Society/Culture Should Young Workers give a s**t about their job?

[Power Raid]

The last few years there has been countless news stories about large companies and small underpaying their workers. Wage theft from deliv=berate underpaying, no penalty rates, illusory traineeships, employment contracts that disadvantage their staff.
Woolworths and Grill’d as two recent examples

https://www.smh.com.au/business/com...ow-wages-and-food-safety-20191205-p53hbm.html

https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6465506/woolworths-underpaid-staff-by-up-to-300m/

Woolworths is one of Australia’s Top 10 companies, ubiquitous in media and location, widely held in Superfunds and self managed retiree funds.
This is a company with 18 million visits per week

Griil’d is an overpriced burger joint that has done remarkably well. They have expanded to around 150 stores. Part of that success can be put down to ripping off workers and churning staff, while overworking the remaining staff

Is there any point for workers in service an retail to work hard and give a fu** about their hobs or emplyers? The reward for effort is to be underpaid and overworked.

If the companies and bosses don't give a s**t, why should the workers?

This is a real issue and concern.

Society is built on trust and the rule of law. Sadly this has been put at risk by ruthless and or negligent employers.

Individual liability of directors and see through recent divorce is required.

 

[HardcoreGeelongFan]

Anyone who puts in more than they need to for their paycheque is an idiot. Those people are the reason the job climate sucks and people are overworked

The working population needs to put in less and wind back employers expectations

 

[Pessimistic]

Indeed in future they will look back at us and laugh.

it was relevant to have the ‘work ethic’ when mist of us turned up to factories and fed machines in shifts etc.

but when future us see that we artificially kept these norms when most of the factories had closed, theyll simply say ‘what were they thinking’ inventing ‘work’ to keep busy, commuting together and wasting hours per day in uneccesary traffic jams

 

[Power Raid]

The reality is, anyone seeking employment as an option long term is not reading the tea leaves. Employment was a great option for a small window of history (1950s to now).

At the beginning of the industrial revolution, workers slept in their factories and barely had enough to eat. The reason why conditions were so bad but still had people lining up for work, was life outside of the factories and pre the industrial revolution were even worse.

WW2 was the greatest thing that could have ever happened to workers and in particular women. The mobilisation of the entire population, better wages, a better spread of wealth leading to a better consumer economy etc etc was possible due to the technological advancements separating the West from the rest and trade protections which kept those pesky coloured people out of the economy.

With globalisation and dropping racist trade restrictions, businesses face ever increasing pressure to lower costs to remain competitive (including wages) on a global basis. If they're successful, wage growth is limited under these conditions and if their not successful the business fails and jobs shift overseas.

The west has combated lower international wages by shifting overseas and with it jobs and our technological, quality and process competitive advantage. Alternatively they have adopted automation to reduce the number of employees and wage bills.

In short, being an employee "only" is not a great option. That said, try being a business owner or a quasi employee/ business (like a lawyer/ doctor/ contractor) and you'll find the grass is not greener on the other side. By that I mean, there aren't many business owners who work 9 to 5, have steady cash flows and don't have sleepless nights.

What we are seeing in the modern workplace now, is workers are now starting to taste the pressure of business and the need to deliver or risk their jobs with the risk of business failure. My point here is, if you are facing increased risks........surely employees who think they actually have any worth, should start their own business given they face business risk anyway?



It isn't all bad though, as the cost of living has dropped dramatically over the years and will continue to do so in years to come. With this, even with limited wage growth, the average person's quality of life will continue to improve as we saw in the past.