I just wanted to post this here to check my own thoughts on this against what other likeminded(I think) people think.
The story:
I overheard a conversation at the office where one of my co-workers is asking for a raise and was denied because he typically only works 35 hours. They told him he needs to work 40 hours if he's having money problems and they would reevaluate from there…(yeah…)
This coworker happens to be a 20 year employee, is underpaid, very experienced but burned out (imho). Several of us make more than he does.
This company that we work at is a small family owned business where the upper management are all related and do very well for themselves (new cars, houses, Disney vacations and hunting trips to Argentina on the regular).
I think this company has a toxic way of hoarding the earnings for themselves instead of dispersing the wealth to the people who have essentially given their lives to the work that we do here. Full disclosure, this company has not given any inflation raises during the pandemic or after. Most employees here are making less than they were 10 years ago when accounting for inflation using the CPI inflation calculator. (please google that one if you don't know)