The federal minimum wage has been stuck at $7.25 an hour
since 2009. Several states have a higher
minimum, but a predictable few, including
Mississippi, Tennessee, Louisiana, South
Caroina and Alabama, are stuck at that low
minimum. If the minimum wage kept up with
inflation it would be at least ten dollars an
hour today. But twenty-two states are stuck on
exploitation and refuse to raise their minimum
wage.
Restaurant workers get an even worse deal. The minimum
wage for tipped workers is $2.13 an hour,
which means they are expected to earn up to
the minimum wage, or more, with their tips.
But tips are discretionary and arbitrary, and
sometimes people tip the expected 15 to 20
percent, and sometimes they don’t. How can
they eke out a living wage on other people’s
arbitrary judgement? Were they likeable?
Friendly? Kind? It doesn’t matter. Did you get
your food? Was it hot and delivered in a
timely way? If I had my way, I’d charge enough
for food to properly pay workers. Tipping is a
practice that harks back to enslavement.
People should be paid for their work and
should not have to skin and grin to make a
living wage.
In the wake of Labor Day, though, it makes sense to
consider the ways that workers experience
exploitation and what we must do about it.
Workers around the country are resisting
exploitation, whether it is Hollywood writers
or on university campuses. The United Auto
Workers are on strike, which is having
significant reverberations for our economy. A
United Parcel Service Strike was narrowly
averted and it, too, would have crippled the
economy. With labor productivity up, workers
are unwilling to settle for paltry 2 and 3
percent annual increases when food and gas
prices are rising by 5 and 6 percent. There
seems no willingness to increase wages to keep
workers “even”, and President Biden, with his
“Bidenomics” seems to see the big picture, but
not the small one. People are hurting, and
employers are pocketing profits and exploiting
workers.
The Institute for Policy Studies released a report,
Executive Excess 2023, in which they highlight
the 100 companies that have the lowest pay and
the greatest ratio of CEO pay to median worker
pay. Some of these companies have federal
contracts, which means when they offer low pay
to workers, they also get subsidies from the
rest of us, the taxpayers who support food
stamps, medical care, and other amenities for
which workers who earn little qualify.
From the report, the ratio between CEO pay and median
worker pay is 603-1. The average CEO in the
Low Wage 100 earned $15.3 million a year,
while the average worker earned a scant
$31,672 a year. The greatest offender was Live
Nation Entertainment. CEO Michael Rapino
earned $139 million, 5414 times more than the
average worker who earned $25,673 a year.
Amazon, a large federal contractor, is among
the most exploitative. But they aren’t alone.
Too many companies rip off their workers and
also enjoy federal largesse.
Given these massive paychecks and massive profits, why
can’t we raise the federal minimum wage, and
why can’t we pay workers more? Predatory
capitalism suggest that employers must extract
surplus value from workers. That means that,
despite rising worker productivity, employers
would attempt to pay as little as they can.
The outrageous CEO to worker pay ratios
suggest that companies benefit from paying so
little. Will workers revolt? Can they?
Too many workers are frightened to strike. They need their
jobs and their unions may not have sufficient
strike funds to allow them to be out for a
long period of time. Do they need their jobs
with exploitative terms and conditions of
work? Must they work with unfair pay? Is it
time for workers to unite?
What would happen if you went to your morning coffee shop
to find no one there? Waited for a bus to find
no driver, no bus? Managed to get to work to
find no coworkers? Wandered to lunch to find
no one serving? Tried to stop at a supermarket
heading home to find no one working and no
food available? Managed home to sort out a
mess? We depend on workers but we don’t want
to pay them. We agree with their labor actions
but don’t want to manage inconvenience. We
thought about Labor Day, but we don’t think
about workers. When will we raise the federal
minimum wage?
