Don’t Wait for a Raise. Create One.
A few months ago, employees of the government-owned auto insurer where I live went on strike.
The strike lasted for ten weeks, but for the workers on the picket line, it must have felt like two years.
They have an office a few blocks from my house, with a gas station next door. On several occasions during the strike, I found myself standing at the gas pump, watching the striking workers pace back and forth, up and down the sidewalk. Others sat in lawn chairs with their picket signs leaning beside them.
Every time I was there, I had the same thought.
How many of these people realize that they’re under someone’s thumb?
Moreover, how many of them know that it doesn’t have to be that way and that they have much more control than they realize?
Here they were, walking back and forth for hours at a time, day in, day out, months on end, for almost no pay — hoping their employer might be willing to loosen the purse strings for an extra 1% or 2%.
Now, I realize that many of those workers weren’t there by choice. And I’m not knocking unions or the idea of fighting for more pay or better working conditions.
But this is the situation in most traditional jobs (union and non-union) in North America. Employees are not…
