CEOs? The hourly worker is standing tall
Far be it from me to lob a grenade into the warm and fuzzy message some CEOs are using prime-time TV to express about COVID-19 — but that is exactly what I am going to do.
During the last month as the virus has ravaged America and Americans, CEOs have hit the airwaves extolling their employees’ efforts to provide the necessary basics and how we are all in this together.
It is the right message at the right time.
But sometimes, just watching them in their Jimmy-Carter-wanna-be comfort sweaters and listening to their spiel sends my stomach churning at the hypocrisy.
Particularly those in the food industry.
It was just seven months ago that Stop & Shop had these same employees on the picket line demanding more money to feed their families — even as the profit margins of the foreign entity that owns it was cha-chinging with American dollars.
It was just seven months ago that ShopRite issued a press release that a store in West Hartford had to close. It cited as one of the reasons the increase in the minimum wage to $11 an hour and the impending increase to $15 an hour by 2023.
That is ironic when you consider that in this year of 2020, a family-pack of cheap ground beef at ShopRite can cost up to $15, depending on the special of the week.
But it is not only the food industry. The entire business community has stood united to fight against supplying these workers with higher wages and better health benefits.
For many years, I commuted to work by public transportation — whether by bus or train. I overheard the frustration of hourly workers commuting up to two hours one way to get to a minimum-wage job.
I overheard them on the phone worrying whether they would get enough hours that pay period to get a halfway-decent check; or whether their schedule for the upcoming week would give them 10, 20 or 30 hours of work.
All in all, it has been an effort by CEOs to keep wages low and benefits off the table so profit margins remain robust.
And now, suddenly, CEOs want us to believe that these same people are their heroes?
Oh me, oh my, I am just welling up on the sincerity as they sit safely in their square-footage and offer combat pay.
It seems my whole life, the message from the top to what is considered low-level hourly workers in certain professions is that they are not worth much.
As I wrote three years ago , “America was built on the sweat and muscle of the common American worker. But it appears after fortunes were forged, empires built, and family dynasties created, in this new era, the common American worker has been dropped like an expensive mistress.”
But cream always rises to the top and it seems to me, it is the hourly workers — not the CEOs — who are standing tall and delivering the goods in this hour of need.
And they are doing it even as COVID-19 claims some of their lives and leaves others sick in hospitals.
Experts say nothing will ever be the same again as we venture forth once this virus has been conquered.
Let’s hope part of that change is the elimination of the notion that the hourly worker is expendable or can be replaced in a heartbeat by a revolving door of minimum wage earners.
Right now, the message from CEOs is warm and cozy and full of accolades. They say we are all in this together.
But only time will tell us how sincere that message is when the crisis is behind us and things go back to the bargaining table — because that will be the real measure of their sincerity.
CEOs? It is the hourly worker who is standing tall.
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I would be remiss if I did not add a line to Nutmeggers before I close out this column.
These grocery store workers are our lifeline. Without them, we don’t eat. They need our support. I have been in too many stores where many of them aren’t feeling the love from shoppers who refuse to wear masks and gloves and stand 6 feet away. Please help them help us.