WHAT A MESS! The weather’s getting nicer, but there’s too many repair and clean-up chores. What to do?!!! Help yourself and someone else’s family by hiring a day-worker from a local day-worker center (e.g., St. Vincent de Paul). Find one on Yelp or Google or even an old-fashioned phone book Pay is usually $10-$15 an hour, and the center sends you people who are qualified to do the job you need done. When not out on a job, these people spend their time in training, improving their English, and gaining skills that make them better workers for you while building a brighter future for themselves and their families. So, what’s there to lose, except for that broken fence, or that peeling paint, or the hopelessness that these willing workers have felt in the past?
Tag Archive for worker
$12 Billion Loss to Illegal Workers
Question: What group of workers has paid $100 Billion into social security over the last ten years — the same group that pays around $13 Billion a year into social security but will get only about $1 Billion back later in life? That’s a large loss to them and gain to the social security fund.
Answer: People who live and work here illegally.
Read about it at https://news.vice.com/article/unauthorized-immigrants-paid-100-billion-into-social-security-over-last-decade.
A Tip About Tips
Ever been a restaurant server? If you or a loved one has, you know how hard the work is and that this is one of the worst-paid professions–often below minimum wage. You wouldn’t be able to make ends meet if you didn’t have tips.
Take away those tips and give them to the owners. That’s what wealthy restaurant owners, represented by the National Restaurant Association, has been trying to do for many years. And this year–in time for Christmas!–they have a good chance of success.
Why should we care if we aren’t part of that working group? Because the majority of restaurant workers are women and people of color who put up with frequent sexual harassment. Because of where the practice of tipping started–after emancipation, it was a way to avoid paying Black workers.
Only since 2012 has it been law that tips belong to the workers themselves. Now, though, the Dept. of Labor is pushing to give tips to the owners to keep or “pool” (meaning they dole out however much to whichever workers they choose).
Tell the Dept. of Labor that you think this is unfair and would hurt people who are struggling to make a living already. There’s a petition at https://act.credoaction.com/sign/tiptheft?t=7&akid=26387%2E7078302%2EA0Dubn
Could You Live Like This?
Ever wonder how a farm worker lives? It’s hard, because their wages are low, despite back-breaking work. They make do, although life is far from lavish.
These pictures show the life of farm workers in California: Carlos in Salinas, Lucio in Monterey, Betsy in Oxnard, and Vivaldo in Madera.
It seems to me that these people who are so important to our families’ nutrition should not have to live like this.
Work for Free?
Work for free! It will be fun! It’s a chance to learn how the business operates while you pack and ship orders! You’ll get a free lunch!
URBN (they own Urban Outfitters and Anthropologie) was hoping for a good response when they sent an email to their salaried employees asking just that.
Would you give up your time to volunteer to help so your (large) company can meet the demands of a busy month? Many people did, and even salaried employees volunteered, although they were denied the opportunity because that’s against labor rules.
Okay, so volunteering (assuming there was no corporate pressure) to help your company may be a sign of loyalty. If so, why doesn’t such loyalty go both ways? If they need more people to work, even for only a month, and if they can’t find enough part-timers, why not reward the faithful with a monetary bonus? A business that large with the “problem” of having too many orders to fill should have enough in their budget to show respect for their workers.
Burger Boy
All of us come in daily contact with the “little guys,” a low-paid workers among a sea of low-paid workers. I’d like to honor those people today, on International Worker’s Day. Let me introduce you to one of these people. Let’s call him Sonny.
I wish they wouldn’t treat me like that. I know I’m just a kid. And my English ain’t too good. But I try. I don’t like how people look at me, like I ain’t worth much. I don’t wanna be here. Nobody else will hire a kid who don’t know much yet. I see my parents struggle. I can’t ask them to give me no money for fun or school or nothin’ and I see how sometimes they don’t eat unless I bring some burgers home that woulda gone into the garbage anyways. They say don’t take no handouts unless you at death’s door. We been there twice I remember. I’m gonna finish school. Go to college. Get a real job. Make it so they don’t have to worry no more. Then, when I go to Hamburger House, I’ll tip the guy and give him a high-five, ‘cuz I know why he’s there.
Next time you meet a “Sonny,” honor the work he does for you and the fellow human being that he is.
Walmart’s Great Deal
As you shop for Christmas and Hanukkah gifts, you’ll likely think of the great deals Walmart has. Personally, I do as well on prices and better on quality elsewhere if I shop carefully and take advantage of coupons and sales. That’s good, because my conscience won’t let me shop at Walmart.
It’s a matter of respect and concern for their workers. Their mistreatment is a matter of record. I’ve read the news stories and investigative reports from reputable news agencies: hiring the undocumented and locking them up in stores (http://www.nbcnews.com/id/4146540/ns/business-us_business/t/suit-wal-mart-locked-janitors-stores/#.VHoEIzHF-So); hiring people with the promise of benefits, then as the corporate profits skyrocket, cutting those benefits (http://dailydigestnews.com/2014/10/profit-behemoth-wal-mart-cuts-benefits-raisies-healthcare-costs-for-part-time-workers/), knowing that most of their employees depend on their jobs to keep just this side of the poverty level; hiring the undocumented and making them work in harsh conditions, without overtime or even a day off (http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/05/us/illegally-in-us-and-never-a-day-off-at-wal-mart.html); and practicing intimidation, discrimination, careless pollution, tax avoidance, and bribery (http://www.corp-research.org/wal-mart).
I agree that Walmart has great deals, but for the corporation, not for the workers. So I take my wallet elsewhere.