Work For Free?,Volunteer?-For A Job?

Joined: 08 Jul 2003 Posts: 4996

I thought a job was supposed to provide a living wage and/or benifits necessary to survive in life and not become a corporate slave.To top it off these employees at U.S. Air have already been asked to make wage and benifit concessions.Is a job that asks for all of this worth saving or fighting for?.I'm sure there are a few careerist who love what they do but most US workers tend to be pragmatist-they work because they need to.Wonder how much the US Air execs will concede as far as wages and benifits?. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20041229/us_nm/airlines_usairways_dc_1

Joined: 06 Jul 2003 Posts: 7077 Location: Central CA

DR, I'm pretty sure that there are a lot of major corporations in this country whose CEOs and other major execs would have been right at home in the big house on a southern cotton plantation during the first 80 years or so of this country's existence.

Some of them would undoubtedly return today to the conditions that existed then if they thought they could get away with it. Our laws forbid outright slavery in this country so the goal becomes to force the "lower" working classes to the lowest income levels possible while appearing to at least adhere to the letter of those laws. Retail employees are only the latest to undergo this transition and they won't be the last. Look at what has happened to manufacturing in this country, which brings up another point:

We actually do practice a form of slavery by allowing our retail corporations to contract for goods with sleazeballs in other countries who actually utilize slave labor or something very near to it to produce those goods. We think that because these gangsters provide a layer of insulation between us and those that actually suffer at their hands, there's nothing wrong with the whole thing.

We see the "F*** you, I've got mine" attitude displayed in the opposition to the "living wage" concept or even the minimum wage. We see it in the lower classes being constantly harangued to be satisfied with what they have because the only alternative is to have nothing while those same "plantation owners" and their "overseers" pull down multi-million dollar incomes and hundred million dollar "golden parachutes" that come to as much or more than their damned companies managed to make in a year. Hell, we see it in little, subtle ways such as 90% of the auto advertising on TV being for models that 50-60% of us will never be able to afford.

What US Air is asking doesn't surprise me a damned bit. I'm surprisd that more companies aren't asking for a day (or two or three) a month or week without pay. I suspect that eventually the laws will be such that they won't even have to ask.

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