Class Warfare 2, Jane Works Overtime At “Big Flo’s”
I stopped by yesterday to visit my friend Jane who I wrote about a few days ago in “Class Warfare At Big Flo’s Diner, Let Them Eat Hash.”
I thought it was her day off. I was wrong.
It was mid afternoon on a steamy Saturday and she was ironing her uniform for work, but she poured me a beer and we sat on her front porch and talked for an hour or so about the article.
She was amazed, as was I, that so many people, hundreds, took the time to comment on our portrayal of her dilemma, and did so, for the most part, in a positive and supportive fashion.
There are a few ironies involved in this story that I didn’t report as I felt that they had nothing to do with the “guts” of the story which, I believed, was the rampant and criminal exploitation of the working class, specifically, of my friend Jane, by the criminal class that is corporate America.
I suppose that the major irony, and I’m sure that many have already guessed this, is that when Jane arrived at “Big Flo’s” ten years ago she was a disaffected Democrat who had become a Reagan Republican and voted for George HW Bush and would later vote for his addled progeny, Shrub.
She is open about her disdain for, and disappointment with, our minority party over the past decade and more, and at times in that period was enthusiastic about her support for Bush.
Her enthusiasm though, has steadily waned as her financial condition has weakened under the pro business anti labor policies of the administration of “Bush the Lesser.”
Jane says she will probably return to the Democratic fold in this coming election as she comes full circle and accepts her new mantle as a “Disaffected Republican” ( I like that phrase, I find it … musical, almost joyful.)
I’m sure that Jane is just one of millions of working class people who have spent a great deal of time and energy since the Reagan era, voting for people who despise and neglect them, publicly supporting policies that abuse and impoverish them, and finally gently stroking the gloved fist of the masters who beat them.
I have a feeling that this fact speaks, certainly, to a large amount of political naiveté in our electorate, but even more points to the enormous strength of the Republican, Corporate, Religious propaganda machine that with the almost limitless funds at it’s disposal, successfully disseminates lie after lie in their education of … well, Jane.
I say that to tell you this.
Jane works overtime for “Big Flo’s” for free.
Yes, free, and here, as I promised, is another irony: she considers it a perk, granted to her because of her long and faithful service and her position as a team leader.
Here’s how it works: The Corporation sets strict guidelines for the operation of individual locations. Through the arcane ministrations and dictates of their legion of bishop like CPAs they pass along regular fiats regarding every aspect of management to the bottom tier of the organization.
If the head CPA wizard says that food costs must not rise above 35%, or labor costs will not exceed 18% then those commandments are carved in stone tablets and placed around the neck of the individual store manager. It is holy writ from on high, and woe unto any lowly slug of a manager whose budget shows abnormally high expenditures for fried okra or dinner rolls.
But labor is another thing. States generally don’t pass laws about how a restaurant spends money on food or beverage, but they do, for the good of all of us, regulate the number of hours that an employees can be required to work before they must be compensated with a premium rate of pay their efforts.
In Ohio the limit is forty hours in one week and after that the employee must be paid at their hourly rate plus one half.
In Jane’s case this would make her wages of $2.36 per hour skyrocket to an astronomical and potentially, economy wrecking $3.54 per hour for every hour she works over forty.
This would be an egregious and possibly catastrophic violation of the holy writ on food costs which might turn the entire restaurant industry on it’s ear and cannot be permitted.
Restaurant’s must be fully staffed in order to meet the expectations of their customers or the customers will leave and become someone Else’s customers. Diners tend to be picky about slow service, cold food and other un niceties affecting their dining out experience.
Restaurants also experience a high volume of employee turn over (one wonders why) and there are vacation schedules and illnesses, family emergencies, broken cars, dogs swallowing car keys, plain old garden variety hangovers or sometimes just a lack of interest in reporting for such a crummy job and well …even … lies, anyway, a great variety of reasons why employees call off work.
But someone must be there to serve the fried okra and the dinner rolls to an ever voracious public, hence on many a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, when Jane’s compliment of weekly hours has been filled, when clocking any additional time will require paying her over time, her phone rings with a request to fill in for Marie or Rose or Belle or Jerry and she dutifully irons a uniform, cancels whatever plans she had for her day off and reports in, to cover the hole in the battle lines of the fried okra frontier.
“Big Flo’s,” is of course, filled with gratitude at this selfless exhibition of dedication and loyalty and happily reciprocates by paying her … nothing.
Nothing …… Nothing and no/100s. Zippola.
Were she to be paid, her pay would have to be at the rate of time and a half because the extra shift puts her over forty hours for the week.
To pay her over time would threaten the holy writ regarding labor as a percentage of overhead, violate that entire relevant chapter of the gospel according to CPAs and possibly throw the entire food service industry into turmoil, at the least, certainly, manager’s heads would roll all the way to the district level.
No, the only sound business solution, and the only fair way to handle this and not threaten the sanctity of the bottom line is for Jane to work for free, to come in, cover the shift, not clock in, not receive compensation from a company of over twenty five thousand employees, to work for tips only, and she does it at least twice a month, because, “I need the extra money.”
You know the drill, the car needs a new battery, behind on the gas bill, a Grand child’s birthday, saving a few bucks for Christmas, whatever.
In addition, she also knows that to refuse or to complain might cause her to lose her position as “Team Leader” and have her hours cut back to twenty four as well as suffer an hourly reduction which might just be the difference between her small but comfortable apartment in a nice area or some hellhole in subsidized low income housing.
That old “Big Flo’s,” they’re a “family” oriented company and pride themselves on their old fashioned American values of God and Country, of loyalty, dedication and hard work. Why. many of it’s executives are Christian men who sit in the front rows of their churches.
Well, a couple of years back a few employees (commies no doubt, hell, probably even liberals) sued “Big Flo’s” for violations of the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act specifically for the kind of criminal behavior described above.
Given the nature of our pointy headed activist court system poor old “Big Flo’s” was forced to settle, for millions. No criminal charges, no admission of guilt, no public scorn or ridicule, our pointy headed courts aren’t that pointy headed.
No one is allowed to discuss the settlement though. By corporate fiat, managers are forbidden from discussing it with the help and the help is forbidden from asking management about the settlement.
They have however provided claim forms that employees can send in to corporate if they want to share in the award for claims for unpaid overtime or other abuses.
Jane showed me her claim form, she’s had it for a year, I don’t think she’s going to file, she depends on her job, to stay alive, in America.
The phone still rings on Saturday or Sunday and Jane, ever loyal, ever diligent still covers the battle lines in the okra wars.
For Tips only.
We have had, I believe, eighteen years of Republican administrations out of the twenty six years that have passed since Reagan was elected.
For the past twelve we have faced almost total control by the most thoroughly corrupt governmental and corporate structure that, to my knowledge, has ever existed in this country.
To make matters worse, much worse, our minority party has spent a great deal of it’s time and squandered it’s political capital trying to appear to be the Tories go Litely, but with better cocktail parties.
The end result is that my friend Jane and millions of others like her are standing in line for minimum wage, or less. Or nothing.
Or tips.
Bob Higgins
Class Warfare At Big Flo’s Diner, Let Them Eat Hash
The minimum wage battle continues, with unions and workers fighting for an entry level raise for honest American workers that has been denied for nearly a decade while the dispassionate empty suits of business, their lackeys in local and national Chambers of Commerce, and the evil lick spittle minions they have purchased wholesale in our government at all levels, make pious pronouncements about the “marketplace” and the peril of allowing the government to regulate wages.
In the meantime, I’ve been talking to my friend, Jane.
Jane is a hardworking person, a decent, honest, American citizen, whose children are grown and now, divorced, has found herself forced to stay in the workplace to support the cost of her health insurance.
Jane has worked in the service sector as a Server in various restaurants for many years. As I say, she has a good work ethic and goes in every day, works hard, hustles and takes care of her customers, many of whom are regulars and patronize the restaurant in large part due her friendly attitude and the good service she provides.
The company that Jane works for is a large one with more than twenty five thousand employees working all over the country in various restaurant enterprises as well as other areas of the industry. (This ain’t Ma and Pa Kettle’s Corner Choke and Chew.) They are a very successful company and make a lot of money. A whole, big, heaping lot of money.
Their upper management is exceptionally well compensated and middle management is able to live very comfortably. The individual managers make a decent living, but, being at the bottom of the management food chain, they are often taken advantage of with long hours, chronic micro-management and the ever present threat of uncertainty in their continued employment.
And then there’s Jane. Jane worked thirty five hours last week, from four in the afternoon until closing time, which is usually around eleven in the evening. She works five shifts a week, bustling around performing all the functions expected of her by a demanding management and an often more demanding clientele. She does her job as a Server well, with an easy grace and earns decent tips. (Note the word decent.) (Also note the word earns)
Jane manages, on the tips she brings home after taxes, to support herself in a small apartment, drive the twenty five mile round trip to work in an older model used car of somewhat questionable reliability, and rise each day to iron a fresh uniform to do it all again. She has worked for this particular company for ten years.
For the services she provides to the company, let’s just call them “Big Flo’s Diner and Steam Table Amalgamated International Restaurant Barons and Bloated Plutocrat Chop House” they pay Jane two dollars and thirty six cents an hour. That’s $2.36 per hour and Jane is a “Team Leader,” the others on her team,, the “Team Members” make $2.13 per hour.
Let that settle a minute.
Thirty five hours at $2.36 per hour comes to $82.60. for a week’s worth of work, five days, thirty five hours, hustling through the rushes, being gracious to all, waiting tables, dealing with kitchen screw ups, correcting mistakes, being a diplomat, for ironing five uniforms, for buying gas at nearly $3.00 per gallon and driving one hundred and twenty five miles back and forth to work every week …… $82.60.
That is all it costs the company, (“Big Flo’s”) to have her available, to have her show up every day with her friendly personality, her ability to make customers feel comfortable and well treated five out of seven days a week …. $82.60
From the princely sum which “Big Flo’s” pays her, the Government of the United States extracts it’s Federal Withholding Tax and Social Security, the State of Ohio puts it’s gentle grasp on it’s due, and the City of Dayton, Ohio takes their cut.
She invests part of the remainder in a 401K (Her portfolio would not impress you) and also pays her health insurance. (Nor would her medical plan)
When she takes her check to the bank every week she makes out a deposit slip for $13.00 and change, and not much change.
The Congress of the United States recently accepted another cost of living increase which brought their annual compensation to something over $165,000. They have received these increases with clockwork regularity for the last eight years. In all, over this period, they have granted themselves cost of living raises of over $35,000. The aggregate sum of their annual cost of living increases during this period is close to the median income for an American family of four. And we’re talking about one venal, blow dried, charlatan bastard in a lunch stained power tie with martini breath, cheese in his teeth and his hand in America’s pocket.
That, amount, $35,000, is more than the total Jane has been paid by “Big Flo’s” in over eight years or 20,000 days. But who’s counting?
I am.
Lee Raymond of Exxon Mobil fame, (infamy in some quarters) who is possibly the ugliest and most hideously bloated of all of our current crop of wretched American plutocrats and robber barons is reported to have been compensated at the rate of $144,000 a day over the last ten years.
On one Casual Friday Lee Raymond came to work, probably around mid morning, left early for a Friday afternoon round of golf with a foursome of like minded criminals and made more money than Jane has been paid by “Big Flo” in her entire career as a Server.
Jane would probably have to work six months to pay the greens fees.
For every dollar of excess profit that this company and the myriad of American businesses of the same ilk salts away, for every dollar of executive bonus, for every outlandish perquisite and privilege, there is a dollar missing from the pay envelope of an honest hardworking and decent person like Jane.
Minimum wage hell, Fair wage, Living wage, anything less amounts to the same serfdom that brought these disgusting one per centers their wealth, power, and ultimate political control in the first place.
It is time for class warfare all right, it has been waged from the top, and upon the bottom economic tiers of society for most of human history.
It is past time for a reversal, for labor to stand and demand, no, to seize it’s due and unpaid wages.
Bob Higgins
