He's been working at this factory for most of my life and he's constantly annoyed by how much they take him for granted. He never speaks up because it goes against his values and you shouldn't be greedy and just after more money, so asking for a raise is wrong. He also just found out that a coworker who works three days a week gets paid more than him, and another that just got employed and is a lower level employee with hardly any responsibilities get paid nearly $5 more (who apparently says things like “any work you do more than your paid hours is slavery” and leaves exactly as his shift ends, to which my dad thinks is disgusting). He's at barely above minimum wage and my kid brother casually working at a farm (which notoriously pays pathetically) gets paid more.
But it's still not about money.
Except it is. Because the reason he has to work so much and missed out on a lot of our childhood events growing up was because he had to help put food on the table. Same with Mum, but she's more open to saying “screw it” and ditching a shitty company for a job with more benefits which is why we were finally not living week to week by the time I was in the later years of schooling.
He's also so bitter and exhausted and actually growing more aggressive because his body cannot keep up with the intensity of the work yet he's not being compensated for it. He's depressed because of feeling so unfulfilled but refuses to do anything about his mental health because again that's just a scam even though his behaviour effects the whole family. I've had to pretty much critically analyse his behaviour during my teenage years when it begun to not make sense or align with my own values, essentially no longer being able to consider him as a role model because I didn't want to end up like him.
By the way, he also volunteers hours of unpaid work and taking on responsibilities of management or sales just out of loyalty yet doesn't get time off work or is maybe rewarded with a gift voucher or a branded hat as a Christmas bonus. But they cannot show him the same loyalty. They have also been ditching clients and connections with rural communities which he's stated again goes against his values but he keeps doing the same routine like the company will suddenly become decent again and care about its employees and community.
So he's at a crossroads. He's finally acknowledging the things the rest of us have noticed for years but he had no interest in hearing our perspective. I don't know if he's going to have some kind of revelation and actually stand up for himself at work and give them an ultimatum (he's had numerous people say they'd love to offer him a job because of all that rep work and networking he's done but again he feels he owes this company something… more than labor, I guess) or if he's just gonna double down on the daily grind and lash out on all these progressive lefties that don't know what hard work and loyalty is… And I guess that'd probably decide our future relationship. I've honestly got no idea how this will pan out.