WORKER RIGHTS IN THE UNITED STATES!

WORKER RIGHTS IN THE UNITED STATES!

(Aaron Charles, Gregory Korte, USA TODAY)

(JR Commons, J.M. Feinman, C.W. Summers, Frazer Chronicle)

The short answer to the above header is workers have no rights in the United States, I worked off and on for more than 50 of my 69 years. I wrestled, argued, was a dissident, and was an advocate for fair treatment in the workplace…..and with little exception my actions went for naught, and of course hurt how I was treated.

During the course of my fifty year work career, I bounced from one low paying job to another, I seldom was satisfied, basically felt unappreciated, and felt a sense of animated rejection from the people that I worked for. I never understood the reason behind why some of my employers felt an air of intimidation on my part towards them, but it none the less seemed true.

The labor laws of the United States aren’t a constant, they ebb and flow, depending on who occupies the White House. The same can be said for a state’s capital mansion; whoever occupies that mansion can dictate how a state’s business community will operate.

LET’S JUMP RIGHT IN

The minimum wage in the United States by and large is a joke, as of July 2009, the federal government mandated a statutory minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. Among those paid by the hour in 2012, 1.6 million workers reported an earning exactly the prevailing federal minimum wage. About 2 million were reported as earning wages below the minimum standard set by the federal government. Together these 3.6 million workers represented 4.7% of all hourly workers being paid at or below the $7.25 per hour wage.

Some types of labor are completely exempt from any federal pay scale, employers can pay tipped employees as little as $2.13 per hour, as long as the hourly wage plus tip income equals at least the minimum wage. Workers under the age of 20 may be paid $4.25 for the first 90 calendar days of employment (sometimes known as a youth, teen, or training wage).

Let’s quickly take a look at those people who are paid $2.13 an hour, and need to rely on the generosity of their customers to tip, and make up the difference in their paltry minimum wage. Two eggs over easy, sausage, whole wheat toast and coffee, my typical restaurant breakfast costs me about $6 bucks. If I leave a 25% tip…..$1.50, my breakfast suddenly is costing me $7.50. Although I always tip at  25%, I’ve always wondered why I should subsidize the restaurant owners employees wages more than I already do…..the $6 bucks for the eggs, sausage, toast and coffee, does that mean that the owner is a poor businessman?

Paying kids a lesser wage than the minimum really is a joke, and a scam that small business has run for years. These teenagers may not have the experience that older workers have, but they make up for their lack of knowledge with the exuberance of youth, and in the long run deliver as much work as the older more experienced employee. I’ve always felt that paying a kid a training wage was an unnecessary payroll break…..shouldn’t training a worker simply be a part of a business overhead…..?

The question of a federally mandated minimum wage has always been a ridge on the battlefield of workers’ rights and one that has been a losing proposition for American workers for decades.  Employers have fought long and hard to rein in any kind of mandated minimum, at least on an escalating scale, citing the fact that if enacted, it would put the small guy out of business. Balderdash and bull-pucky, completely untrue, statistics show that mandated costs are simply absorbed, and usually passed on to the consumer…..over time.

EMPLOYMENT RIGHTS

Here we go again, with little exception, and depending on the type of workplace, employees have little leverage when it comes to their rights. Employers always retain the power over their workers, employers can always do their employees harm…..they can fire them for any kind of reason, therefore they are a workers adversary, the very best an employee can hope for is to latch onto a skill that is advantages to his employer.

An article in the USA TODAY highlighted gay rights and how there seemed to be a small move towards accepting these people of an alternative lifestyle some rights in the workplace today. The Senate passed a bill to prohibit workplace discrimination against gay and lesbians. However the House will be a much different story, and in fact the bill seems destined for failure there.

The federal government has banned sexual harassment, yet it happens on a daily basis, the federal government has instituted a fair wage which comes from a fair standards act. The Fair Labor and Standards Act, (FLSA) established a federal minimum wage, and the Consumer Credit Protection Act, (CCPA) assures employees that garnished wages do not constitute a basis for termination. And government awarded contracts must pay the prescribed wage listed therein.

It seems funny that Republican conservatives favor an unending list of employer rights, and that employee rights seem to have no place in the equation of employer employee relations. For whatever reason employers fail to see the necessity of cultivating long lasting relationships with their top employees.

The battle between employer and employee has been a long one, and one that seems to go on forever. Age discrimination, Civil Rights acts and laws to protect against race, gender, national origin and religion acts by employees.

The list goes on and on, and it seems like every year something new is thrown out by the employer so that the federal government needs to convene and consider a fix that will protect innocent workers from their employees. There are thousands of court cases that illustrate the divide between the employee and his employer, employees need to be on the lookout for these illegal acts.

I’m outta the battle, I’m retired five years now, and I thank my lucky stars every day that I did retire, if you’ve got the chance…..try it, I guarantee that you’ll never go back.

HAVE A NICE DAY!