There should be no profits, no bonuses, and no dividends until every worker (not employee, it doesn’t matter what your relationship with the company is if they benefit from your labour) is making at least a living wage with full benefits. Executive pay should be capped at a multiple of the pay of the lowest paid worker and of the average pay paid to all workers.

I remember growing up in the 90’s and being acutely aware of the growing minimum wage. I knew no matter what that when I was able to get a job I would be guaranteed “this” amount and always thought about prices and how long I had to work to get something I wanted when I was an adult. Every small bump made it a little mini-celebration like I was getting a future raise that would allow me to have a better life.

Now? Shake and bake costs over 5$, I have to literally work over an hour to buy half a cup of “convenient” seasoned bread crumbs. I could buy the flour, make the bread, and process it to make my own… but now I’m out of time in the day to work enough to actually afford the meat or any other side item. Oh yeah, and at some point I should pay my bills and save for retirement -_-

Minimum wage should have been $15/hr at least 10 years ago.

The cost of living will just keep going up because inflation is necessary in our current, debt based monetary system. The Fed tries to keep this under control by not allowing the rate of inflation to go much beyond about 2% a year. The recent inflation issue we’ve been having wasn’t about inflation suddenly happening where it hadn’t been happening before, it was about the rate of inflation increasing beyond the Fed’s 2% target. When they talk about inflation getting back under control, they’re talking about the rate of inflation getting back to near 2%. But make no mistake: prices are still going up - they have to, that’s how the system works - and they will keep going up every year, seemingly indefinitely. For this reason, a cost of living raise equal to at least the rate of inflation is absolutely essential, otherwise workers are getting a pay cut.

But this is further complicated by the fact that the core inflation numbers are very broad. Housing costs are exploding. Core inflation would be much lower if not for rising housing costs. But the way housing costs increases are measured is by averaging housing costs across all markets, meaning the cost of housing in low demand areas is averaged with the cost of housing in high demand areas. This means that if you live in a high demand area, the core inflation rate doesn’t necessarily capture the true cost of living in your area, and that the cost of living in your area is going up much faster than the national average. Therefore, many workers need an annual cost of living increase that is much greater than the national inflation rate.

As far as I know, there is no national law requiring companies to give cost of living raises every year. Many companies do, but many don’t. A mandatory, annual cost of living raise is something that unions can negotiate, once again showing the value of unions.

If you want the meat robot to work for you, you need to pay the upkeep for the meat robot.

That includes power (food), repairs (health insurance) and upgrades (education).

If you can’t afford that, you can’t afford to have a meat robot on your staff.

Friendly reminder to people in similar positions that the fact I barely make a living wage as a nurse doesn’t mean the techs with less education than me that I supervise shouldn’t. In fact, if they’re making a living wage, that leaves room for me to advocate to make even more myself. This fight is about us taking from the rich, not from each other, and I refuse to let them control the narrative like that.

All by design