Conditions of Employment.

• Date: 01 August 2018
• Author: Lueders, Bill

My father worked for more than thirty years, half his life, for a laundry and dry cleaning company in Milwaukee, picking up and dropping off clothes at the homes of people who, unlike us, could afford such things. His work days started at 5 a.m. He worked second jobs at night, cleaning office buildings. This was something he had to keep secret from his bosses at the laundry, because workers there were prohibited from having outside jobs.

Neat trick, that: First you don't pay your employees enough for them to get by; then you insist that they show their loyalty by not having any other sources of income.

That's the kind of predicament many workers find themselves in these days. The employer--usually a corporation--is king, and the king can dictate how those in the realm live. Under President Donald Trump, who got elected pretending to care about ordinary working stiffs, such abuses are becoming more...