Greetings. I am a voting constituent in rural west Texas.
Thought y’all might be interested in an everyman view from the street regarding GOP interest in taking assistance away from folks. Assistance designed to keep lives stable during a pandemic. Your standard mantra of people don’t want to work because they are being paid not to is tiresome.
Recent observations from my son who works in an Austin ER...
“There was this restaurant owner on like KXAN or something claiming that people on unemployment are ruining his business and he can't find any workers because they're gaming the system.
Later on the Austin subreddit someone said that they used to work for him and he had contacted them to come back and work. 2.35$ an hour. 8 hours. 2 4-hour shifts a week. At a full hustling restaurant that's maybe 50$ a shift but they have to pay taxes and share those tips with everyone. Let's see 300$ maybe a month or 800$ a week on unemployment? I know what I'd do. They went on to say this dude took a million dollars of PPE funds too.
The unemployment people are getting is literally 15$ 40 hours a week. Minimum wage in some cities. People aren't going to work for peanuts anymore. They know they're getting screwed. McDonald's had an email leak earlier that stated they could pay all of their workers 15$ an hour and it wouldn't hurt their bottom line at all. But they don't. They want to
pay you 8$ an hour to work 15 hours a week. With no benefits.”
And to add insult to injury he continues...
“Last week we had to go on total diversion from EMS and transfers for 24 hours. We had no beds in the hospital and 35 admits in the ED. It was crazy.
After [HCA] not giving us our raises and bragging about how much money they made while cutting everyone's hours, a lot of people quit. As a result of that and a nationwide nursing shortage we have about 100 rooms upstairs that we can't open because we don't have staff. Who thought that email ‘This was the most profitable quarter in HCA history’ was a good idea?”
Maybe businesses should start to appreciate workers more. Especially those that make our world go round. And those that are (still) trying to keep us alive. During a pandemic.
Things are not as simple as you’d like us to believe.
