gamera obscura: Record profits are unpaid wages. — Subium • Bluesky web client

Record profits are unpaid wages.

That’s a very good point. I’m sure somewhere out there a there’s a company that pays good wages to all , though I suspect there’s many more who don’t .

I know so many people who have been scraping by on stagnant wages, while their employers have grown richer and richer during the pandemic.

a year or so ago, i got a letter from the Cdn gov't advising me that i could apply for federal old age pension when i turned 60, if i chose. it came with a list of my annual income for every year i've been working & thus paying into the CPP. adjusted for inflation, those numbers were horrifying.

I’m assuming I’ll have to work *at least* another 20 years, into my mid 70s. At which point I’ll GET BY, just about. My ex, who inherited enough money to buy some rental property in London in the mid 90s, has just retired at 54, a millionaire. That, right there, is what’s wrong with the system.

Retirement is a pipe dream for so many. It’s monstrous.

My ex is also a narcissist and thinks she’s “earned” her comfortable early retirement by being some kind of brilliant property entrepreneur 🙄 I struggle to make my retirement “plan” something other than choosing to end my life 😔

Canada's come up with a solution though, you can apply for government-assisted suicide

"Re-tire-meeeeeent?" What is this strange word you speak of?

i'm old enough to remember when "Freedom 55" was what was being pitched. The boomers got most of that.

it's fucked up. I've been working longer than my current boss has even been alive. I see so many people older than me working in retail stores and fast food restaurants because they can't afford to retire. I can't afford to retire, but i also can't physically or mentally afford to keep working

This. So much this.

I figure I've got about 25-odd years of "professional" work left, at which point I'll be moving to a friend's farm in northern BC and getting a retail or food service job in town because it'll be all I can afford.

My company has been somewhat crowing to me about my recent increase, it puts me at the salary cap for my position, and that cap is about to be less than $0.50 over minimum wage as of October when the new increases hit Yeah thanks guys

The largesse of the rich

It’s shocking, it goes on all the time. Your statement illustrates the situation perfectly. I have no idea what the going rate is where you are? Here the so called ‘National living wage’ aka the lowest amount companies should pay is £10.42 (23 +years old) an hour.

Here it’s called minimum wage, and it varies by state. So here in Washington it’s $15, but in many states it’s as low as $7 and been the same for decades. Meanwhile, the average rent for a 1 bedroom apartment is $1,800 per calendar month. Impossible situation.

$1800 is the national median and it obviously varies hugely. My place is 3k and not great.

We used to have a good proportion of council housing In the UK, until Thatcher came along. My family were poor, but we had a home.

Council house - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org

I’ve just looked at a U.K.gov site, the lowest median rent in the North East is £495 , in London it’s almost treble that.

Rental costs are similarly costly here. A friend of mine recently had to move because his landlord was "selling up". Couldn't find anywhere local for his price band, ended up 4 miles further out of town for almost £700 more a month. Just found out landlord just hiked rent on old place by £800 🙄

Awful. Average rent in NYC just hit $5,600. It’s an absurd situation.

NY has just banned whole-property Airbnb - we need to do the same here. Just read that out of 80k Airbnb properties in London, 51k are whole house. That’s 51k that could be privately rented and bring down the cost of the market as a whole. Bristol probably same proportion if not numbers.

Should be illegal

Multinationals like Walmart and McDonald's are great case studies. Billions in annual profit and yet they have full time employees that in the US require govt assistance to maintain an austere lifestyle. Meanwhile in many of the countries the companies operate their employees enjoy a liveable wage.

True. My 20 y/o works McD here in Denmark and earns between 150-200 DKK/hour, depending on time. McD's here are unionised. www.youtube.com/watch?v=YufO...

How DENMARK Took Down McDONALDSwww.youtube.com How DENMARK Took Down McDONALDS#Denmark #Danmark #DanskIn this video we explore how Denmark took down McDonalds in the name of workers rights. It's a fascina...

damn, looked it up and that's $21.34-28.45/hr Looked up wages for a McDonald's manager near me and it's $7.25-21.15/hr. Average is $13/hr.

$7.25 is "we'd pay you less if we legally could"

it's also "take the trash out on your way to your car," "drop off the deposits on your way home," "study for this certification we require at home," and "you need to clock out an hour early today" I will never forget.

Yeah. She is 'batch manager' (whatever that is, they do all of these micro-promotions) so that adds some extra, and then extra on evening-, night, weekend,- and holiday shifts. I just looked it up and the average hourly pay is 160 DKK under the current union agreement (McDonalds X Horesta)

Micro-promotions, inflated titles, and complex org charts are classic union suppression tactics.

taco bell could never work in the EU, the sanitation union would strike at the thought of cleaning up the stalls

There are Taco Bells in the EU...

do not conflate a punchline for fact

I saw in the news yesterday California is requiring a wage of 20 dollars an hour for fast food workers. Which is much better than the minimum wage.

I imagine it’s hard to stay competitive in a free market if you pay your workers decent wages and your rivals don’t. Capitalism is rigged against ethical business practices.

I would argue that "staying competitive" no longer has meaning, the only relevant thing under end-stage capitalism is if you've inflated your stock price as much as possible for the shareholders

Literally end-stage capitalism's only question How much higher can you drive the price per share

they exist but we really won't last long because we're usually just held up by three toothpicks and layers of glued on "brass" from Shenzhen (people)

And wage theft (which is huge and rarely covered in the media).

As well as gouging the consumer.

Post