A Fake Repug has seen the light - a story of my daughter -

[Democrat 4 Ever]

Youngest daughter got married a year and half ago to a wonderful young man who, unfortunately, is a card carrying repug. In his family the word liberal is a curse word that is not uttered in polite family gatherings. Over the time she dated and then married this guy I have seen my liberal beliefs and teachings slowly erode away in a haze of love and lust. The last couple of years I have to listen to how she thinks immigrants are here to "steal our jobs" that Clinton was a horrible president, that Dems loved high taxes, cut and run, etc., etc, etc. If Dems felt, thought, said something it was bad - repugs are good, Bush is God (from a non-religious family) and war is hunky dory. Many times I've bit my tongue just to keep the peace. She is very much in love and wants to believe the best of her husband and his family.

Now the rest of the story -

Over the last few months I've noticed that Dear Daughter has "back slid" away from some of the repug talking points that she has heard on O'Lielly, Limpball, et al (I can't imagine her listening, much less actually quoting one of those asswipes).

Several weeks ago she was complaining about something that happened at work and her husband told her she sounded like a Liberal for taking the employees point of view (the employees had the gall to ask for fans in the warehouse during the summer heat - damn uppity employees). (She is support staff but considered management, has good pay, nice office, etc. but she thought the plant staff have it a little rough, work on a concrete floor in a warehouse, no air conditioning, heat in the winter, etc.

The company she works for is a small repackaging company that in the past has made "liberal" (no pun intended) use of undocumented workers to do the grunt work in the warehouse. When all of the illegal immigration hoo ha came up the owner and the vice president was scrambling to make sure the current crop of workers had legal status. The ones who didn't were promptly gotten rid of - no matter how long they have worked there, how good they were, out. Boom - gone, no severance, gold watch, cake, just gone. DD was not thrilled with the way they handled that. She knew several of these people and liked them.

The warehouse management staff (plus a couple of their wives who work at the company) all make excellent salaries with great bennies - and they are all white, Republican, smug and love to think they are superior to everyone else so you can see the working atmosphere for the poor people who work back there. The top pay for the remaining workers is $7.50/hr with no benefits. None.

So now, the company is in dire need of live bodies to get the work done but they were having trouble attracting people to their little sweat shop. The first ads running offered jobs at $7/hr with no response. The Plant Manager then ran an ad advertising jobs that said "up to $11/hr" manufacturing jobs with the idea that the "up to" would be their "get out of jail free" card when new applicants questioned the pay. They got plenty of applicants but a all bailed when told the starting pay was $7/hr. Then DD was told to tell anyone who called about the jobs they would need to come in and pay would be determined by experience. So today they scheduled their first group of potential workers to give them the grand tour and sign them up (at this point any of the potential employees could be ax murders and management didn't care as long as they had legal status). There was a group of 15 who filled out the application, took the tour, was given an opportunity to select what shift they wanted to work, you know the drill. Then they finally got around to telling them how much they would be making. $7/hr an hour with a "possibility" of a raise in six months.

DD called and related this story to me and told me I would get a chuckle. She said upon telling the group how much they would be paid, each and every one of the "new employees" got up and walked out. Told the Manager they needed the job but weren't going to work for anyone who lied to them from the very beginning.

Management is now in an emergency session trying to figure out how to get live bodies into their warehouse to do the grunt work. Kicking around ideas on how to get illegals without "breaking the law" (Huh?). When DD left for lunch they were cursing Chucklenuts and his "stupid" ideas about illegal immigrants.

Just another day in repug world.

I'll admit to getting pleasure out of a few repugs getting their knickers in a knot over hiring woes but I get a big, fat-ass grin when I realize I'm getting my Dear Daughter is sliding back on the liberal side of the street.

[patrice]

1. Minimum wage is a subsidy to businesses who depend on it to do business.

That is corporate socialism.

[DireStrike]

6. wait, what?

Do you mean a low minimum wage is the subsidy?

[patrice]

7. It's a subsidy to the business owner, so they don't have to pay

fair market value for Labor. The difference between what they are paying and what they would HAVE to pay if everyone refused to work for what they are paying is a subsidy.

Sorry, I wasn't very clear in my earlier post.

The reason that is so troubling is that it contradicts the "Conservative" line about how if you can't stand on your own two feet, without depending on others, you don't deserve to stand at all. They do bad business, hence they NEED people to work for minimum, and we're just supposed to let these bad businesses survive by continuing to work for less than what is fair.

If all business had to pay a fair wage, many would go away. Is it our fault that they are weak?

[Xipe Totec]

2. Thanks for the story!

It is funny, in a bitter-sweet sort of way.

I feel bad for the people who lost their jobs.

[Subdivisions]

3. Good for them that got up and walked out!

Good post. Thanks!

[Cha]

4. It's the Liberal side or

a world without truth.

[ellenfl]

5. my sister almost became a repug when she married.

she walked the walk for quite a while (15 years?) as she climbed the virginia repug social ladder. they are divorced now . . . and she has come back to her senses. i am so relieved.

ellen fl

[tulsakatz]

8. good story!!

I'm glad to see your daughter is remembering her liberal roots!!

And it serves the company right!! Americans and that includes legal aliens won't work in sweat shops for pennies because they know there are other choices!!!

[Democrat 4 Ever]

9. I'm glad that the prospective employees walked, too. But I am

afraid it will play right into the repug argument that there are jobs Americans won't do so we must allow illegal immigrants.

We all know there are plenty of jobs that repugs won't do (military service for one!) but they think if the peons won't do the work for substandard wages than the peons are lazy. This just bolsters their argument. It is a lame, wrong argument but since when did repugs rely on coherent, thoughtful, reasonable points to push their point of view? Never.

Interesting - not a single management level person has military experience even though several of them would be of age for the draft during Viet Nam.

[tulsakatz]

10. I don't see how they could make that argument.......

...but then again we've all seen them make an argument from much less so I suppose it's possible.

If they did try to make that argument, you might look at them and say 'would you be willing to work for this pay under these conditions?' I doubt if many of them would say yes.

And it's the Republicans who have been making the argument against illegal immigrants!

There was a time when a similar thing happened to me. I had 30 yrs of experience doing dressmaking and alterations. I was wanting to leave my current job to work for a larger company with better benefits so I went to a job interview at a uniform factory. Basically, it was easy work......replacing buttons and mending tears and things like that. I went to the interview and they did have a few better benefits. (This was about 7 yrs ago) They told me I would start out at $6.50 per hr with a possibility for a raise in 3 months. I toured their shop too and it was like a sweat shop! Most of the people worked all day on their feet and no a/c.

I thought about it and decided it just wasn't enough for me. I mean, I had 30 YRS EXPERIENCE! About a month later, I found a job at a rental car company. They started me out at about $2.00 more per hour (and I had no prior experience for that kind of work) plus they have much better benefits too! And I'm still working there.

The uniform company is about a mile from where I work now and every time I drive past that place I think how lucky I was (or maybe how smart I was) to turn down that job!!