Pioneer Community Wealth and Work Rules

The two articles that were read for today's blog were "A Pioneer of Community Wealth" by Bill Shore and "Work Rules" by William Greider. Both involved ways to fix economic problems. In Bill Shore's article he talks about Pineer Human Services, a non-profit business created by Gary Mulhair. In "Work Rules" Greider writes about Chatsworth Products, a employer owned and operated business.

Both of these articles make excellent points and options to fix some economic problems. With a non-profit business the "profit" made by the company trickles back down to it's employees, where as a normal profit business extra earnings go to the big owners, CEO's and stock holders in the company. With an employer owned and operated business, the employess have shares in the company so extra profit made also goes back to the employees. This kind of idea not only brings more wealth to common employees but also makes work morale better in the work enviroment. For example, if an employee knows that the extra profit will just trickle back down the them, they will most likely work harder and more effeciently to try and sell more product, rather than just working for the same pay day to day.

Although these solutions seem like great ideas, and have worked in some situations, the overall effect could not work for every business. Leaders of business are greedy and share holders have to be paid. A peer employee of mine at Krogers told me that after Krogers has paid all of their employees and have all their bills paid they still have almost a million dollars in profit. Think of how much more I or any other employee could be getting paid with that extra million. I make 7.80 an hour and I barely make over $200 with 40 hours of work per week. That's not even one car payment for me. Think if someone else working there making 7.80 an hour, how would they survive to feed a family, pay all their bills, and still keep some kind of shelter. It's sad that business leaders would rather keep profit for themselves and go on lavish vacations than to make sure their employees make enough to survive.