One makes $8/hour, one makes $11/hour, and Paper Delivery Drivers have had their wages garnished.
Is it me or are our priorities screwed up?
If you’re living at the National Congress of Jewish Women, then you have a physical or mental health disability and your attendants make $11/hour.
If you’re an employee at a Coffee Time than it would take about 10 years to get to $11/hour, and even at that, maybe not.
What makes an employee at a Coffee Shop so special?
With a friendly smile the order is taken and delivered with care as the employee stirs’ your coffee.
This might not sound like a lot, but it sure as hell translates into a profit to the owner of the Coffee Shop, to the tune of $150,000/year (this is after all expenses).
Remember this, the care attendant works with the physically disabled, and changes urine bags, adjust catheters, doing the work that the disabled can’t do.
As a law abiding, peace loving man I am abhorred by the fact that the people caring for our physically impaired, and the people that stir my coffee with unpretentious care, are rung out at the bottom of the socio-economic scale.
If it was up to me there would be a Union for both sects to bring their wages to a decent level. Would it be so terrible if the employees at Coffee Shops earned $15/hour (loosely turning into $25,000/year gross for Full-Time staff), with the owner still making $100,000/year profits.
If you were 12 years old and told to give up half your earnings, would you continue to work delivering papers?
This is exactly what was mandated to the Toronto Sun Drivers in March 2006. These former Wholesalers were downgraded to ‘Drivers’ of the Toronto Sun resulting in a 50% wage cut.
What makes this tough to digest is that the workload is exactly the same as before. Most Wholesalers get under 6 hours sleep a day. They receive word that the paper is ready for pick-up anywhere between 12A.M-2A.M. They get their 4000 papers for pick-up and deliver to the boxes and stores on their route. By 7A.M they’re usually done. Most stay up for a few hours looking after their business before catching a little shuteye. This might sound like a menial job, but shouldn’t it stand to reason that these guys get a slice of the pie for their role. Who else is going to populate the population with our Sun’ newspaper?
If I was 12 years old and told to give up half my wages I’d be discouraged in doing my job. It’s really just a question of trying to survive, and please don’t tell me that you don’t enjoy a fresh cup of coffee with the morning paper on two healthy legs in the morning.
Moses
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1 comment:
The problem seems to be that there are people willing to work for these menail wages. As you put it, it's about survival. If one refuses to work at a coffee shop for such low wages, there is always another student, desperate single mother, unskilled labourer, unemployed person, etc., just waiting to come replace you and gladly earn your wages out of desperation. It's not that serving coffee isn't an important job for society, but just that from the perspective of the manager, you are entirely dispensible. As long as there's someone in society willing to do the job for these wages, that's how low the wages will be.
Thankfully we have the government to give us rights as human beings (not just as labour), such as minimum wages, welfare and union rights. Otherwise we might still be working in sweatshops...
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