Staff Shortages and Profit

-

Employers are not philanthropists. Less pay for workers, more profit for them.

We have work but few takers. Employers in the hotel and cottage industry are crying foul and they blame the pandemic. COVID-19 shut down the world in 2020 and governments provided relief funds to ensure that citizens continued to pay rent, buy food and clothes for kids. They called it stimulus money in the U.S.

Employers maintain that workers are used to free government wages, that is why they don’t want to go back to work. First of all, it’s not free. Remember your first job.

You were so excited about your first pay cheque. It didn’t last long because the fat cheque you were expecting turned out to be the size of a top model, very thin, because of taxes. Therefore pandemic money was not a handout.

Secondly, employers cannot blame it for lack of workers. It stopped in 2021. We had to go back to work. However, that money was more than the minimum wage and was proof that workers can be paid more.

The problem is not the stimulus money. It is what is called labour costs. Some industries in Canada do not like the annual adjustment of the minimum wage. They use fancy terms like labour costs affecting the profit margin or revenue.

COUNTRY

MINIMUM WAGE

Sweden

None, unions negotiate wages

United Kingdom

Around nine pounds an hour

Canada, British Columbia Province

$15.65 an hour

Canada, Manitoba Province

$11.95 an hour

Employers should not blame the government for doing their duty, providing life support for taxpayers in time of need. They should revisit capitalism, which calls a human being a ‘cost’ that is sacrificed for profit.

By: Nonqaba waka Msimang.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Elections And Political Bullies

-
Image
Forget democracy.   It should be called political bullying. We are watching it in the prelude to the Canadian election on the 19 th of October, 2015.   Americans have also started their political bullying for the looming presidential election next year. So many trees wasted on books about democracy.   Some countries have big budgets for invading other countries ‘ to defend democracy’ but it is seldom practised in campaigning for elections.   Calling opponents names and printing flyers attacking each other is behaviour that will not be tolerated in kindergarten, but it is all legal, in campaigning.   It is irritating and such a let-down to the whole notion of democracy.   Grown-up men and women behaving like Grade One kids. It is also misleading because many voters believe it is real hatred.   Don’t let that fool you.   These politicians play golf together, attend the same dinner parties, eat and drink at the same social events, share jokes and cut deals in parliament.   They
Read more

Comfort Food As Regret Food

-
Image
Chicken curry. Comfort food is good for the soul, which usually bleeds in winter from icy roads, bad drivers that want to annihilate pedestrians, frozen fingers and toes that take a sabbatical.   What happened to my toes?   I thought I was wearing special socks for boots? We therefore have a right to comfort food which throws doctors’ orders out of the window and has no loyalty to calories.   No calculator on the table, thanks very much.   Piece of bread 5 calories, half a banana 10 calories, sugar-free cheesecake 2,000 calories.   Ah! Ah!  We only live once. Naw!   Comfort food is old school food with its compulsory second helping.   It involves licking fingers and giving a big sigh, about the good life, which is shelter, food, love and debt.   The problem is the zip.   The jeans remind you that comfort food can also be called you will regret food .   Home sweet home is even sweeter in winter after surviving blowing snow and bumper to bumper traffic. What is more welcoming th
Read more

Einstein Passengers

-
Image
Being a passenger is very stressful.   You must listen to the owner of the car, nod and grumble yes to everything he says because you don’t want to piss him off. Two things can happen if you disagree with the driver: he can lose concentration and you all end up in a mash-up accident or stop the car and ask you to get out.   That is the driver’s prerogative.   You must listen to me if you are a passenger in my car.   Let’s flip the script for a minute and sympathise with the driver if she has a passenger who is more intelligent than Albert Einstein. He talks non-stop.   It is all about himself, how right he is, how good he is, how stupid his boss is. Einstein is also a driving instructor.   “Careful.   Look at that guy.   Is he crazy or something? ” says Einstein. Einstein is the unofficial pilot.   He presses imaginary brakes in the passenger seat when the driver stops abruptly for a guy who is texting on his bicycle. A certain Einstein took it to another level.   S
Read more