Staffing problems? Have you tried evil?

Companies are willing to do anything but pay more.

By Buck HardcastlePublished about a year ago • 3 min read

Ah the labor crisis, caused by lazy people not needing to work because of America's famously generous social benefits. At least that's the narrative pushed by owners of capital who were feeling squeezed by the working class having more options. I wrote an article in 2021 explaining how laziness wasn't a factor in regards to worker shortages. I concluded that business were going to have to offer more (i.e. higher wages) if they didn't want to lose workers to competition.

Oh 2021 me, you sweet summer child. Did you really think business were going to pay higher wages without a fight? And what, just give up record profits? After all stock aren't going to just buy back themselves (which was a crime until 1982). I mean, if you give workers higher wages they're just going to spend them on moonshine and provocative cup and ball games.

What to do then? Well, for a CEO unwilling to budge on labor costs there are some evil options available.

Hire Children

An Arkansas governor who seems certain that karma doesn't exist has introduced the Youth Hiring Act of 2023 to make it easier for business to hire minors. While that grabbed the headlines, this move didn't come from nowhere. It's the result of an organized national campaign by corporate lobbyists to make it easier to put children to work. Some of their aims are to have teens serve alcohol on school nights, to put minors to work in once off limit dangerous positions in construction and to pay them less than state minimum wages.

But hey, the likes of the Wall Street Journal had a pro-child labor piece entitled "A Little Work Never Hurt Anyone—Including Teenagers." First of all, that statement is just objectively wrong. Of course people get hurt working. Second, we should take the Wall Street Journal's opinion with a grain of salt considering it is owned by Rupert Murdoch.

Train employees to expect other people to pay them

Did you notice in that sub-headline they consulted an "expert" on tipping? Excuse me? You're an expert on tipping? Go jump in a lake.

In America you need to tip waiters because there is a tipped minimum wage which can be as low as $2.13. I would argue that the tipped minimum wage should be done away with as customers can simply choose to not tip.

But instead of contracting, interactions requesting tips have been expanding, with kiosks prompting customers to give tips even when there hasn't been any traditional service. This is employers shifting the onerous for higher wages onto customers. You're not making enough income? Take it up with the guy who was in here for lunch, it's probably his fault.

Pretend to be hiring

Let's say you're the owner of a company that makes and sells wicker sex toys. Your staff is beleaguered, overwhelmed by the demand for wickerwork erotica. They have been begging you to hire more people. Seeing the need to placate your staff, you post a help wanted ad.

However, you've got a secret dirtier than your best selling rattan anal beads: you're not actually planning to hire anyone. You only posted that ad to make it look like you were trying to hire someone. Afterall, the cost of posting an ad is slim, but the cost of actually hiring someone is high. Plus you'll have some resumes on file in case one of your employees succumbs to karoshi.

Just steal employee's wages

Why not? If a cashier pinches from the till, that's a crime. But you don't pay them in full, that's generally treated as a civil matter. Think it's rare? Here are some companies who have allegedly stolen wages:

Archer-Daniels-Midland

In case you're wondering how I found all of these examples, the answer is that I just pulled up a list of Fortune 500 companies and started checking them (not every company listed here is a Fortune 500 company, some examples just fell in my lap). I didn't even work the whole list, I only got to 80 before I figured I had enough to show my point. And these are just the ones that got caught, which leads me to believe that vast majority of companies engage in some form of wage theft.

So if you're hesitating, what are you waiting for? Go ahead and start stealing wages, you'll be in good company. Just make sure to save some of that money for union busting, that'll be money well spent.

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About the Creator

Buck Hardcastle

Viscount of Hyrkania and private cartographer to the house of Beifong.

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