I'm not buying it. If people are truly afraid of losing their jobs, then our unemployment rate would be higher as a reflection. If people are choosing to stay at their jobs for the benefits, then what's the revelation? That people take all forms of compensation into account when making economic choices? Hardly a revolutionary concept.
I never said it was. What I said is that most low-skilled workers are people who live paycheck to paycheck and who do not receive regular wage increases. These workers are extremely reluctant to agitate for more money out of fear of being fired and replaced by a lower-paid foreign worker (legal or illegal). Thus they live in fear of watching their children go without.
The real irony is that nine times out ten it is bad management that leads a company to financial disaster, not bad labor. In most cases, a failed business gets run into the ground by its owners and managers, not its workers; after all, who makes the decisions that lead to success or failure? MANAGEMENT, that's who. And when the business falls down, the same owners and managers who crashed the company float safely to Earth on their golden parachutes; meanwhile, the poor saps who trusted the geniuses with the big salaries to keep the business solvent end up on the street.
I believe it is immoral to cause a human being to live in fear when an alternative exists. The alternative is to treat employees as human BEINGS, not human RESOURCES. Our family business employs many low-skilled people, and, although they grouse a good deal about conditions (as do all workers everywhere), its workers are in general extremely loyal, responsible, and honest. Those who complain are very careful not to let things get out of hand out of fear of easy replacement, but as a matter of fact our folks have never fired anyone who was doing the job they were being paid to do no matter how disrespectful, snippy, loudmouthed, or ungrateful they have been. Our family business pays for good work, not good attitude. Too bad more businessses don't follow that policy!
Of course, unlike most capitalist enterprises, our family business pays its workers the maximum wage which it can afford while remaining solvent, which is why it has such loyal employees. Those of our family who own and/or manage the company make significantly less per year than others in similar positions in the industry, but the simple fact is that our folks don't care. We all do all right and none of us has ever missed a meal bcause the family biz pays its workers a few bucks more than the competition does. The workers at the company see how frugally our folks live and it motivates them to work hard for them and with them; they know our folks don't consider them to be cattle, and they reciprocate by giving the company their best.
(I might also mention that a good many of the employees of our family business are ex-cons, homeless people, elderly poor folk, and others who are considered unemployable "damaged goods" by other so-called Christian businesspeople. Well, our folks do not profess to be good Christians, but to them even ex-cons, biker mamas, and grouchy old farts are human beings who deserve to be treated with respect as workers.)
I'd like to also point out that employee theft and laziness at our folks' business is nearly nonexistent. Bosses and owners who penny-pinch their workers are the ones with the worst employee theft/sabotage/work ethic problems; frankly, I am more sympathetic to employees who steal from miserly bosses than I am to their employers, and I say that as a member of a business-owning family. If rooting for Bob Cratchit over Ebenezer Scrooge makes me a communist, then long live the revolution. If preferring the barely-solvent but human Bailey Building & Loan to the highly-profitable but monstrous Potter's Bank makes me a softy, then that's fine, too.
Market forces must be acknowledged, of course, but when it comes to matters of basic human dignity there are concerns that transcend the market. Human beings are not "human resources" and must never be treated as mere disposable cogs in an owner's money-making machine. The moral businessperson does not allow his or her employyes to suffer in fear of suddenly bekng thrown onto the streets; instead, he pays his or her workers as much as he or she can afford, not as little as the law lets one get away with, and is genuinely concerned about their employees as people. An moral employer is attentive to the needs, problems, and complaints of his or her workers, and is loathe to fire anyone except for in the most grevious of circumstances. I am proud to say our folks are moral employers, and I say that as one who has spent a good deal of time working for them myself (at the lowest wage level, I might add!) Immoral businesspersons who treat their people like robots, pay them as little as they can get away with, and fire them at the drop of a hat deserve every bit of hell they get in return.
I'm not trying to brag here. I have nothing to do with the running of our family business; in fact, my own career is in an entirely different field. But over the years I have worked for our folks in every capacity, from shit-shoveler to management, and I am very proud of them and the way they run their business. They'll never get rich doing it, but getting rich wasn't their goal when they started the company — making a living was. This they have done, and done admirably.
Sorry to rant at you; this topic is a pet peeve of mine.
"Non ligabis os bovis terentis in area fruges tuas" - Deuteronomy 25:4