Adonis Diaries

How you define your salary? In return for what?

Have you been wondering why has your pay not risen at the same rate as company profits? You will be reading many articles on that subject, and you’ll discover that your position implicitly coincide with how you personally define receiving a salary. 

Maybe you should consider for a moment to define your own meaning for “salary”.  Consider the three alternative views on “what is a salary” and reflect on a fourth alternative:

First definition: You are paid for work done.  In return for what? Money, board and lodging, “getting experience”, staying away from plenty of free time on your hand, making ends meet for acquiring luxury items considering you inherited enough to survive,…? Mind you that the corporation intended calculation is to generate at least a gross profit from your work commensurate to your salary. 

The corporation cannot function properly and produce without human participation as a workforce:  The more workforce is needed, the more profit is generated. The least you expect from this transaction is that the pay is compatible with the standard of living of your own community.

For example, if the community is sharing in the expenses of your kids’ schooling, health prevention, healthcare cost, or subsidizing rent…would you be satisfied with a net salary that allows you to survive with dignity as a “productive” member of the community, as the community understand a productive member?

For example, in cities, you have these kinds of private retirement community establishments.  The elder people are still functional and don’t need specialized nursing skills.  The establishment target the new comers from rural to urban setting and offer board and lodging for four-hour work a day. Like doing what? Working in the kitchen and serving meals to the “paying” customers three times a day, working the front desk, doing the laundry, vacuuming, cleaning the rooms…Nothing that need special skills, just maintenance work.

You tell yourself: “rent is expensive and this is a wonderful opportunity to search for jobs in my spare time until I find a good job…”  For small pocket-money, you work overtime at less than minimum wage at the establishment…You think: “I can enroll in a few courses at the free schools or universities…”  What is temporary turns out to be almost permanent.  Why?

Suppose you find a good position, you still have to work-out your schedule with the board and lodging establishment until you are paid at the end of the month…In the meanwhile, you have to keep your board and lodging job, unless you are lucky to find acquaintances willing to accommodate you for at least a month, and not be entangled in dangerous “easy and dirty jobs” during your stay…

How do you define your work status in this case?  Are you engaged in a slavery schedule without realizing it, simply because rent is expensive and the market is in the downturn…?

Kids of six-year old are put to work even today.  They are illiterate and sick labels on the products that say: “This product was not done by kids…”

In this case, since you are not contributing in any decision-making on the functions of the company…you have no rights to demand from management pay raises that was not specified in the contract?

Do you think a syndicate of workers can do a better job negotiating with the company owners?

Second definition: You are paid because you are generating added values to the corporation business.  If the “market” is not satisfied with the products or services of your company then, the corporation will let you go and save on your salary.

Since you think that you are contributing to the profit, you have to share responsibility and get engaged in the decision process and be satisfied with the less than expected profit.  If profit is high, you demand a higher share in the profit…

Mind you that added value is the gross profit retained after deducting the cost of raw materials, amortization on machineries and equipments, interest paid on investment in the company, consumption of energy…and your salary

Is your community enforcing safety and health standards in your workplace so that it won’t have to sustain exorbitant health costs over and above what the corporation is willing to cover?

Obviously, if the product is not sold, there are no profit generate to share with anyone, including the owner (theoretically)…Again, the company expect to generate gross profit at least as high as your salary…

Third definition:  You are paid because you contribute to the internal wealth of the community.  For example, it is the community who contributed to your education and is dispatching you to a corporation, and expecting a rate of return from your gross salary.  The community needs to sustain a standard of living and maintain its facilities and institutions…Basically, you are working in order to pay your dues to the community…For how long?

Most often, through a referral system, the community is telling the employer: “Keep this young guy busy at any work…we cannot handle youth with plenty of time on their hands…”

Can you envision a fourth alternative definition of salary?

Could you answer the following questions?

Are there differences among 1. the legal contributions due to a community expenditure; 2.  participating voluntarily in subscribing to an investment fund of the community; 3. subscribing to the genral health coverage?  All these contributions are taken out of your gross salary, including pre-paid taxes.

Would you rather that all contributions on your gross salary be automatically deducted from your paycheck, or you think you should retain the right to cashing in all you pay and shoulder the various responsibilities expected from a citizens?

When you sign a legal contract for working, do you know on what basis are your agreeing to? Mind you that “fine prints” can be contested legally, but are you willing to taking your company to court and suffer the expenses, the harassment, and indignities…?

Do you think that qualification changes the equation of the definition of salary?  Many graduate students end-up putting in 12-hour work without overtime pay.  Why? It is mainly peer pressure climate and the company extending larger bonuses for those “dedicated” employees, not on production basis, but because they have proven to be “loyal” to the company and the company “spirit”… It makes sense: the longer you stay in the company premises, the stronger is your impression that the company is your first family…

How investing surplus money in a corporation shares change the equation in the relationship between owner and workers? Don’t you want to generate gross profit commensurate to workers’ salary?

Do you really consider yourself one of the bosses, having  a say in critical decisions?

Do you have  a say in employees working conditions?

Do you think there are different economic values among the following works: generating products, offering commercial services, participating in public service, raising a kid, taking care of an older parents, attending school meetings, municipality council meetings, volunteer services in engaged movements…

Should all these various work and services be quantified so that people can have a solid basis to compare remuneration, compatible to contribution to society sustainability and development…? 

Why “Pay for ordinary workers has not kept up with economic growth and rising company profits?”

 

Why “The gap between medium and low-income earners and those at the top of the pay scale began to widen, years before the global economic crisis began?”

 

Take the time to characterize “what is a salary” and you’ll get to know how to get engaged in obtaining fair remuneration on work done well.

 

Note:  Trotsky wrote: “As long as human labor power, and life itself, remain articles of sale and purchase, of exploitation and robbery, the principle of the “sacredness of human life” remains a shameful lie, uttered with the object of keeping the oppressed slaves in their chains.”