Americans need to STOP being "thankful" that they have a job

[maxrandb]

If you are thankful, or lucky, or fortunate just to “have a job”, you’ve surrendered the ability to fight for better wages, better working conditions and better benefits.

At one time in this country…not too long ago…you could work a full-time job and make it. You may not have gotten rich, but you could sustain a family and place yourself solidly into the Middle-Class. Hell, not only could you have secured housing, you may have even been able to take the family out once or twice a month for dinner and a movie…and the occasional Ice Cream Sunday on a hot summer weekend. You could take a family vacation. Maybe even put enough away to afford to send you kids to college with the help of a few grants or scholarships.

Bottom line is that you could live a somewhat secure and happy existence with one full-time job.

With the advent of “Ray-Gunism”, that secure and happy existence was no longer the “norm”, it became a “luxury”, and it became that almost overnight.

Instead of that happy existence being “expected” and “earned”, it became a luxury and if you wanted it? Well “go out and get a second job you lazy bum.”

Ask any young person today with a full-time job…ANYONE OF THEM…if they can afford an apartment without a roommate?
This is “America”? The land of the “free”?

Ray-Gun with his “awshucks, grandfatherly charm” convinced a majority of American (at least a majority of those that bothered to vote), that the folks that were really getting screwed in our country were those poor CEO’s, Corporations and Idiot-Sons of inheritance. How much they “struggled” under their “tax-burden” to the point they could only afford 2 vacation homes and a boat.

The poor SOB’s working on the factory floor, or scurrying like mice in a cubicle farm, or driving a truck 2,000 miles a day? Those were the “lucky” fuckers. Why they ought to just be “thankful” that they have a job.

You know how many times I hear that shit?

- You should be “thankful”

- You are so “lucky”

- You are so “fortunate”

As if laboring for these fucksticks for crumbs is some kind of “privilege”. Obviously, the pay we earn is “bestowed” on us by the benevolence of the masters.

Soon, an entire cottage industry was created to enforce and convince us that we “should be thankful”. Hate radio described union workers striking for better pay as “lazy, ungrateful slobs” who should “just be thankful” they have a job.

Books were written and promoted to explain to us how if we were just a little more thankful and worked a little harder, we’d see improvement.

I would become apoplectic when middle-class friends would come to me and excitedly ask; “Have you read this book; ‘Who Moved My Cheese’?” "They gave copies to us at the office". Some corporatist screed that condensed living a decent and middle-class life, into a fucking maze where we are all scurrying around like fucking mice looking for cheese? That's Freedom?

I guess it was the corporation’s way of “softening the blow”. See if they eliminated your position so that the CEO could be rewarded with $10 Million in Stock Options (tax-deferred of course), you just had to look a little harder for your “cheese”.

Never mind that “cheese” was essential to the life and death struggle of the mouse, or the fact that sometimes your cheese was precisely where it was supposed to be, change simply became your ability, or inability to find curdled milk. If you couldn't find your cheese, well you just fucking shriveled up and died.

The American worker shouldn’t be “thankful”, they should be marching with pitchforks.

It’s way past time that we valued work more than we value wealth.

Because we don’t just value wealth…we worship it.

It’s why Amazon can extort $3 Billion in tax breaks without even breaking a sweat.

It’s why the Waltons of Walmart can pocket a $153 Million dollar tax “refund”, while the salesman in New York sees his taxes increase $2, $3, or $4 Thousand.

It’s why FOXCON can get $4 Billion in tax breaks while the infrastructure, schools and rural hospitals in Wisconsin crumble.

It’s why Retrumplicans need to get an ass-kicking at the polls in 2020.

Now that would be something to be “thankful” for.

[msongs]

1. thankful dems want $15/hr min wage...in 2024 lol. nt

[BBG]

18. Eff that noise

$15 an hour is so 2016. Let’s get some sort of inflation pacing minimum wage and do the regression on it back to when a person could live on minimum wage. I have seen estimates into the $30/hour range if it had been pacing inflation over the last 40 years.

[BigmanPigman]

23. That is more accurate!

The whole time I was a teacher all we heard from the district was that we could either accept no COLA, which was written in our contracts, or see a lot of pink slips coming. Instead we had both...pink slips and no increase for COLA. The highest salary of last 3 years worked is what a person retired on, therefore teachers who left during those times were taking a permanent decrease in their pensions since the COLA add up over several years. Most teachers retired on 25% less than they had planned for. Every year with no pay increase is a pay cut. If you add up the min wage and inflation and COLA since 1980 you will see that $15 is about half of what workers should be earning now.

[Bengus81]

2. That BS has been around since the Great Depression.........

Also stand in front of the big boss man with your hat in your hand. Hell rich ass Repukes and probably many Rep members in Congress would LOVE to see another Bush.IDIOT melt down.

That insures NO RAISES or perks for at least 5-10 years.

[Yavin4]

3. The concept of a "job" in a gig economy is meaningless

Almost anyone can drive an Uber or some other car service. Thereby employing him/herself.

[TheFarseer]

10. Ive seen estimates

That after expenses, Uber drivers probably make $4/hr. And they want to be take even this away with self-driving cars!

[Hermit-The-Prog]

4. money

[lunatica]

12. Good graphics!

Thanks for posting them.

[former9thward]

13. Productivity charts do not measure personal productivity of employees.

They measure output per number of employees. It has gone up because of machines and technology -- not people somehow working harder. If 100 employees produce 1000 pieces of product a day and then due to robots, tech and machines 10 employees produce 1000 pieces of product a day then productivity has gone up 1000% but the personal effort the employees has remained the same.

Wages have stayed pretty much the same because high wage manufacturing has left and has been replaced by lower wage service/retail sector employers.

The retail/service sector will never pay the same as manufacturing. What can be done? I don't know and since politicians don't address it I assume they don't either.

[guillaumeb]

27. And when inflation is taken into account,

the "gains" are an illusion.

[Johnny2X2X]

5. YES!

I don't think the American people have any appreciation for the wealth that they create with their labor. This country is exponentially more wealthy than it was during the time when a single job could support a family of 4 in dignity. The country has more wealth, but thanks to Conservative policies not only have all of the wealth gains gone to the few, but they've actually taken away from the workers.

So here we are, decades and decades of America getting richer, but fewer and fewer Americans sharing in the wealth that they themselves are responsible for. The rules were changed along the way, if they only hadn't been changed can you imagine what this country would look like today. If we had kept the tax rates that produced a thriving working class. if the gains had been kept by the middle class. America would look completely different. We'd have a balanced budget, wages would be more than double what they are now. The country would have infrastructure and primary and secondary education systems that were the envy of the planet.

School teachers should be making 6 figures right now, general laborers $70 or $80K. College should be free. All of that sounds like a pipe dream, but that's what should be happening in this country right now, that's where we would have been had the Cons not gotten greedy and decided to screw the lower 90% out of what they earn.

[LiberalLoner]

6. Yes!!!

[ProfessorPlum]

7. damn right

[NightWatcher]

8. Religion teaches complacency and learned helplessness

The same people who talk aloud to a ghost and thank them for their food are also less likely to challenge the status quo.

[maxrandb]

35. I think it was Napolean that said;

Religion is what keeps the poor from eating the rich

[dalton99a]

9. Yep, no one has a job unless somebody _gives_ it to them

and as a job recipient you're supposed to be eternally grateful to the job giver and not make any noise or demands

It's so fucked up

[lunatica]

11. Great OP! That's why I'm a proud Teamster!

I hope Trump turns out to be the cause of a Union resurgence.

[smirkymonkey]

14. Hear, Hear!

[extvbroadcaster]

15. I agree

So true. Where I work, no union, so we take what we can get. No raises in years. Benefit cuts. About a year and a half ago, the pension was ended and a new 401K offered. The company contribution to the pension used to be 7%, now it is 3% match. Last year was the first full year of the 401k. Stock market was down, so everybody lost money. This on top of the reduction from7% to 3%, a 4% pay cut in effect. Workers had no say in any of this. Like it or get out. Those are your choices. I agree with the original poster, this "you are lucky you have a job" line has gotten old.

[Kurt V.]

16. Trickled on. nice post

[Alliepoo]

17. Amen!!!!

[loyalsister]

19. Employment

Another one that bothers me is that the word employment is used rather than labor or work. "Employment" suggests exploitation and supports a loss of agency that enables a culture where workers are so undervalued that a living wage is not considered a matter of expected, basic fairness.
When did that term come into common use to describe earning money to provide for ones self and family?

[jalan48]

20. Righteous rant. I remember being in a state of rage during the Reagan years.

[lostnfound]

21. Everyone that built the pyramids or railroads "had a job"

What they got paid for it is a different matter

[dlk]

22. Amen!

[MicaelS]

24. If there is no right to a job,

Then there is no right for a business to make a profit.

[debsy]

25. My adjusted gross income has remained stagnant or fallen since 2007.

My job used to be well-paying. I was doing very well climbing the ladder of success, learning new things, and being taken seriously. However, after a series of acquisitions, forced transfers, and little to no raises - because the company couldn't afford them - when counting cost of living increases, I have had no wage increase in 12 years. I have had 5 different managers in the past 3 years and have not had a promotion since 2004. I am the only full-time wage earner in my household so I cannot quit my job. I get stellar reviews but that means nothing in this world we live in where corporations and profit are more important than people.

[The Genealogist]

28. Stellar reviews mean nothing at my job, either

As with most employers, I am sure, raises are tied to reviews. My employer's reviews are score based. Every manager I have worked under has said they were forbidden from giving higher than a certain score because the organization doesn't want to pay for raises higher than 2% a year. So, no matter how stellar your job performance, the reviews don't reflect it.

[debsy]

32. exactly. it is totally rigged.

[maxrandb]

33. In 1981, I was Head Stock at a Big Bear grocery store in Ohio

I made $12.60 an hour, time and a half for overtime, double time for Sundays, holidays and my birthday. That's right, double time if you worked on your birthday.

Two weeks of paid vacation after your first year.

We got that because our nearest competitor was Kroger and they were union.

At that time, that wasn't going to make you rich, but it could solidly place you in the middle class. You could support a family on that.

I'm willing to bet you that if you asked the Stock Clerk at your local grocery, they aren't making much more than that 40 YEARS LATER

I'm not sure what 12.60 an hour in 1981 money would be today, but without looking, I can bet the wages haven't kept up.

I'm also willing to bet that John Walton is making 10,000 times more than his highest hourly wage earner.

The Wolf family that owned Big Bear did very well for themselves, but I bet it wasn't 10,000 times more than their highest hourly wage earner.

It's a fucking disgrace

[maxrandb]

36. Just looked it up. What I made in 1980 would be equivolent to $97K per year today

Anyone think their Stock Clerk at the local grocery store or Walmart is making $97K per year?

https://www.dollartimes.com/inflation/

[guillaumeb]

26. Recommended.

And, the decline in living standards for working families just happened to mirror the decline in unionism that was a result of Reagan reigniting the class warfare of the 1% against the 99%.


And, the plantation owners, like Jeff Bezos and the Walton family and all of their kind, expect that their taxes will be lowered as the rest of us are told to find another job in the gig economy.

The so-called job creators need endless rewards as the workers are told to tighten their belts.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

29. union membership and income share going to top 10%

(Image links to source)

[guillaumeb]

31. Exactly.

Unions built the middle class.

The bosses did not give anything away. They responded to demands.


And when the right screams about class warfare, they never refer to the fact that the 1% constantly engage in class warfare.

[TexasBushwhacker]

34. FWIW, even the good old days weren't good for everyone

You could generally support a family on a single income IF the wage earner was a white male. Most people of color and women were stuck being paid less than their white male counterparts IF they could get the same jobs, and that was rare. Even the GI Bill primarily benefited white soldiers.

https://progressive.org/dispatches/how-african-american-wwii-veterans-were-scorned-by-the-g-i-b/

The post WWII boom was certainly better than the Guilded Age and Great Depression, but it was not equally better. If you were Rosie the Riveter, who had helped keep things going during the war, you were rewarded with a pink slip when the soldiers came home. Those factory jobs were for men! Back to minimum wage, dead end jobs for you missy! If you lost your husband in the war and were the sole support of your family, tough shit! No GI Bill for her either.

[Amishman]

37. Businesses foster this attitude in nasty subtle ways

The performance review system at most places is stacked against the employee.

I did a project for a regional bank to give them better HR reporting, one of the areas was overall annual performance reviews. Individual sub categories were scored from 0-5, with a 3 being meets expectations and a 5 being the top.

Going off memory, the distribution was something like this:

Zero - 2%
One - 8%
Two - 30%
Three - 45%
Four - 14%
Five - less than 1%

With a negative tilted distribution, it was easier to skimp on raises / promotions and disqualify employees for bonuses. Top marks were essentially unobtainable. Employees were forever on the defensive

Employees were told not to ever discuss their performance reviews with peers and we're also told not to discuss compensation.

[maxrandb]

38. Hell, some places have policies to fire you

If you discuss compensation and wages.