wage slavery

posted October 11th, 2015 at 9:52 PM

Can't afford to take time off; no benefits, health, dental. Scheduled strategically to avoid paying holidays, overtime. Paying minimum and always expecting maximum. Intimidation: "where else you gonna go? I'll cut your hours!" Everyone's squeezing everyone else. Wrung out, worn out, worthless. Degradation. Humiliation. Capitalization.

5 Comments

Welcome to...

Oct 12, 2015 at 7:29pm

Stephen Harper's Canada

Under canadian law

Oct 12, 2015 at 9:19pm

You are entitled to 2 weeks paid vacation. This isn't something that an employer can just "Opt out of" or say "It's not our policy". If they are denying you overtime and vacation pay you can go to the province about it. Ask them to explain it in a letter as to why they aren't paying you, then run that letter to the province and watch as your shitty boss get's fucked.

Look for a new job

Oct 13, 2015 at 1:03am

Keep looking for a job that you can at least walk away from at the end of the day and think ok -And who knows you might find 'the best job ever' realisticaaly you might find an even worse or equally bad employment situation- i mean unless youre a illegal immagrant with no worker rights ....you do have rights you may exercise, like already said above. Sounds like somebodies got a control issue of some kind that is compensating whereever they can however they can... Just an observation from what youve shared with me....

@under canadian law

Oct 13, 2015 at 11:55am

First off labour standards are set provincially not federally. It sounds like the OP might be working through a temp agency. Under BC employments standards act temp agencies are allowed to pay 4% of gross each pay check in lieu of granting vacation. Since the agency sets the wage they simply lower the hourly rate then add the 4%. So, on the books it looks like they are paying vacation pay but they're not really. If a temp were to take a day off, either sick or for vacation, they won't get paid for those days.

Let it motivate

Oct 15, 2015 at 2:43pm

These companies' entire business model relies on your demographic as their labour force. You are expendable to them. As was said above, what are you going to do about it? For starters, keep learning and growing. Go back to school. Learn a trade. Something. It takes 4 years to become a Journeyman. The simple truth is that the more education, experience, skill and expertise you have, the more valuable you are in the workplace. When you're valuable, you have less chance to be abused and taken advantage of. Unfortunately, right now you ARE a wage slave. But you can change it. These companies won't. On to the next slave as soon as you're gone. ..