I know what you are thinking– “But I deserve higher wages!” I am here to tell you no, no you don't. What you deserve is the ACTUAL VALUE OF YOUR LABOR. Anything less and your boss is stealing from you.
For example, let's say you work for a guy who makes gigosmurts. By himself, he can make 10 gigosmurts every day and each one brings him a profit of $50. $500 profit per day. Pretty sweet, eh?
But no, he wants more profit. So then he hires an employee to also make gigosmurts and pays the employee 20 bucks an hour. For many of us, that would be a sweet wage. But recall, making a gigosmurt brings 50 bucks in profit. So in an 8-hour day, you produce 500 bucks in profit but only get paid 160?
Why does boss deserve the 340 excess profit?
The point is that HE DOES NOT. YOU should receive the value of the profit you create.
Boss probably has a secretary, too. The secretary frees up 50% of the boss's time so he can make more gigosmurts. Do you think the secretary gets 50% of the profits? Hollow laugh.
Note that I used “profit” here. That means that these amounts are after rent, electricity, etc. have been paid. Plus boss pays himself a salary too.
Again, why does he deserve the extra 360 profit that your labor produces?
Think about this. There is absolutely no reason your boss should have the right to profit off of what YOU produce.
There was a guy on here a couple of months ago–in chatting we discovered he made millions in profit for the company, single-handedly, every year. And got paid less than 200K. His company was stealing millions from him every year.
How can we possibly justify that?
THIS is what we need to be working towards. YOU should profit from your labor–not somebody else.
(Now yes, of course, we all have to live, so go ahead and ask for that raise. Just remember that if you get paid one cent less that the profit you bring, they are stealing from you)
This has become so common and normalized that we feel rewarded with a little bump in pay–you should think about that. No matter WHAT they pay you, if it is not a full profit-sharing, you are being ripped off.