LOUIS YAKO - Working in America: Paychecks for Silence

Is being at work like being in a type of dictatorship? Some say if you don't like it you're free to move on, but what if nearly all bosses are the same, so the disruption and risk is pointless.

I worked at my old company for years and I had bought a house nearby. As I had been there so long I was on top whack, especially as wage rises were much better in the old days. My job was very specialised and so finding a job nearby wouldn't have been easy. If I lost my job, I might of had to travel for 2 to 3 hours a day and be on much lower wages, and I might even have to do agency work. I would also probably have to give up my house as well. This meant my bosses had enormous power over me and I ended up working far too hard, which wasn't good for my health.

Louis Yako says how 70% of employees check you out on social media before giving you promotion or offering you a job. Imagine if they saw mine, or what I write about here? And some employers demand that you have a social media page they can check out.


Let us begin with just a few recent and disturbing statistics about working in America. First, most Americans (nearly 78%) live paycheck to paycheck, which makes them vulnerable to abuse and bullying by employers. Second, a 2018 Harris Poll found that “seven in ten employers (70 percent) use social networking sites to research job candidates during hiring process,” and another seven percent was planning to do so as of 2018. This means that on top of working under inhumanely precarious and insecure conditions, average American employees are also being watched online and offline by authoritarian employers to make sure they are conforming to their demands. Based on more than 12 years of work experience, observation, and collecting insights from many friends, colleagues, and total strangers, I find that most American workplaces operate in ways that makes it almost impossible for anyone to speak truth to power or challenge the status quo and be able to thrive or advance in their career. “If you dare to open your mouth, you basically ruin your career,” is one of the most common lines I hear from people when I ask them about what usually stops them from saying or doing what they see as the right thing to do. Here, we must ask, is there a dictatorship worse than this reality? Is there any difference between being ruled by authoritarian leaders and authoritarian employers? A bigger concern is that America goes around the world toppling “authoritarian” or “dictator” regimes, while most American corporations and institutions act as dictatorships squeezing life out of their employees/citizens. It is important at this time to start connecting between countries ruled by single dictators and others ruled by dictators who own and manipulate the job market.

CounterPunch 

LOUIS YAKO - Working in America: Paychecks for Silence