American Workers: From Bounty to Bleakness

[marmar]

from In These Times:



American Workers: From Bounty to Bleakness
This Thanksgiving, many American workers won’t share in the bounty they helped create.

BY Leo Gerard, United Steelworkers President


At the first Thanksgiving, there was no expression of the sentiment: “I built this feast by myself.” Native Americans sat side by side with pilgrims—religious leader by huntsman, chief by planter. They shared the bounty they’d all worked to create.

This Thanksgiving will be very different for too many American workers. They won’t share in the bounty they helped create. The perfect symbol of that is an Ohio Wal-Mart placing bins in an employee-only area asking low-paid workers to donate Thanksgiving food to their low-paid colleagues.

The six Waltons who own Wal-Mart are the richest family in the world. They’re worth $102.7 billion, more than America’s poorest 49 million families put together. The Waltons’ turkeys will be served with gold leaf on gold platters. By private chefs. On very, very private estates. There won’t be any Wal-Mart greeters or cashiers or stock boys sitting side by side with Waltons at their opulent celebration of bounty. Meantime, the Waltons pay such poverty wages that Wal-Mart workers can’t afford their own Thanksgiving meals. The Walton heirs’ gluttonous, aristocratic attitude betrays the promise of the New World.

It’s not unique to the Waltons, although they bear special responsibility as the nation’s largest private sector employer, one that made $15.7 billion last year. Other highly profitable corporations, particularly fast food restaurants, also pay poverty wages to workers while handing to CEOs and stockholders virtually all of the benefits derived from front-line labor. ......................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://inthesetimes.com/article/15932/american_workers_from_bounty_to_bleakness/

[Laelth]

1. k&r for the truth, however depressing it may be. n/t

-Laelth

[xchrom]

2. hey marmar -- happy thanksgivingkuh to you and all your loved ones!

i hope your Feasting is outstanding.

[marmar]

7. Hey xchrom.....same to you amigo.....

....... and I'm already preparing to go on a low-carb, salad-heavy diet next week after this week's gluttony.

Have a great Thanksgiving !!!

[SammyWinstonJack]

3. "This Thanksgiving, many American workers won't share in the bounty they helped create."

Which is what so many American workers DON'T get.

It's from stealing their labor that this obscene wealth is created.


Paying a minimum wage IS stealing labor.

[jsr]

4. Recommend

[seveneyes]

5. Rubbing shoulders at the table

While there certainly is no lost love for the tycoons of big business, with their poverty wages for their employees. There also won't be any elbows hitting us peons belonging to the US Government executives, Senators or Congress extravagant. The business and government elite do not have to worry themselves with catching any cooties from us this Thanksgiving. While one refuses to pay, the other won't reduce their takings.

Neither offers us any thanks or giving.

[Lifelong Protester]

6. K & R

No better example could have been drawn.

[judesedit]

8. Don't shop there. Simple as that.

[mountain grammy]

9. Well, finally some good news: the Pope gets it!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024095053

[Enthusiast]

10. Thanks, Grammy.

[Enthusiast]

11. Kicked and recommended a whole bunch.....nt

[davidthegnome]

12. Yeah...

At work last night, I spent a good hour debating over whether I could actually buy some dinner. Counted every dollar in my wallet, and realized I had just enough to make my car payment and maybe get enough gas for the next couple nights. So, I waited until I went home and made some really awful one dollar version of chicken alfredo. It was nasty, but I ate it anyway.

I don't work for Walmart, I'm a hotel front desk clerk at a place where we have someone there 24/7. Starting pay is eight dollars an hour and there are no breaks for the front desk, even for an eight hour shift. If you're lucky, and the manager is in a good mood, you might occasionally get to take a minute to go to the bathroom. If you're lucky.

Now the Bosses won't be dining like the waltons, but they can definitely afford to buy a thanksgiving dinner, which, hey, is great. Problem is, just about no one else who works there is earning enough to pay their bills and celebrate a holiday.

I can't complain too much though - I'm fortunate in that my parents let me live with them. It's just that (well, I can complain a LITTLE) when it comes to thinking about my future, money is such an obstacle to every plan that I try to avoid thinking about it, preferring to lose myself in my books, or occasionally a video game. This is how your average 20something person lives today... about to hit 30.

It's kind of tough to even strike up a conversation with potential romantic interests... because, eventually, I'll have to explain, "I live with my mom and dad because I'm way too poor to do anything else."

Still... at least I have my family, and a car - and something to do that keeps me from spending all my time dwelling on the bad stuff. I'm not worried about starving, but I do occasionally have to go hungry. Heck, I can stand to lose 20 pounds anyway... it's the people who have no one that I worry most about. Those who are all alone and make as little as I do.

[SammyWinstonJack]

13. Rotten country.