Screwing Workers 101

There are a million and one ways to screw workers, but the flat-out best way is to call them “contractors.” The other day I had the CBC on, and there was a learned professor explicating how postal workers are doomed. This was in the context of the current postal strike. When you see a Canada Post vehicle on the road, the all-in costs are about $65/ hr. A FedEx or UPS van is on the road for $45/hr. And the independent contractors delivering your on-line purchases are at $25/hr. I’m thinking, holy shit, those Amazon delivery dudes (while he didn’t say those words, we knew who he was talking about) gotta be working for next to nothing! That’s why they show up in twenty year old Dodge vans with squealing brakes and noisy mufflers. His point was, in a free enterprise economy, the future belongs to the contractors. They have an insurmountable advantage over those corporate employees who drive for UPS and FedEx. Couple of days later, this story shows up in the Globe and Mail, about how ride-share drivers (think Uber, Lyft, and the food apps are no different) make an average net of six bucks an hour. Yup! They’re contractors! Independent businessmen! Minimum wage laws do not apply to independent businessmen! Pity, that… one of the richest companies in the world, owned by one of the richest men in the world, can pay his delivery drivers one third of the official minimum wage because they are contractors!? Get the fuck outta here! It’s an absolute outrage that we continue to allow such a brazen assault on working people.