So I recently started work in a factory that has a blue collar staff of about 30 and office staff of maybe 15 and several managers. The blue collar staff are mostly unskilled or semi skilled but are always kept busy. From what I’ve gathered most are on only slightly above minimum wage. To give you an idea, I’m one of the only skilled workers and I’m on what is just about acceptable for my skill level (but I’m not kept that busy and as I work alone I’m fairly autonomous and get left to get on with it so don’t mind) and am on at least 10% more than my supervisor.
There is a yearly bonus scheme which is meant to incentivise the staff but this year because one of the smaller departments made so many costly errors, everyone’s bonus was chopped down to about 15-20% of what was expected. It didn’t affect me as I’d only been there a month so didn’t expect anything but the other staff were fuming.
They all went as one () to their manager who to his credit is one of those decent guys who still remembers when he was at their level and does stick his neck out for them. He then went to the higher ups and voiced their grevences only for the CEO to have a rant about how he doesn’t have to give them a bonus at all and they should be grateful for anything. This same guy organised an out of work activity for the staff “for team building” and then threw a strop when hardly anyone was interested in going so insisted that those who didn’t go would have to stay at work or take the time off unpaid while the few that did would leave early and be paid to go to the event.
Now they’ve just announced the Xmas party arrangements and it’s in a very expensive posh venue that will have cost loads to hire and food and drink will not be cheap.
I know I’m not going as I don’t drink and hate being around drunk people. Hell, I don’t even celebrate Xmas. Not to mention that from experience of other factories I’ve worked in, every year at least one major incident will happen at the work party when you put a load of working class blokes who wouldn’t normally socialise together with loads of free booze. Big arguments, fights or just someone embarrassing themselves to the point where they just never show up for work again out of shame.
When will these dipshit employers realise we’d rather just be paid a decent wage instead of all this pointless bollocks?