Slave wages?

[jeffrey_X]

Just saw a commercial for a special that is going to run on CNN called "Slave Wages"

I don't know about you, but isn't that insulting?

To call low paying jobs slave wages is BS. People are getting paid for working and the last time I checked no one is being lynched on the job.

[Clete]

1. So what would you call low paying jobs?

Gifts that trickle down? Do you have a low paying job? Do you know wtf you are talking about? Please make sense.

[jeffrey_X]

4. I call them "low paying jobs"

I currently don't have a low paying job, but have worked a few throughout my life.

slavery = free labor

Are you working for free?

[Clete]

7. Well, I guess you weren't that happy with your low paying job

so you got another one that paid better no? I mean if the low-paying job was so desirable why aren't you still there?

Yes, I do work for free. It's known as housework.

[jeffrey_X]

9. Huh?

I never said my low paying jobs were desirable. Just doing what I had to do to survive.

I've been promoted and changed careers as my life has progressed.



It is your choice to be a homemaker. No one owns you and is holding you hostage.

[Clete]

20. It's not my choice to be a homemaker.

No one will hire me anymore at my age and the wages I demand because they are able to get younger people for slave wages. Well, enjoy your job while you may because it will soon be exported overseas for less cost to your employer unless it is a service job that pays minimum wage, but can't be exported.

[patrice]

10. Low-paying jobs benefit the employee in no

more than what slaves were provided (food, some clothing, a bed).

My son is a white slave, and so is his wife. They cannot get time off. He get's minimal health care; she has none. They can afford food, some clothing, cheap transportation, and rent.

Yes, they are not in danger of being lynched, and the historical facts concerning lynching are by far much more deeply ugly and wrong than the more subtle discriminations that work against our current poor, but that doesn't make it any easier for him to get up in the morning.

[Gin]

2. I use that phrase ..and don't find it offensive...slavery wears many hats.

gin

[1a2b3c]

3. This is the funniest thread ive read in awhile

Thanks for the laughs.

[tom_paine]

5. Virtual Slavery -- the Wave of the Future in Imperial Amerika

I believe someone said, "The finest slaves are made they who think they are free."

I believe it was Goethe who said that. And, at least technically, this apellation applies to a vast majority of the Imperial Serfs of Amerika, whatever their race, color, or creed.

Free People get to participate in the choosing of their National Leaders

Free People do NOT have every move of their tracked and recorded by their Leaders

So many more, but my gorge is rising.

Technically, we can still pretend we are free in this pleasant twilght of the Old American Democratic Republic. That is, until more and more of the Old Ways are swept away.

But we aren't. That really ended 12/12/00 during the Bloodless Coup, when the Imperial Family learned they can get away with ANY crime in broad daylight.

This has only been reconfirmed and reconfirmed.

[Mairead]

17. Niemand ist mehr Sklave,

als der sich für frei hält, ohne es zu sein. (Goethe: Wahlverwandtschaften II,5)

Literally: No one is more a slave, than he who holds himself as free without that being so.

Or, in slightly looser translation: None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe themselves free.

[Gingersnap]

6. yeah, all those poor people

complaining about "slave wages" should realize no one's enslaving them. They can quit their jobs at Walmart or picking tomatoes any day of the week and become high paid doctors, lawyers, CEOs or entrepeneurs. How dare they complain about "slavery" when they are completely free. It's not like they could become homeless or lose their jobs if they quit or asked for higher wages/benefits, etc.... :eyes:

[deek]

8. Would "indentured servant" suit you better?

"People are getting paid for working"....but are they getting paid a LIVING wage??? ...a wage that enables them to provide adequate housing, food, health care for themselves/their families??? ...a wage that is appropriate for the work they are doing???

I, too, am interested in how much difference there is between your wages and minimum wage. Think you could make it?

[jeffrey_X]

12. maybe I was being to general....

"a wage that is apropriate for the work they are doing"

Bingo. A "wage" for work. Last time I checked slaves didn't earn a wage.

Can you vote?
Can you own land?
Can you leave the plantation?

I'm looking at it from the fundamental aspect of slavery.

[deek]

18. Answer your own questions...

then answer mine.

You said,
"1)Can you vote?
2)Can you own land?
3)Can you leave the plantation?"

1) Who were the disenfrancised voters in Florida?
2) Can you show me how someone who earns minimum wage can own land?
3) Can you show me how someone who earns minimum wage can leave their job (as was pointed out by another poster) or even leave USA?

And inquiring minds want to know.....
What is the difference between your personal income and someone earning minimum wage? Could you make it on that much less?

:shrug:

[kurt_cagle]

11. Slave wages

Not all slavery involves manacles and lynchings. When you are in a job that doesn't pay enough to live on, but you know that you'll be even more poor if you quit, know that there are no other jobs available out there, and will lose health care and any accumulated benefits by walking out the door, then you are not far from being a slave. As harsh as conditions were in the pre-civil war south (and they were inhuman) the slave owner was obligated to feed his slave work-force, to house and clothe them, to provide medical care in the case of disease and so on.

Perhaps a more accurate view of wage slaves is the company town mentality, where a large corporation would be the only job in town (be it mining, food processing, sewing, what have you). The company would sell food, clothing, tools, and rent lodging to the employees, but by charging more than these employees made, insured that these services came dear. To help "cover costs", the company would extend "credit" to the workers, who would then find themselves falling farther and farther behind each month, until soon they were so far in debt that they had no chance of ever breaking free. Employees who "skipped-town" on their debts could be hunted down by bounty hunters and imprisoned, or given the option of going back to work but for even less.

This is just as much a form of slavery, even though it doesn't involve formal ownership of human beings. In earlier form of this wa indentured servitude, where people who commited crimes of poverty (being unable to pay debts) would be sentenced to prison, but with the option of entering indenture. In this case, another person would buy that person's bond and the person would then pay the other person back with an agreed amount of service and a fixed sum. In many cases, this sum was fairly high, and the employer would either underpay their workers, when possible, or would start charging them fees for breakage or other issues.

While there have been laws on the books since the 1930s to discourage this kind of behavior on the part of corporations, they have been under near continuous assault, and lately have been crumbling as Bush and his cronies have taken over. Most fast food restaurants require their employees to purchase uniforms and in many cases equipment from the company, despite the fact that wearing the uniform is a condition for employment. The GAP recently got into trouble for this kind of practice, as it made its employees purchase retail clothes only sold by the GAP, which meant that they had to effectively buy a whole wardrobe. The company just got a slap on the wrist, so it will likely become more pervasive.

A number of companies now require that you own your own computer to do work for the company, or will provide a loan to you to be taken out of your wages for the cost of that computer. At $10 an hour, it can take a long time to pay back that loan, and you could pay a significant penalty if you quit early.

In other words, slavery is not always obvious not always clear cut, and by playing the game of not paying a living wage, all too many companies are able to utilize this neo-slavery to enhance their bottom lines.

[prolesunited]

15. Excellent and informative post

Welcome to DU, kurt_cagle! :hi:

I look forward to reading more of your posts.

[kurt_cagle]

21. Re: Excellent and informative post

Thank you. I actually used to be a regular here but the temptation t post was eating up too much time.

-- kurt

[deek]

19. wow

I'm looking forward to your posts also!
Thank you!

[Deja Q]

22. GREAT POST!!

Well thought out and well said!

It's a shame this is the sort of shit America is descending into. And with a docile population, a just uprising will never happen. Corporations will have total control and the pukes will be the nazis for a new century to help them and screw the rest of us. It is an evil which must be stopped, not coddled and nourished.

And with an unregulated NAFTA giving corps the ability to move jobs offshore, they will take every chance to level the playing field - by hacking at our jobs instead of improving the quality of jobs they are giving to foreigners.

It all makes me SAD to be an American, that I'm guilty by association to these jerkwads usurping control.

[AP]

13. You are a slave. Stock prices are up because corp profits are up.

Where do you think those provits are coming from? They're coming from slave wages.

[TahitiNut]

14. You equate slavery to lynchings?

Is it because you're too young to remember lynchings? In the Antebellum South, lynchings (vigilantism) were very rare to nonexistent with regards to slaves -- about as rare as folks running their automobiles off a cliff today. Slaves were property and had a "market value." Plantation capitalists didn't allow the hoi polloi to destroy their property. Lynchings were a post-Civil-War atrocity, and occurred most in the first half of the 20th century.

[Deja Q]

16. It's all subjective (read this and flame all you want)

There are jobs others don't want. Not necessarily because of the low wages but because the job is too disgusting or whatever.

There are dirty, gross jobs. (it's such a good point, I thought I'd say it twice.)

There are jobs that some people can't move beyond - some people just can't do any better or escape it, partly because they can't afford education.

We're in a society where the poverty level is something like $12,000. One minimum wage job, 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, don't even rise above it!

If the person quits, the person might not be able to get another job so they are compelled to stay. The only alternative is death, let's be real here. There are forms of living that make death look vastly preferable, yet we have some bullshit "morality" about that... which is a double-standard, we have no qualms about putting stray (or ill) cats and dogs to death. :eyes: :grr: :mad:

Sure as hell sounds right to me, "slave wages".

Every job should give out livable wages depending on the person's situation. A CEO making 400 times the salary of an average worker is just plain despicable, especially since the ratio was a mere and more respectful/rational 40 to 1 in 1979, BEFORE REAGAN WAS ELECTED AND SCREWED EVERYONE EXCEPT HIS CORPORATE BUDDIES.

And what does the CEO do all day anyway, aside from attending social functions and playing golf? Yeah, that's real work - NOT!

Give me a living wage or give me death. This is a world which gets depressing more and more every day anyway. I'm damn grateful I have a job with a living wage, they're much harder to find today than even 20 years ago or longer.

We all knew what Archie Bunker did. That was 1970 and he made a living wage because he could afford a decent house and raise a family. Assuming his job still existed in America and wasn't sent overseas, he sure as hell wouldn't be paid the same today. Because it's one of those 'low end' jobs nobody would want.

[Clete]

23. We know what this poster is all about. But let's educate him

a little before he is gone.