Give a man a raise and you feed him for one year. Teach a man to unite for regular raises and good benefits and you’ll feed him for the rest of his life.
Sorry, but we’ve taking away your coffee machine. We can’t afford the coffee grounds if we want to stay competitive.
Next week we’ll install the chains.
Sometimes as a programmer, I’m invited to visit the customer service offices to visit the workers on the front line. We have a bunch of offices around the nation. And if I’m in the area, it’s nice to stop in.
The one office did not have a coffee machine! Not a problem - I went to the lobby and bought coffee.
When I told them a bunch of other offices had free coffee, free beer, 8 rows of snacks. Then they said, “Must be nice as a programmer!” And I said, “Nah all of the other customer service offices have that.” And I could just see the office manager fuming. I don’t know if she was fuming because of some office politics, or fuming because she’s secretly getting kickbacks.
Anyways, I left with, “Y’all should really start talking more with your fellow coworkers about benefits.”
In fairness that adds up though. They’re spending that to stop the union because it’s cheaper than giving everyone a raise. Logically if it’s the cheaper option it’s more affordable.
Except that they’re not giving you a raise while they live a life of luxury and you eat ramen every night and sweat every day.
Where’s the fairness in that?
I don’t remember saying that is fair, or that it’s the right or moral decision.
Logically if it’s the cheaper option it’s more affordable
If you mistreat your workers, productivity suffers compared to what it would be if you paid them properly so they’d be happt. Then even when your costs are lower, your revenue is as well.
Meaning paying your workers would mean you’d be making more money, despite the increased costs. So it’s actually more “affordable”.
Yeah but you can’t really quantify “happiness based increased productivity” on a spreadsheet as easily as “pay rise” or “stopping union expenses” so, ya know…
You can, though.
Not as easily, but it has been quantified.
https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/nataliaemanuel/files/emanuel_jmp.pdf
https://www.waldenu.edu/programs/business/resource/shortened-work-weeks-what-studies-show
We know these things for pretty much certain. The only people who pretend “the science isn’t in” are the people who stand to gain when employees are exploited. So, ya know…
