“It’s not my job to pay a man what he’s worth.”
Rich people have usually been able to get away with nearly anything, but never so much so as in the age of the robber barons.
J.P. Morgan could make the above statement and people would agree with him. People actually believed that labor unions were un-American, that every man should negotiate with his employer as an individual. Another one of the robber barons gleefully claimed that he could hire half of the working class to kill the other half.
As with so many other American flaws, the reasons for this go back to puritanism. Just as people in the past believed in the divine right of kings, rich people believed that they were rich because God loved them more. If someone wasn’t rich or powerful, it was because God didn’t favor them.
And as far as they were concerned, the Bible urged working people — whether employees or slaves — to be obedient to their masters. If you look at most religions, there’s an undertone of “respect your betters.”
The people who want to be respected never stop pushing, either. If there’s a time when they have to pay employees more or treat them better, they do it but only for as long as they must. The pandemic might have forced some bosses to allow their workers to telecommute, but wherever possible, they’ll get them back into the office so that they can exercise their supervisory functions.
None of that is surprising, but the thing that’s bothering the boss types now is that it’s tough to get their employees to hurry back. Many of them were making minimum wage, and may not have been all that happy with the way they were treated.
Expanded unemployment benefits have made it possible for people to be a little more choosy. Maybe some of them will find better jobs than they had before, and it could be that some of the bosses will have to treat the people they ultimately hire or rehire better than in the past.
We’ve never going to see equality in negotiations between employers and employees, but if situations like this help the weaker party at all, that’s a good thing.
I think the expression is if you’re going to do me, at least buy me dinner first.