r/WorkReform AFL-CIO Official Account Mar 22 '23

Repeat after us: It doesn't. Work. Anymore. 🛠️ Union Strong

Post image
40.5k Upvotes

1.4k

u/collectorguy92 Mar 22 '23 Bravo!

Not our CEO, but 2.5 years ago our District Manager was bragging to about 25 employees at a group meeting about how the company made millions of dollars in profits despite Covid-19 and quarantine. My assistant manager (who I adored) was making $10 an hour after working with the company for 3 years. I was making $8.25 after a year as an associate. He handed in his two-weeks’ notice the following week after attempting to negotiate a pay raise (he asked for $12 an hour, they countered with $11 after posting the position online offering $13 an hour). After AM left, things went to shit since he held it all together. I left less than three months later.

Name-and-Shame: Books-A-Million

363

u/RSK1979 Mar 22 '23

Yeah, BAM was a fun job with awesome coworkers but the pay was abysmal.

337

u/pablo_pick_ass_ohhh Mar 23 '23 All-Seeing Upvote

OK, but this entire post is that "it doesn't work anymore."

Yes. Yes it does. It does work. Companies may not be posting record profits this year, but they're firing a shit ton of employees as well. Executives aren't suffering in any way whatsoever.

So why the fuck do people think anything will change? It won't.

175

u/bigpancakeguy Mar 23 '23

I was thinking the same thing when I read the title of this post. It absolutely still works. The CEO attitude is essentially “of course we’re doing it, what the fuck are you gonna do about it?”

76

u/meowmeow_now Mar 23 '23

Quiet quit? Sorry I hate the term too but people stop giving a fuck when this happens.

119

u/xandercade Mar 23 '23

Act your wage

64

u/GershBinglander Mar 23 '23

I got pissed off at a company I worked at ages ago when I accidentally found out that I was earning way less that my Coworkers, so I took what I called an "Internal Holiday". For 2 weeks I did almost nothing and surfed the Internet.

49

u/Wotg33k Mar 23 '23 edited Mar 23 '23

Y'all.

I haven't worked for a company in almost a decade. Maybe here and there when emergent shit comes up, but nah.

I've been IT for 15 years. WFH for about 5 now.

I work today because I appreciate my team and the work and I'm a senior so my shit gets listened to.

But for about 12 of those 15 years, I did the absolute least amount of work possible every day for a very long time.

Overall, I'm estimating my cost to companies in the hundreds of thousands over the years. 120k on the bottom end, 230k on the top, depending on how we consider it.

This was hours I slept, played games, sat on the toilet till my legs wouldn't work, drove around campuses, staged faux meetings with similar coworkers, did a ticket for days, had emergencies that didn't exist, opened tickets that weren't actual problems.. I can keep going.

I don't quiet quit. I maliciously quit. Why?

When I was 17, I was working at KFC. The manager was a black male about 47 years old. He seemed like a decent dude at first, but I soon learned that he was attempting to molest half the 17 year old girls in there. He would often, apparently, just take his dick out and ask if they had ever seen one so big. He was also selling weed out of the drive thru.

One night, before I knew all this, I was mixing Cole slaw and I spilled like a 45 gallon tray of it on the floor. Solid like 3-4 foot tall stack of slaw on the greasy, nasty, unwashed KFC backfloor. "Hey man I fucked up how do I throw this away?" .. "you don't. Put it back in the tub. We'll serve it as usual."

And for the next 8 hours the following work day, I served people floor Cole slaw because money and not losing my first job was more important to me than doing the right thing.

I continued to not do the right thing when I found out about the dick flashing and the selling weed (I smoked weed, so whatever, but damn bro).

So what put me over the edge with him? He told me one day, after I knew everything.. "this is what life is, son. You gotta hustle. You gotta do the damn thing or the damn thing will do you."

And, well, that didn't sound like the most appealing way to live. So, I've been fucking over corporations since.

Edit: I'll compound on this to say that I never start maliciously. I always start in a wholesome way. I only become malicious the moment I realized the company is treating me like every other company: disposable.

If you can throw me away, then I can throw away your money. All's fair.

12

u/YouJustLostTheGameOk Mar 23 '23

YOU are my spirit animal my dude:)-

5

u/Wotg33k Mar 23 '23

😼

8

u/GershBinglander Mar 23 '23

Sounds rough. It reminds me to be thankful that I'm finally doing useful and interesting work, for good pay, for people that actually give a shit about me. It's been a rough road, but I'm finally doing good.

5

u/Wotg33k Mar 23 '23

Same. Absolute same. Happy to work 10-12 hour days helping folks get jobs, even if it is at a distance.

I'd also be happy to do it for less. I worked in healthcare and finance before I got into this role. Healthcare was nice because I was helping doctors and nurses take care of people. Finance was toxic because I couldn't find a job that wasn't in some way taking something from someone.

Navient was the last straw. They take so much and offer so little.

I won't work in finance again, and I'd encourage all of you to avoid it from the start. The money is there, but you really do lose a piece of yourself in those spaces.

3

u/Gotmewrongang Mar 24 '23

Hate to be that dude but why did you feel the need to say the POS manager was a “black” male specifically? Like the story reads the same if you leave out that one descriptor. Leads me to think that there was a specific reason you just HAD to point out he was black, and the only conclusion I can draw is that you are at best biased, at worst just racist. Something to think about.

→ More replies

10

u/meowmeow_now Mar 23 '23

Oh I like this term

10

u/widowhanzo Mar 23 '23

I was the happiest in the last 2 months at my previous job after giving in the notice (60 days per contract, pretty standard in my country), I still did my job, but I did the bare minimum. Customers were still happy, I entered all my billing hours, but I just picked the easy tickets and played video games at home when WFH.

→ More replies

28

u/MrFoxxie Mar 23 '23

Aren't they gonna run into the 'nobody wants to work'wall eventually?

Specifically nobody wants to work "FOR THEM" because everyone knows they pay garbo and turnover employees more frequent than a kid making his first pancake

Eventually they're gonna run out of new hires

19

u/Wangpasta Mar 23 '23

Too many people in the world realistically. A company of around 100 people makes millions. If it pays it workers like shit and the workers move on then, especially in big cites, they’ll have a couple thousand applicants by the end of the week

7

u/MrFoxxie Mar 23 '23

Realistically the fresh meat would also have to be living close to the area of hire (whichlimits the number down significantly).

Ain't nobody moving across the world to earn poverty wages and if the corpo moves locations they probably spend more effort and money to even make the move, so ultimately they're also kinda stuck.

Not like they care since they're more shortsighted than the oil companies who buried reports on co2 effects

→ More replies

2

u/ooa3603 Mar 23 '23

Eventually that tactic does fail, but it can work for a while.

Not because they'll run out of new hires, because right now in our hyper-capitalist paradigm human life is cheap.

But because shit employees inevitably results in a shit product.

And long term success is nearly impossible for companies without a good product.

Though even that is un-certain with our inability to enact policies that let poorly performing businesses fail.

2

u/clonedhuman Mar 23 '23

Yep. Everything about this system is designed to enrich/embolden the monkeys at the very top of the dollar hierarchy. And those monkeys want the rest of us monkeys to occupy the lower ranks, so they force us to take up residence there.

13

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '23

Yea I'd like to see where it doesn't work. From what I can tell nothing has changed.

11

u/silentrawr Mar 23 '23

Yes. Yes it does. It does work. Companies may not be posting record profits this year, but they're firing a shit ton of employees as well. Executives aren't suffering in any way whatsoever.

This sums up exactly what I was going to make sure was posted somewhere ITT. We need to find a way to MAKE it work, but I honestly don't know if it's possible (here in the US) without serious social and governmental upheaval.

3

u/Avid_Smoker Mar 23 '23

Agreeing that it no longer works seems to be a step in the right direction then, doesn't it?

→ More replies

3

u/1lluminist Mar 23 '23

If companies want to save millions, they should consider firing their executive staff.

2

u/Avid_Smoker Mar 23 '23

Trying to normalize a new way of thinking shouldn't be a bad thing.

→ More replies

2

u/Avid_Smoker Mar 23 '23

Seems like it always has to be one or the other...

107

u/Original-Document-62 Mar 23 '23

About 6 years ago, I worked for a pharma lab as a technician. They kept telling everyone "if we can maintain the profits we're anticipating, everyone will get decent raises this year!" Then they promptly sought a buyer and sold the company.

The raises did not happen. And the entirety of senior management got 7 figure bonuses. I had been there for 6 years and was making <$16/hr.

Then I worked for a blood testing lab, in their phone room. They then sold their long term care division. I said "so they're getting ready to sell the rest, right?" I was told no, of course not, our jobs were safe. Within like a month, they sold the rest of the company.

Everyone was getting laid off. They told us that if we didn't get another job before the layoffs happened, we would get a severance. Then the company that bought us started offering "jobs". We were then told, if we didn't accept the new jobs, we would not get the severance after all. Then, whoever did sign on with the new company was promptly fired or made to quit. I hadn't heard of a single person actually getting that severance.

41

u/collectorguy92 Mar 23 '23

That’s some twisted shit right there.

12

u/BardtheGM Mar 23 '23

No, that's just capitalism working as intended.

→ More replies

36

u/OutWithTheNew Mar 23 '23

Just goes to show you that anything not put in writing is worth absolutely nothing.

11

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '23

And that middle management has no insight into potential acquisitions.

11

u/OutWithTheNew Mar 23 '23

They do. They lead the employees on so the new employer would have staff ready to work. The mission was a success.

→ More replies

3

u/authaire 💵 Break Up The Monopolies Mar 23 '23

So ... Y'all took this court, right?

→ More replies

37

u/MinorIconvenience Mar 23 '23

What the actual fuck? I was making that when I was 14 doing food service decades ago… Where is this possible right now?

41

u/collectorguy92 Mar 23 '23

Pennsylvania. Still has a minimum wage of $7.25

15

u/Ouryus Mar 23 '23

Same here in KY, I see signs up at restaurants offering $8.25/hour "must have open availability". They are always understaffed.

12

u/SchuminWeb Mar 23 '23

$8.25/hour

"must have open availability".

They are always understaffed.

I could never imagine why they would be constantly understaffed... 😂😂😂

16

u/Jonasthewicked2 Mar 23 '23

It should be criminal to pay that wage

25

u/collectorguy92 Mar 23 '23

‘Murica, Bald Eagle, Capitalism (I hate it here)

8

u/Jonasthewicked2 Mar 23 '23

Late stage capitalism not that it makes it any better

→ More replies

3

u/ButtChugJackDaniels Mar 23 '23

"Stand for the flag and kneel for the cross and take as much shit from your boss as you physically can or else you're a dirty fuckin commie"

→ More replies
→ More replies

11

u/tyriancomyn Mar 23 '23

Seriously. I was making about the same at taco bell while in High School in the mid-late 90s. This is criminal.

→ More replies

66

u/destronger Mar 23 '23

similar thing happened to me during 1999. i was making $10 an hr and found a new job that paid $12 around the corner. this was great because my then girlfriend (now wife) worked at the place i was leaving. i gave them two weeks and not until the last two days did they get someone from a temp agency. so they were paying way more for that. i asked them to pay $14 which was still cheaper than the agency. they said $12 and i left.

this new place only lasted a few months as i had an offer at intel SC9(as a temp turned perm contractor) for $14 and it was closer to home. i took it. my now wife also found a job down the street from there and she got more an hour too.

eventually moved to D2 at intel which also gave me another raise. 5 years later i was let go. but that had me change careers to HVAC service tech which just about 17 years which got me into a union with a 6 figure pay. just this month i moved to BAS controls/energy management which is less labor intensive.

leaving a company and moving to something better triggered me to get into a good career that is very much needed.

33

u/telltal Mar 23 '23

Exactly. Boomers are always complaining about people (whatever generation they want to attack) job hopping every couple of years. They think we should work for 15-20 years, like they did back in the days when employee loyalty was returned by the company in the form of regular raises and pensions. If we didn't job hop whenever we saw a better opportunity, we'd be working for $8.25/hour for the rest of our lives.

→ More replies
→ More replies

21

u/ILikeLenexa Mar 23 '23 edited Mar 23 '23

BAM hates its workers so much. Their membership card system is positively broken and it makes shopping there miserable because no one wants to run register and ignoring customers is fine, but helping them and then them not buying cards even if they have one already gets you fired.

13

u/collectorguy92 Mar 23 '23

I was threatened with having my hours cut multiple times because I didn’t push the membership cards when customers said they weren’t interested. I also barely asked customers about magazine subscriptions because I dealt with a number of customers who HAD signed up and the process to cancel was nearly impossible. I just wanted to talk to people about books and sell them something they wanted, but THE METRICS.

→ More replies
→ More replies

20

u/SchuminWeb Mar 23 '23

Name-and-Shame: Books-A-Million

Thank you for naming and shaming. Too many people tell these sorts of stories and then refuse to reveal who the company is, and for no good reason.

6

u/collectorguy92 Mar 23 '23

I haven’t had any connection to them for over two years, but I still would have named-and-shamed them even if I still worked there.

3

u/SchuminWeb Mar 23 '23

Yeah, I've never understood what people's hangups are, especially on a site like Reddit, where people are largely just an anonymous handle. Like your username, collectorguy92. BAM management would likely be quite hard-pressed to determine that your handle is definitely Bob who works in store 163 or something - even more so if this sort of behavior is common throughout the company. In other words, the likelihood of any repercussions from naming these things are slim to none, and a lot closer to none than to slim.

3

u/multiarmform Mar 23 '23

"maybe that worked once, it doesnt work anymore"

they will keep doing it as long as people keep applying at whatever company. great example is disney.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/02/15/xnwz-f15.html

disney has always had high turnover and always will. cast members didnt used to be homeless living in their cars and in seedy motels up and down highway 192 though

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8O2gzHuXLE

as long as people keep accepting shitty jobs, companies will continue to exploit workers because they can

3

u/Odd-Turnip-2019 Mar 23 '23

My last workplace done the same thing "we made 9.7mil this year during COVID. We were going for 10 but since it was COVID we will take it! Also, no tools in stock or raises for you guys this year"

Thanks.

3

u/widowhanzo Mar 23 '23

My previous company (well, the group owner) was bragging about how they're planning 100 million € of revenue the next year... but they couldn't buy us 27" 1440p monitors, only 1080p, to save maybe 50€ per engineer. I left for a significantly higher paid job and got better equipment to boot.

3

u/cjandstuff Mar 23 '23

Our local BAM is always running a skeleton crew. Maybe four people in the whole store, with one poor person trying to run the front register, the cafe, helping customers, and putting books back on the shelf. It’s ridiculous.

→ More replies

3

u/joetogood Mar 23 '23

Gosh this is one of the first comments or posts naming and shaming I'm sure we all appreciate letting us know what a shit hole Books-A-Million is

2

u/Knowitmall Mar 23 '23

$10 an hour for assistant manager job. What in the actual fuck? You can earn more at McDonalds.

→ More replies

783

u/Teamerchant ⛓️ Prison For Union Busters Mar 22 '23 edited Mar 23 '23

In the USA we are upping our game.

CEO' will say we had record profits!! Also we are laying off 1/3 our workforce in anticipation that the economy might dip. Business has never been better and we still expect 5% growth even in the upcoming environment!

CEO's to the employees. WFH is going away as we decided to believe it affects productivity despite you never being more productive. Also 1/3 of you will be laid off, It takes effort to reach out 1 by 1 so we are just mass shutting down access for those affected and you will get a mass email on next steps. The remaining employees will pick up the additional tasks and we will not be raising wages this fiscal year because we think it may be a difficult landscape next year.

No one in America is operating under good faith anymore. It's all smoke and mirrors to steal even more from the labor class and funnel it to the capitalist class.

253

u/Crizbibble Mar 22 '23

This came out of the Ivy League schools and the consulting companies like McKinsey and Co. after the 1980s and 1990s. Cost cutting was taught to mean getting rid of people. They changed the corporate dynamic to look at workers as just cogs. Jack Welch really blew up this philosophy when he was at GE and drove that company into almost the ground yet his management philosophy was emulated by Wall Street, the Ivy Leagues and the consulting companies. It has destroyed any meaning of loyalty between workers and their employers. It’s a race to the bottom and that’s why they have tried their best to outsource most work overseas.

101

u/mdp300 Mar 23 '23 edited Mar 23 '23

Chris Christie did the same thing as governor of NJ. He was all about "shrinking the size of government" which really just meant firing a lot of people and making services suck.

30

u/Delta9_TetraHydro Mar 23 '23

This is essentially what all Republicans are fighting for, just not all of them get that.

9

u/Jojoyojimbi Mar 23 '23

This is essentially what all Republicans are fighting for, just not all of them get that.

that's just all a step along the path to privatizing everything they can so they can more easily funnel public money into the private pockets of their companies and their buddies companies

9

u/Delta9_TetraHydro Mar 23 '23

Yup. The best way to make citizens advocate for privatizations, is to cut the public systems so much that they suck, making greedy privatization the only alternative.

→ More replies

50

u/Kirkuchiyo Mar 23 '23

I had the owner of my previous job tell me to my face that I was no different to him than a hammer or a wrench, just a tool to do a job. Fuck you Jim.

14

u/Branamp13 Mar 23 '23

Goddamn, points for honesty, I guess?

2

u/Kirkuchiyo Mar 23 '23

Lol, that was the other partner, see my comment elsewhere under this.

15

u/Seldarin Mar 23 '23

I had a foreman say something similar on a job I was a temp on.

I asked him why the tool for getting the job done was making $2/hr more than he was and got no answer.

3

u/sleepydorian Mar 23 '23

I feel you.

Similar but still infuriating, I've worked for folks who had no concept of resource constraints. They either thought we were being lazy or contrary. No, Dan, when I said I can't do that, I didn't mean I don't want to do it, I meant the system can't handle it and it will not work. You must start this request by building that capability from the ground up or else you will have to get used to disappointment.

3

u/Kirkuchiyo Mar 23 '23

Funny you use the name Dan, he was the other partner and an equal asshole. One of the biggest liars I've ever met. Customers, employees, ISO inspectors, you name it, he'd try to bullshit them.

3

u/sleepydorian Mar 23 '23

Worst boss I ever had and always my go to name when complaining

5

u/Kirkuchiyo Mar 23 '23

What's a bummer is I'd known him at my previous job, he was an outside salesman for one of our vendors and was always really nice and super helpful. When I realized he was buying I was excited cause I really thought he'd be able to improve the company, boy was wrong.

The founder of the company though was cool and really believed in taking care of the employees, i.e, paying them. He was already wealthy from previous businesses he'd owned. He brought on Jim as a partner prior to me being hired (I was the first employee) and things were great for a few years. Then he semi-retired and Dan came in. Dan and Jim were two of the penny pinchingest sons of bitches I've ever seen. At one time we had a really good crew but we've all left and, last I knew, they were really understaffed cause word got around it was a poor paying job that was very stressful.

At one point I went six years without a raise. I made decent money in a niche field so my options to leave were limited. After I had a weeks vacation canceled that they'd already approved I was done, took a 20% pay cut, switched fields and left. They were stunned as I'd been there 20 years. You don't quit a job, you quit a boss.

28

u/First_Foundationeer Mar 23 '23

I don't know if it's just the Ivy Leagues, but it's definitely the idiot MBA-trained leadership roles. They don't know the business they "lead" and only know how to cut costs.. before taking the golden parachutes to ruin another company for short term profit.

21

u/iwoketoanightmare Mar 23 '23

I was listening to Dolly Parton the other day and 9 to 5 came along.. totally my jam and completely true today. Except for the fact that sometime between 1975 and now these fuckwads made it 8-5. Where’s my fucking extra hour!?

12

u/coffeeshoppe Mar 23 '23

It’s because companies don’t want to pay for an hour lunch anymore…so they make it unpaid and have you come in an hour early to maintain the 8hr day of pay.

It’s ducking stupid.

Just pay your workers for the full time they’re stuck in your work vicinity. As if productivity increased when those companies thought “oh we can squeeze 8hrs of work instead of 7hrs if we do this one simple trick”. Supposedly productivity goes down after 3hrs of work anyway.

7

u/pheonixblade9 Mar 23 '23

it's because it's not about the company's products or customers, it's about how the extreme financialization of the private sector can be abused to further enrich the oligarchs.

2

u/menellinde Mar 23 '23

Cost cutting was taught to mean getting rid of people.

Exactly this. In a previous career in the 90's I worked for a company that supplied parts to one of the big auto makers. That auto maker had a rule that their suppliers had to reduce their price by 4% each year. After getting that reduction through innovation was no longer an option they decided the next best step was to start cutting staff. The first ones to go were most of the quality / reliability team.

It wasn't too long after that the company closed its doors because all their production kept getting either scrapped at the end of the line in house, or at their customer's plant.

46

u/OutWithTheNew Mar 23 '23

Upper management is killing WFH because the real estate market in city centers is on the verge of going to shit. All those C suite upper management types are invested in real estate. You're being sacrificed for more of their profits.

24

u/Teamerchant ⛓️ Prison For Union Busters Mar 23 '23

Par for the course. Only a French style revolution will change it.

10

u/FailResorts Mar 23 '23

Burning or occupying their second homes in places like Vail or Aspen should do the trick. They sit vacant for all bit 2-3 weeks per year and those communities are so sparsely populated/staffed that a simple mob would overrun everything.

Until the rich actually start hurting and feeling the negative effects of their actions, they’ll continue doing what they’re doing.

Take Denver for example. Downtown is falling apart because of the lack of housing, homelessness, and general lack of affordability for commercial rental space. A good chunk of those Uber rich living in Cap Hill or Cherry Creek have second homes in the mountains. The fact that they complain about homeless camps but own ski condos that sit vacant most of the year is the most depressingly ironic thing I hear on a regular basis.

It’s time to start seizing these second properties until there are no more unhoused people.

4

u/NoAssumptions731 Mar 23 '23

Because they were able to hide it better back then. Now we have access to anything and everything we can think of. Like corporate earnings reports or a dumb fuck CEO that likes to tweet too much

3

u/meowmeow_now Mar 23 '23

I know this is SOP, but it makes the good employees and the unicorns leave. Next year they are left with the quiet quitters and the naturally lazy/inept employees.

2

u/HannesH150 Mar 23 '23

Well this sucks. But if I look at what the Left in your country has campaigned for in the past 10 years, it's gone from "Occupy Wallstreet" to CRT and cancelling J.K. Rowling, so you're not exactly making it hard for those CEO's.

→ More replies

154

u/Incomitatum Mar 22 '23

Never SHOULD have worked.

As a business, WAGES are 100% tax Deductible.

They want to brag about playing The Game wrongly, because they need you desperate and in Survival Mode so you will keep Consuming.

Church, Theater, Bread, Circus: we'd need fewer balms to our souls if The Big Blue Room was arranged correctly.

Remember kids, there IS more than enough to go around.
It's just Greed seems to be a prime-virtue on planet earth.

45

u/arcspectre17 Mar 22 '23

Ya this system throws away a trillion pounds a food a year all for profits!!

42

u/Incomitatum Mar 22 '23

It's something like 30% of ALL goods go straight to Landfil.

This is higher for commissary/raw-ingredients for food.

There are enough for EACH human to own 150 t-shirts.
And they JUST printed another.

Have you seen the photos of the Pyramids of clothes in the desert produced by Fast Fashion?

Toil for it's own sake, they will NEVER be worn.

But plenty of hand-jobs were given all along it's manufacturing life-cycle to ensure it got MADE.

Fuck playing by any rules, it's all made up, and arranged poorly 🙃

12

u/arcspectre17 Mar 22 '23

Bad game of shuffle the money around to create false valuations while we waste everything.

→ More replies

3

u/interlopenz Mar 23 '23

In my country interest on loans for business expenses are tax deductible.

3

u/Bumplestiltskin Mar 23 '23

Also true in the US.

2

u/Eggs_Bennett Mar 23 '23

We have literally solved homelessness and world hunger from a supply standpoint. Greed is a fucking cancer and humans are disgusting.

→ More replies

892

u/Solid-Brother-1439 Mar 22 '23

It does in US tho.

198

u/Grit-326 Mar 22 '23

In IT, you almost have to go to another company to get a raise. Then you look and your old spot is being offered for the salary you asked for.

71

u/WolfmansGotNards2 Mar 22 '23

My new company says they don't do this. We'll see. Lol.

18

u/KJBenson Mar 23 '23

Wait until they’re your old company to see the truth haha

13

u/DiscombobulatedSky67 Mar 23 '23

All my new companies say this until the 1 year mark comes around and I go looking for the promotion they promised if I delivered the project they asked for. I always deliver, they never do.

6

u/grendel_x86 Mar 23 '23

The companies that do this will often play other games like putting employees against each other, or guilting them saying stuff like well, we didn't give most employees this bump...

... Unless your the boss's kid or an exec, the company is screwing you.

4

u/WolfmansGotNards2 Mar 23 '23

We'll see. I'm on a high paid contract for 3-6 months. I'm going to see how they treat everyone else while I consider their permanent offer.

→ More replies

38

u/skrshawk Mar 23 '23

They know. It's all about trying to save the company money. The fact you accepted a wage at one time in one company and that you would have to take on the effort and risk of a getting a new employer lets them pull this.

Only two ways to play this game. Change employers (which rewards their strategy), or unionize and bargain collectively.

18

u/VeryStillRightNow Mar 23 '23

Gonna be testing this with my employer next month. It's review/raise time, and between inflation and double the responsibility I used to have, I'm making a lot less in terms of real dollars than I was six years ago when I started. I actually like my job (IT at company that makes scientific/medical instruments), but I'm going to have to have a polite but very honest conversation with them about how much they're going to have to spend to replace me, and how long that's going to take. I've done all the research and know exactly how much I'm worth, and their HR does, too. Wish me luck folks.

9

u/Grit-326 Mar 23 '23

I wish you all the luck my friend.

"If you know what you're worth, go out and get what you're worth!" -Rocky Balboa

3

u/daddy_nobucks Mar 23 '23

“Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place, and I don’t care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward; how much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done! Now, if you know what you’re worth, then go out and get what you’re worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain’t where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody. Cowards do that and that ain’t you. You’re better than that!”

― Sylvester Stallone

6

u/Commercial_Yak7468 Mar 23 '23

I'm getting ready to start a new job and I am curious what my old company is going to offer to replace me.

I was honest with HR in my exit interview that my wage was competitive a few years ago when I took my old job, but obviously things have changed in those years

→ More replies

53

u/SnooRevelations9889 Mar 22 '23 edited Mar 23 '23

Heck, often they often pay the new hire way more than what you asked for.

It's a helluva thing, leaving a job for a big increase (after being denied a modest one) just to have your old job filled at the same rate.

25

u/Ok_Quarter_6929 Mar 23 '23

It's because the budget for new hires is always larger then the retention budget. If there even is a retention budget.

32

u/SnooRevelations9889 Mar 23 '23 edited Mar 23 '23

I understand the middle management's "hands are tied" — but that's a choice the company made.

There's no law that says they have to. As soon as enough people start moving to get better compensation, suddenly, it's easy to change. Because it's easy to change.

6

u/DynamicHunter Mar 23 '23

Yup, what’s crazy is that back in the 50s-80s retention was prioritized and company loyalty was rewarded with pensions, high wages, and career growth. You could stay at one or two companies your whole life and retire with a sweet pension and a paid off house from being a simple bank teller.

None of that is true anymore. You get measly 2-5% raises and little career growth, and certainly not pensions. The real pay raises are from switching companies. Instead of investing in stock buybacks or shareholder dividends companies paid profit sharing to employees making them more loyal. All of that is gone now (except for higher-earning white collar like in finance and tech which get some profit sharing/stock bonuses, but even then don’t get career growth or huge pay increases unless they job hop).

4

u/Ok_Quarter_6929 Mar 23 '23

Can confirm. When doing IT work I was in the very bottom rung but still had stock buy options. Opportunities to move up were rare, though, and eventually I made a lateral move which cost me my job when the call came to cut all the "least senior" employees which technically included me for jumping departments.

Loyalty is a lie. When your boss asks you where you'll be in 10 years, the true answer is "With whomever pays most".

→ More replies

4

u/Kascket Mar 23 '23

They have to make us believe we are replaceable!

3

u/Gavorn Mar 23 '23

In every position*

4

u/Grit-326 Mar 23 '23

I don't work every position. I only know about IT.

3

u/Nebbii Mar 23 '23

It is desperation. They realize the spot you filled isn't going to be filled as faster as they need so they keep bumping the salary up

3

u/lochinvar11 Mar 23 '23

Exactly. And this is true for plenty of technical jobs. They think you're bluffing when demanding a raise, but when you quit they have too much pride to ask you to come back.

3

u/AtmosphereHot8414 Mar 23 '23

At my company we are all looking. What would happen if we all left? I do payroll on a 2 man team and we are both interviewing. That would be amazing…

→ More replies

406

u/x-munk Mar 22 '23

Yup. I hate it... but it does.

Also "Sorry, we're going to have to freeze raises" being said moments after upping wages for "critical" employees (aka management).

8

u/Grandfunk14 Mar 23 '23

Yeap the costs of living are so high and with a such a poor social safety net, they got us coming and going. Oh you still need medical insurance? Get back to work pleb.

94

u/Live-Taco Mar 23 '23

Then quit. I did.

145

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '23

[deleted]

48

u/CrystlBluePersuasion Mar 23 '23

I bet you don't earn much vacation any more to take some rest either. Every job I've had has cuts starting vacation hours more and more because they've 'just changed policy' and nowadays for even a decent job you need 5+ years for 3 weeks off a year, at least 1-2 years for fucking 2 weeks, meaning before I hit my 2nd work anniversary I had 1 measly week of vacation a year.

Nobody in my family lives around me because of work or retirement, so I can barely see them, same goes for all my college friends or friends from past jobs because of having to move so far.

All so my yearly raises for exceedingly good work can get outpaced by greedflation, and my college debt struggles to hang on a bit longer for it.

15

u/cartmancakes Mar 23 '23

Aww, man... I miss vacation days...

9

u/CrystlBluePersuasion Mar 23 '23

Everyone deserves vacation days!!

6

u/Blonde_Vampire_1984 Mar 23 '23

What’s a vacation?

→ More replies

8

u/concernedcath123 Mar 23 '23

I empathize with this completely. It’s so disheartening.

22

u/Sycosys Mar 23 '23

dont have kids, lets starve the machine of new cogs

10

u/OutWithTheNew Mar 23 '23

They just bring in cogs from India.

Just look at Canada.

8

u/Sycosys Mar 23 '23

india has problems of their own and population growth might not be a thing in that region of the world for much longer.

Food in that part of the world(really everywhere) is precariously balanced on a climate that is tossing wrenches.

→ More replies
→ More replies

4

u/Commercial_Yak7468 Mar 23 '23

Man I would LOVE to be able to be like our parents and have a comany i can stay at for 20+ years, but if you want any sort of meaningful raise you have to move every few years or else you are losing money

3

u/Orisara Mar 23 '23

One of the best things about living in a place like Belgium compared to the US imo for a person like me who wants what you want.

Just less shit to worry about.

Medicine are dealt with, wages automatically rise with inflation, good worker rights and a lot of time off, etc.

I work my 9 to 5 and have jack shit to worry about. It's nice.

→ More replies

9

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '23

[deleted]

→ More replies

4

u/meowmeow_now Mar 23 '23

Or QuietQuitMAX. I strategically downscaled my productivity to match my buying power and overall mood. I started tracking my hours and gave myself “unperformance metrics” - basically I tracked my time and had a performance goal of doing no more than 2 hours of work. I permitted myself to do up to 4 total hours of works, if needed with the understanding I would try very hard to umakeup that time.

I did this an entire year with no complaints. I now have a much better job. I learned that I don’t actually like not being productive but it was the only way I could claim some power back. If they wanted to pay be below market rate I was going to put in below market hours.

3

u/Live-Taco Mar 23 '23

I did something similar. Only instead of just not being productive I worked an entire other job after my full time job mon-Fri that paid more in just a few hours of work a day. I doubled my income for 5 months which made me realize I needed to quit my full time job and do something better.

5

u/Ksradrik Mar 23 '23

They got plenty of desperate people to choose from.

7

u/Live-Taco Mar 23 '23

Someone needs to do what’s right so others can follow.

4

u/NoirBoner Mar 23 '23

Well it's 2023... still waiting for the greedy, corrupt, nepotistic pieces of shit that run our society to "do the right thing".

→ More replies
→ More replies

6

u/Electrical-Papaya Mar 23 '23

Last year our plant manager used to hold these communication meetings with each shift once every other month. It was intended to let the hourly staff know what's going on with the company and offer up an opportunity for us to ask management questions.

The last one we had was a while back. 45 minute power point presentation on how we are making record breaking profits. Company is raking in millions.Congrats to our sales team for getting us these awesome new contracts. He's telling us this while we have been working 6 to 7 days a week to catch up on orders because we are ridiculously short staffed and they keep accepting orders and new projects without the people to make the parts. After everything was said and done they told us our annual raises were still on freeze. They had been on freeze for over a year at that point.

I'm still trying to figure out what he had hoped to accomplish. You can't be so disconnected from your staff that you brag about record profits to your overworked crew and then tell them in that same meeting that they aren't getting a raise again this year.

9

u/NoirBoner Mar 23 '23 edited Mar 23 '23

You can't be so disconnected from your staff that you brag about record profits to your overworked crew and then tell them in that same meeting that they aren't getting a raise again this year.

I don't understand why people just can't accept or refuse to believe that mangers managers, ceos, and "higher ups" of these companies and corporations truly do not give a single fuck that they're alive. They DO NOT CARE ABOUT YOU.

THEY HATE YOU.

And if they could use you as a fucking slave and pay you nothing they would gladly do so. Get it through your heads. These people are not your friends, have no empathy/consideration for you and actively hate you.

Act accordingly.

2

u/authaire 💵 Break Up The Monopolies Mar 23 '23

This is the way.

3

u/BagFullOfSharts Mar 23 '23

It’s not only that. It’s hiring new people at the same wage as people doing the same job for 5+ years while they get trained. It’s such fucking bullshit. Everyone in the country should be pulling a France style protest right now.

→ More replies

19

u/NamityName Mar 22 '23

I recently left a company for doing this. Refused to at least match inflation after having a company wide meeting talking about record profits.

2

u/WaltonGogginsTeeth Mar 23 '23

They can’t help but brag and pat themselves on the back about profits and then two seconds later it’s about “belt tightening” and “budget cuts”. Fuck you!

7

u/DextersDrkPassenger_ Mar 22 '23

Exactly. They can. Because they do

3

u/Prime157 Mar 23 '23 edited Mar 23 '23

That's because there's a whole political party and its propaganda arm that has deluded a bunch of sole-proprieters who do labor into thinking they're the next big corporation.

And no, that doesn't absolve the people in the other political party that also do this. While it's only some of the party, I'm giving recognition that's deserved.

3

u/PinicchioDelTaco Mar 23 '23

Yeah I’m pretty sure we’re all letting it still work.

→ More replies

193

u/socialis-philosophus Mar 22 '23

CEO: "Shareholders, I'm proud to bring you record profits BECAUSE we didn't provide workers better wages and working conditions."

12

u/Vecna_Is_My_Co-Pilot Mar 23 '23

"Bringing it to us through, like, a stock sharing plan or something?"

No.

7

u/dumbestsmartest Mar 23 '23

You mean where you have to plan ahead how much of your money is going to be used to artificially raise the share price because while you may get to purchase it for 5% discount they'll have a clause forbidding you from selling it for a set amount of time.

I may or may not have described the stock options plan of my F100 company for the regular employees.

40

u/Khazar420 Mar 22 '23

They don't care if it doesn't work. They're making their money and you're not, so they can lie and lie and lie, but there's nothing you can do because they have all the money and suffer zero costs

105

u/usernames_suck_ok Mar 22 '23

Right now, it's more like, "You can't brag about record profits and then lay people off."

70

u/Matrix0523 Mar 22 '23

Amazon: “Try me”

37

u/slowpoke2018 Mar 22 '23

Google - "we got your back Amazon!"

8

u/KJBenson Mar 23 '23

This joke is so meta

→ More replies

34

u/C_Wombat44 Mar 22 '23

Haha, my employer literally sent out an email last Monday bragging about a really good quarter (the fiscal quarter ended on 2/28) and then laid people off on Thursday.

6

u/EmergencyComplaints Mar 23 '23

My (former) employer at least had the good grace to stop bragging about record profits in the company meetings for two quarters before they canned three or four thousand people.

16

u/navybluesoles Mar 22 '23

Isn't this wage theft? They retain money you worked for and refuse to give back, to oversimplify it.

25

u/upper-cloud-9 Mar 22 '23

Literal wage theft is barely prosecuted as it is.

Meanwhile company owners think it’s wage theft if OT exempt employees aren’t on the clock 8+ hours a day

3

u/CanAlwaysBeBetter Mar 23 '23

If you want to talk about labor getting the fair share of value it creates that's fine but the example that comment gave does not reflect the common meaning of wage theft whatsoever

→ More replies

22

u/[deleted] Mar 22 '23

[deleted]

13

u/LooeLooi Mar 23 '23

You need people that are willing to accept consequences, even if they're in the right. People died for a 8 hour work day and the right to unionize. There's little wrong with not wanting to be a martyr.

66

u/jimjamjerome Mar 22 '23

I mean... Doesn't it though?

US workers don't have the power to fight back with the lack of strong unions. Going on strike means going hungry or in extreme cases actually dying. So strikes that do happen are short lived and forgotten about in a week.

48

u/City_slacker Mar 22 '23

Gotta go french or go home.

41

u/democracy_lover66 🌎 Pass A Green Jobs Plan Mar 22 '23

They really are setting the golden standard right now and it's over a two-year difference in retirement age, compare that to what workers are fighting for here.

Hope people on our side of the Atlantic are taking notes.

9

u/WakandaZad Mar 23 '23
  • us workers still support the system that hurts them
→ More replies
→ More replies

58

u/mar421 Mar 22 '23

Our ceo sent an email saying the company can’t afford overtime, new equipment and employees. Two days later sends an email saying that our company is the best bang per buck out there.

19

u/ThePronto8 Mar 22 '23

Sadly it seems like it is working.

18

u/soupinate44 Mar 22 '23

Of course it does. Until we replace the current system, end Citizens United and force a functional accountability system that costs more for punishment including prison than the profits from the crimes and unconscionable greed.

16

u/N_Who Mar 22 '23

It works, though. It still works.

We're aware of the bullshit, sure. But they're still getting away with it. And they will continue to, until the system breaks down.

6

u/antithero Mar 22 '23

It's already broken.

6

u/-smashbros- Mar 23 '23

Not for them

11

u/Suspicious-Bed9172 Mar 22 '23

Big meeting where the higher ups congratulate all the lowly peons for breaking records and setting record profits for the company. The next thing the workers need to do is demand wage increases proportional to those record profits, when the bosses laugh and say no you all walk out together

5

u/g0ris Mar 23 '23

Big meeting where the higher ups congratulate all the lowly peons for breaking records and setting record profits for the company.

I'm in meetings like that multiple times a year. Bosses up to like 4-5 levels above mine all try to make sure as many of us as possible attend those meetings (virtually).
For the life of me I can't figure out why they do this. Why the fuck do they think bragging to regular workers about how many millions extra "we" made, or saved, would matter to any of us. ESPECIALLY when they keep turning around after and freezing promotions and laying people off, showing time and time again that the company earning more doesn't mean shit for the people producing the products.
Are the CEOs and VPs and their ilk so out of touch that they don't even realize all they're doing is giving their employees a reason to hate them/the company?

8

u/Nopants_Sith Mar 22 '23

I dunno man it's worked for like fifty years and nothing has happened to them yet...

7

u/JasonCox Mar 23 '23

I worked for a company that was, shall we say, United forever in Healthcare and labor. They dropped out of the ACA/Obamacare exchanges saying that it was costing them too much money, and then a week later bragged in an internal memo about how they had made record profits that year.

16

u/socraticsnacks Mar 22 '23

Someone with a VP title at Chase posted something on LinkedIn the other day about their CEO Jamie Dimon and how he was stepping in to help other banks in this time of need and put "#leadership" on the post. So I commented on the post and just said something to the tune of "wasn't this the same guy who was trying to award himself $53M in stock options a year ago?" I think 4 people liked my comment, but over 800 (!) people liked the original post. Are there just that many brown-nosers and/or dumb people out there that don't see that people like Jamie Dimon are a part of the problem?? LinkedIn is just a weird cult of people who are obligated to the corporate trough.

→ More replies

4

u/democracy_lover66 🌎 Pass A Green Jobs Plan Mar 22 '23

I really wish it didn't...

Guess we better start striking till that day comes

4

u/JimothyRedditAccount Mar 23 '23

not to be the bearer of bad news, I 100% sympathize with the struggle...

but it absolutely seems to work.

probably cause of one simple fact: The right has their useful idiots running for office. The rest of us... for some reason, are reserved to little text boxes on reddit. Just my 2 cents. (before you ask, I'm absolutely unqualified to work in government.)

6

u/j-merc23 Mar 22 '23

How do you expect to get record profits if you give those profits to employees?

3

u/OutWithTheNew Mar 23 '23

Near where I live there's the headquarters and 'flagship' store for a privately held retail chain. They give the employees profit sharing after something like 6 months.

You know what the result is? Probably the best staff of any large retail chain I've ever been to.

3

u/theoddestbadger Mar 22 '23

yet here we are

3

u/BanThisDick111 Mar 23 '23

Lmao yes they can and do constantly. Do you think your twitter screenshot is going to stop them?

3

u/KiIIermandude Mar 23 '23

Man, this is so true.

Companies can't post record profits without ignoring employee wages.

Corrupt members of congress can't complain about how we treat veterans while killing legislation to help them.

Governments can't spend billions (trillions?) on bailouts while claiming 'there isn't room in the budget' for struggling citizens.

/s

They CAN. And they WILL. They pretend to have their cake, and eat it too. And as long as 40% of Americans believe they still have the cake, and 9% of Americans follow the ebb and flow?

"Maybe that worked once...."

BITCH. IT'S WORKED THOUSANDS OF TIMES, AND IT'S STILL WORKING.

3

u/tmwwmgkbh Mar 23 '23

It doesn’t work anymore IF you unionize and force management to share profits with you. Unions are the way…

3

u/feeneyboi Mar 23 '23

It still works lol

4

u/Financial-Ad7500 Mar 23 '23

Pretty sure it still works every time actually.

2

u/styles1996 Mar 23 '23

Don't forget about not being able to give out raises because the company can't afford it.

2

u/MeppaTheWaterbearer Mar 23 '23

Sure they can because there's nothing we can do about it

2

u/DanteJazz Mar 23 '23

They will never respond to workers.

2

u/GMDdhg Mar 23 '23

I’d like a CEO to brag about how much their employees made

2

u/NighIsATroll Mar 23 '23

That's my job right now. Hit all sales goals across the board, actually exceeded targets and NO RAISES. They also made it seem like we were lucky to get a 401k match this year.

I feel the need to mention we were bought out by Henry Schein a few years ago and it's gone downhill since then.

2

u/CharlesWS Mar 23 '23

We need a concerted general strike with specific demands including universal health care and minimum living wage for all workers. There a many millions more of us than them. They need us. We don’t need them.

2

u/InterstellarReddit Mar 23 '23

Boomers still eating that up lol.

They grew up in a generation that reaped all the American benefits.

They had it so good, that they had money for two houses, multiple vehicles, annual vacations, shit everyone had pensions.

Now we have nothing to work towards, and they’re complaining.

2

u/Ashe_SDMF Mar 23 '23

Oh they absolutely can and do, unfortunately.