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i worked at a popular coffee & donut shop for most of my teens. i didnt realize it at the time, but working there would end up being what radicalized me to become the anti-capitalist i am today. heres a few stories i can recall where profits were routinely prioritized over people
~* for legality sake, all these stories about this unnamed coffee shop are hypothetical, purely fictional :) *~
the women (most of whom were mothers) who worked there full time could never afford to take time off. they had often been loyal to this establishment for pushing a decade. taking a sick day would put them behind their bills, they often worked overtime to make ends meet
one time, a woman found out that a relative of hers had passed away during her break. management advised her not to tell her sister who was also working at the time until after her shift because doing so could lead them to be short staffed
when the funeral date was set, she was scheduled to work that day. management told her she could not have the day off unless she found someone to cover her shift (i took her shift for her obviously) but she was told that if she did not show up she would receive a strike
another one of the girls there was a young mother. she had just built up the courage to leave an abusive relationship, but doing so left her unable to find a place to house herself and her daughter. management refused to hire her full time.
she ended up having to live in a women’s shelter with her daughter. management knowingly put an employee and a 3 year old into a homeless shelter because it was not profitable to hire her full time (how you could sleep at night knowing this is beyond me)
working in the summer, the restaurant would get very hot, especially near the sandwich section with the toaster, grills, soups, etc. one summer the AC was broken. we were told we could not have water at the station bc it violated ‘health & safety’
however we were also discouraged from taking water breaks, because doing so would slow our work down. the pressure put on us to work as fast as physically possible in these conditions was disgusting.
we were only given two unpaid 15 minute breaks for an 8 hour shift. not only this, management forced us to clock out before getting our food. we were told we had to stand in line and wait with customers (when we could easily prepare it ourselves and clock out afterwards)
doing this would most likely cut your - already short - break in half. if we had training videos to do we were also encouraged to do them on our unpaid breaks
before i worked there i heard an employee was once fired for bringing some of the donuts (that were ‘expired’ and supposed to be thrown out) home to her children. they were literally supposed to go in the garbage.
these are just a few things i can recall. i’m sure there’s more things that i myself didn’t know about or experience. the point is, employers will always prioritize profit over people. every chance they get.
they will try and make it seem like you’re a ‘family’, like they’re doing you a favour for employing you at minimum wage but the reality is, if they could pay you less they would. if you died they would replace you the next day and continue with business as usual
tldr: act your wage, capitalists can rot :)
