The American Worker vs The American Employer

There are several misconceptions concerning employment in America today; for example, employers can get away with treating employees as if they are almost slave-like and, employees are powerless and must accept this treatment.

Employers in America today hire part time workforces to do the job of a full time workforce. Why? First and foremost, it allows employers to save money when paying wages, healthcare insurance and vacations.  Under current laws, thanks to our ” public Servants ” in Washington, employers do not have to offer healthcare and paid vacation time to part time employees, as for wages, they keep them low under the guise that all employees are equal and should be paid equally regardless of experience, work ethic and the amount of work they do. What this does is it allows employers to refuse pay increases to deserving employees because it will ” create strife ” with employees whose productivity is undeserving of a pay raise. Second, employers will cut hours and increase workloads to save money without increasing wages or benefits. Third, these policies allow employers to indiscriminately fire or force out longterm full time employees who have benefits and replace them with cheaper part time employees who do not receive benefits. Fourth, it allows employers to ignore their own policies concerning employee reviews and pay raise considerations.

There are far-reaching consequences to this garbage. First of all, it creates an ” us vs them ” ( employees vs management ) mentality in the workplace, meaning, we do the work, they make the money. they get paid for vacations, we have to crunch numbers, skimp and save to afford  a vacation and hope we can still pay the rent and buy food. Also, full time employees and management have the option to get healthcare insurance through the company, part time employees do not, instead, we have to purchase it through a government run, corrupt system where rates are too high for part time employees to afford and, if we don’t purchase it, we get fined by the very idiots in Washington who created the problem. The second consequence is work simply does not get done to the standard that it should. Employees are expected to in some cases,  double or triple their workload to get the job done while employers cut hours to save payroll without any incentive for those doing the work consequently, the job simply can’t get done.  Management simply refuses to get it.

The most disgusting of employer actions is denying a long time full time employee his/her vacation in order to make them quit so they can be replaced with cheaper part time workers who will be given full time hours without benefits. Employers who do this have no business being in operation.

Contrary to the perceived ignorance of the American worker and arrogance of employers, there are options available to combat this nonsense. First, they can voice their issues to their immediate supervisor, Second, workers can put pressure on their employer’s human resources director to try to improve conditions third, they can speak to the person in charge of the whole operation. If these avenues turn out to be dead ends, they can file a complaint with their respective state’s labor relations board. Retaining the services of an attorney is also an option. The last option would be to simply find a new employer and leave the old one. With the kinds of issues listed above, the latter may be the best option.

The bottom line is, if workers unite and stand up to employers, they will change the current system to what it should be. Everyone gains from that. Employers need to wake up.