. And they usually can succeed in todays world where the solidarity and strength of workers in UNIONS is so much weaker then it was in the days when 40 hour work weeks, and minimum wages, and sick and vacation days, and other rather taken for granted by many work rules were demanded and gotten!
Greed and power are apparent as CEOs and others like them (university presidents for example, from my life) as they take wage increases for themselves while blocking similar wage increases for professors, librarians, janitors, nurses, etc, etc, etc....
Power and greed! Take it or leave it or fight it. Are the times changing? I think they should change. I think that someone earning several million dollars a year can live on a couple of million dollars less a year. REALLY. I think someone almost surviving on minimum wage can maybe thrive, he/she and children, with a living wage which will pay bills and put more money into more places in the economy then the rich are doing. REALLY.
But I am not a few things... I am not an economist who can prove some of these assertions. I am not good at pursuading others. I am not powerful.
I was a union member and did some negotiating. The other side was unfair, powerful, secretive, and very hard to move. My co-workers could not effectively strike and we didn't. We didn't succeed as well as we deserved.... while more adminstrators got hired and higher and higher salaries even as rhetoric from the top said... less administration and administrative costs... Information is power and public relations can put out bad information and too many people equate unions with higher costs or taxes and laziness. REALLY?
Unions are made of people who want to work well and be effective and be treated fairly and reasonably. Workers go into work to work. They want to be productive. They do not want to be bored. They do not want to sit around and do nothing. We all want to work well. We want to use our time well. Isn't that how YOU WOULD DO IT? Or are YOU A SLACKER....??? Look into yourself and find the best in you and see the best in others. It is there because if it is not there it isn't anywhere!
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