Friday, September 6, 2013

Power to the Proletariat

In the words of the immortal Stephen Colbert, "...every time I watch Eric Bolling, I want to kill myself."

Eric Bolling, Fox News' jackass extraordinaire made the suggestion that, instead of paying striking Walmart employees a living wage, they should all just be fired. You know, no big deal. Why should they want employment? Hell, in this economy, they should be on their knees thankful they even have a job, right? No.

What Mr. Bolling, Fox News, and the rest of anti-labor America don't understand is that people shouldn't have to be begging for a job that pays in 2013. The point of WHY Walmart employees are angry has been lost on them. They don't understand that there shouldn't be a NEED to be protesting for living wages, especially when working for companies who make billions a year off the backs of American and foreign laborers. Why can't they unionize? Well, the management is afraid of worker's being treated fairly because they might make .00000001% less than the $400+ billion they made last year. They can't stand to see a hard working single parent be able to live without their financial bondage to their jobs. Employers want to make their employees believe they need their employers, when in actuality, it's the employers who need the employees.

One might wonder, "How come Walmart can do this? What makes it possible?" Well, not only do loose labor laws and years of right-wing attacks on unions help, but the bottom line is this - capitalism is 100% exploitative of labor. This is evident in Walmart's main practice of slave wages, selling their product at a low price due to their working with factories in countries with no concept of labor, and raking in the profit. This "logic" always confused me. Don't these people understand that without labor, there is no product? And without product, there's nothing to sell and no money to be made? And mostly, why are Republicans so against a living wage? It makes no sense. We do know though, that their political and financial overlords are the same people who own the companies who pay their workers like peasants. They pay to elect teabaggers into office, and then those teabaggers turn around and try to convince you that labor is destroying America. Truly though, it is the employer walking hand in hand with capitalism that has given us the economic state we are in.

So today I issue Mr. Bolling a challenge: switch employers for a month. Leave your cushy Fox News job and go work at a Walmart. Get paid minimum wage. Get on SNAP assistance and apply for Medicaid. Take your paychecks and grocery shop, pay rent, and pay bills. Live how other Walmart employees live. Feel what they feel when they don't have enough money to buy their kids clothes, or feed them, or pay for college. Feel what it feels like when you're a FULL TIME employee of Walmart, yet still need government assistance. I don't think it would take long until we saw him leading the charge for changes.

Most importantly, Americans should be openly encouraging all forms of work place protesting, whether it's over the right to unionize or having better wages and benefits. If you work in a place that isn't paying you fairly, speak up. Talk to your coworkers. Nothing can change unless you get the ball rolling. Don't wait for someone else to do it. You can make the change.


5 comments:

  1. Global Unionization
    Fair Wages = Fair Trade!

    Put the WE back in WE THE PEOPLE!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Republicans might also want to consider what President Abraham Lincoln said:

    "Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."

    ReplyDelete