
To find workers, there’s a free-enterprise solution right at employers’ fingertips: raise pay, improve conditions, and show respect.
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes
By Jim Hightower | June 9, 2021
This article first appeared in OtherWords.

At a recent congressional hearing on America’s so-called “labor shortage,” megabanker Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase, offered this insight: “People actually have a lot of money, and they don’t particularly feel like going back to work.”
Dimon is a billionaire who may be unaware that most people are living paycheck to paycheck. Since COVID-19 hit, millions have lost their jobs, savings, and even homes. Relief measures have helped, but ordinary people are not exactly lollygagging around the house, counting their cash.
Instead of listening to the uber-rich class ignorance of Dimon (who pocketed $35 million in pay last year), Congress ought to be listening to actual workers explain why they’re not rushing back to the jobs being offered by restaurant chains and such.
These workers would point out that there’s no labor shortage — there’s a wage shortage.
More fundamentally, there’s a fairness shortage.
It was not lost on restaurant workers, for example, that while millions of them were jobless last year, their corporate CEOs were grabbing millions, buying yachts, and living large. Yet more than half of laid-off restaurant workers couldn’t even get unemployment benefits because their wages had been too low to qualify.
Then there’s the high risk of COVID exposure for restaurant employees, an appalling level of sexual harassment in their workplace, and demeaning treatment from abusive bosses and customers.
No surprise, then, that more than half of employees said in a recent survey that they’re not going back to those jobs. After all, even a dog knows the difference between being stumbled over and being kicked.
So rather than demanding that government officials force workers to return to the old exploitative system, corporate giants should try the free-enterprise solution right at their fingertips: Raise pay, improve conditions, and show respect.
In short, create a place where people want to work! For a straightforward view from workers themselves, go to OneFairWage.site.
Also from Assorted Ideas, Large & Small
- THERE’S NO ‘LABOR SHORTAGE.’ THERE’S A WAGE SHORTAGE.
To find workers, there’s a free-enterprise solution right at employers’ fingertips: raise pay, improve conditions, and show respect. By Jim Hightower | June 9, 2021 This article first appeared in OtherWords. At a recent congressional hearing on America’s so-called “labor shortage,” megabanker Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase, offered this insight: […]
-
Barriers for Black women set U.S. economy back by $500 billion, report finds
The persisting wage gap has set Black women — and the American economy as a whole — back for the past six decades, according to a report by financial services firm S&P Global. Chabeli Carrazana Originally published by The 19th The wage gap and barriers to economic mobility […]
-
The Secret IRS Files: Trove of Never-Before-Seen Records Reveal How the Wealthiest Avoid Income Tax
by Jesse Eisinger, Jeff Ernsthausen and Paul Kiel Originally published in ProPublica ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox. Series: The Secret IRS Files Inside the Tax Records of the .001% […]
-
Want to know the deepest truths? Think of yourself as God
Think of yourself as God. That is, assuming you are not a deity, but a regular individual living the best life you can. Wouldn’t it be better, though, knowing more about what makes you something special, a spectacular universe managed by you? And how favorably you compare with […]
-
What Are The Three Dumbest Ideas About Extraterrestrials And UFOs?
The dumbest ideas about extraterrestrials are so massively stupid, they generally pass by without notice. Press and television reports always miss them, but as you’ll see, they’re really obvious. By David Stone Assorted Ideas Large & Small Dumbest Ideas About Extraterrestrials and UFOs: Item #1 Here’s what got […]