Employees need security in knowing that the job will be there day after day, even if its not an ideal job. I don’t go out of my way to treat anyone like dirt either, regardless of wages paid. Low wages =/= dirt treatment. Telling them that they worthless, take away their breaks and not pay them overtime is more like the dirt treatment that you speak of.
Example: If you paid them 25% more than they are making now, you would be out of business in a few months. If you gave the employees a choice of working for the same wage now for a long period of time versus getting a 25% raise, but only have the job for a few months, what do you think they would choose?
There are always good employees, who like to be in a happy work setting for their own sakes and actually go out of their way to help make it one. Those are the employees that makes a good business great. Ask them which scenario above they would chose. You’ll get both answers but consider which employee (good or bad) responds with. If you have a good business and you are a good owner, the good employees will pick the job security. A short timer or bad employee will respond with the 25% raise, because they have no long term interest in your business, nor do they have long term interest in their own job. Now I am not saying don’t give them a raise; because they do deserve it when you can afford it, but you always have to consider job security FIRST (the ability to pay your employees, even if its not a living wage), over risking your business by paying some arbitrary living wage that someone outside your business designates, even if those factors that determine the living wage are beyond the employer’s control.
I gave a counterexample to your generalization about unions being mostly good. I have already pointed out that today’s unions ARE a double-edged sword…more like a Ying and Yang thing (for lack of a better term). They did one good thing for me over the 10 year period (kept my full-time status when it was warranted), but other things (such as senority) that ruined alot of other opportunities because some slacker (who was a coke addict), was hired a month before me. Therefore, he had first choice over vacations, days and hours, etc. I lost respect for my union when they defended this known coke addict for multiple policy violations (including injuring a fellow employee) and he should have been terminated, but the union found ways for him to get a 3 day suspension, almost on an annual basis. Every time he got suspended, his response was…“Looks like I’m going to Vegas!” That’s the Teamsters for you. :rolleyes:
I have mentioned this in another thread before this one, but I actually took SOME of the policies in my union handbook when I started my own business to create our policies. Stuff that made sense, like accruals of PTO, absence/tardy policies, 2 verbals warnings before a written warning before a termination policy when violations took place that were not malicious in nature…etc. I figured out early on that if I had these policies in place, it would be as if we were already unionized. The senority crap had to go though, IMHO…and I made it first come, first serve (as long as you had the PTO already banked) when it came to vacations and other requests. My employees all work the same days and hours, so that point is moot.