I wrote the following very long harangue and, upon thoughtful re-reading, decided it needed an introduction. It seems my thoughts were captured by a very minor thread in an otherwise very good message. An excellent message. I think what bothered me was, perhaps, that this thread represented a half-made point. Obviously when one is given twenty-nine minutes to speak, and has at least two hours of worthy things to say, one must make choices. Our speaker, in this case, pointed out that an employer's success must not be built at the expense of the employee. This is good and true. I wish he had elaborated a bit, however, because I am caught in a quandary. The following is my considered and, I hope, thoughtful response to the three- or four-word omission; what I wish he had had time and heart to say.
It is morning and I'm feeling writerly, so be warned.
I was left after this sermon feeling poked and picked on. To give some background, we have a business. In point of fact it is the hub's business. My name is not on any of it by my choice, I don't participate in it any more than I can avoid, and none of the fallout, technically, belongs to me. Therefore when, in the following tirade, I use the words we or our, I do so editorially; it is most normally he or his.
The thread about evil businesses was relatively minor in the vicar's address, but it seems to be a warp thread in the social gospel generally, so it is the thread I will pull.
He has a business. Yes, in all it's glorious detail it is a business. He is one of the evil elite who provides employment for others. He has equipment, customers (what a higher-class, white-collar guy would call clients), business cards, and an ad in the phone book. He also has insurance. Oh boy does he. He would love to bank, or pay in wages, what he is forced -- has no choice -- to pay for that insurance. It is liability insurance against breakage and theft by, or injury to, his pitifully underpaid and trodden-upon employees.
Does he pay a living wage? Frankly, no. Not to them or himself. Would he like to? Oh yes. Does he provide retirement plans, health insurance, or paid vacations? No. He would love to provide health insurance. He would love his own family to have health insurance. He cannot pay for health insurance for these people who work for him, but he does frequently lend, or more often give, money for doctor visits, new glasses, or meds. It is not uncommon for him to be called from a meal or sleep to drive someone to Urgent Care, and sit with them while they wait, then drive them to the pharmacy and pay for their prescriptions. Or pick up their prescriptions and deliver them. He regularly drives one man to the veteran's hospital, an hour away, for care.
Meanwhile, no-one in this household sees a doctor until the fever hits 105º, or the bone is protruding from the skin. Every one of us is in need, dire need, of dental care. We get new glasses when the old ones are broken beyond repair. Yet, because he does not pay a living wage, he is empire-building on the backs of the poor.
He employs mainly people who, due to their own bad choices, are no longer allowed to drive. He drives them to work, grocery, court, and practically anywhere they need or want to go. He has been known to rush out to help someone attempting to escape from an abusive home. He has risked physical attack protecting women from brutish men. He would love to have a fleet of trucks for his business, but he obviously cannot. So he drives. A lot. His gas expense is in the hundreds of dollars per month. He can't get out from under this because when he finds someone who can drive it is a day of jubilation, usually short-lived because someone who has not so mangled their own situation that they are still capable and legal to drive soon finds "better" employment. Yes, he is empire building.
He does not provide retirement plans. His own retirement plan is to work until he dies. In the interest of honesty, I personally have a 401K through my employment for a major retailer. It is pretax, which means that when it matures, I will pay it all to the government. That's okay, as my real retirement plan is also to work until I die. We are building empires here.
He does not provide paid time off or vacation pay. Yet how often does the evil employer whisk his spoiled and coddled family "away from it all"? We have had, over the course of twenty-seven years of family life, exactly no vacations. Zero. Again in the interest of honesty, I have had the occasional home-school conference or women's retreat that takes me away for a week-end, several of us have been on rather exotic short-term missions trips, and hubs was taken along as a guest on his parents' fiftieth anniversary trip. When the kids were small we went on a few three- or four-day camping trips. Anyone here ever primitive-camped with a month-old infant, and three other kids under ten? They don't write brochures about that.
So he hires, and of course underpays, the otherwise unemployable. They have background of addiction, mental illness, and occasionally felony. Actual conversation:
"She's a convicted felon? Can you have her in a customer's business unsupervised?"
"She's not a thief. (long pause) She's an arsonist."
"Arson? As in fire starting . . . ?"
"Oh she didn't burn a building. She took her sister's abusive boyfriend's truck, filled it with everything he owned, drove it into the middle of a field, and set it on fire."
"Well, that's perfectly reasonable."
"Uh huh. Anyway, she's having trouble finding work. Since she's technically a felon. She's a good worker."
We have had hundreds of variations of this conversation. This is where this thread turns and is woven back the other direction.
Justice and mercy demand that employees be treated well, promises be kept, and dignity protected.
Justice and mercy also demand that employers be treated well, promises be kept, and business protected. It is sadly predictable that one step forward in this business, any bit of progress toward the fruit of living wages, employee benefits, or actual profit, is met with at least one step back in the form of an employee going off the rails and losing hubs a contract or costing him money for restitution.
If one is an employee, trusted by one's employer to do a reasonable amount of work in a responsible manner, himself being entrusted to provide a service which allows unfettered access to a customer's property without their direct supervision, justice and mercy demand the following at minimum:
do not steal money from the place you're working
do not steal office supplies from the place you're working
do not, in a fit of personal rage at someone removed from the work environment, damage the customer's property, i.e. poke holes in the hollow-core doors or drywall with a mop handle
do not allow unauthorized persons into the building, including your children; if you do, don't claim a break-in
do not use or stash drugs on the customer's property
do not come to work impaired, or become impaired while working
do not conduct drug deals in the parking lot of the building or worse, in the building proper
do not use the customer's phone to place 900-number calls
do not use the customer's computers for *any* reason
do not use the customer's cd resurfacing machine to try to resurface cds you find in the trash; if you do, don't do it in front of a security camera
do not make copies of your posterior on the customer's copier; if you do, don't leave a copy in the machine for the customer to find in the morning
do not rummage through the customer's desk
do not eat the customer's food
do not leave the building unlocked
do not call the customer at home if you have a question or problem
do not take home a video-game system or laptop left on or under the customer's desk; he did not intend to throw it away and "finders/keepers" ends in third grade
Yes, all these have actually happened. Multiple times.
Let's return to some sort of baseline, before this tangent becomes irremediably mired. I listened to the sermon again a few minutes ago and it is really very sound and orthodox *except for this one* little omission on the reciprocal responsibilities of employees. I'm sure I've blown it out of all proportion. But empresses can do that.
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