Of “employers” who fancy themselves Feudal Slave Owners

 

The basic premise of employment is the contract that the employee exchanges their labour for money. In this equation, the employer and the employee are basically meant to be on a more or less equal footing. One selling labour, and one buying it.

 

Sure, there is the unspoken/obvious balance of power where the employer gets to give orders and the employee follows them. But that is within the basic framework of paying and getting paid. Just like any other monetary transaction, like buying groceries. I pay for the groceries; hence I have the right to choose the ones I want.

 

But imagine, for one second, that I wanted the grocery store to polish my shoes, or the gas station to cook my food, because “I am paying you”. It is obvious, with that analogy, how absurd it is. It is obvious how ridiculous such a demand would be. Since I am paying for groceries or gas, that’s what I get from that place/person. However, I find it amazing how often that logic seems to completely disappear in employer/employee situations, especially in white-collar jobs. The employer of a plumber does not, probably, expect him/her to do much more than plumbing. However, the employer of a white-collar worker, a computer person, a sales manager, a professor, often seems to expect the employee to be a virtual jack of all trades slave.

 

How often are employees in such job roles asked/ordered to do work that was not part of their job description when they were taken on? In my experience, too often. Too often is a tech guy also expected to be a salesperson or a trainer or more. Too often is a sales manager also expected to be a negotiator, a business getter, a collection agent, and whatnot. Too often is a professor, hired for being from an industry background to add real-life non-academic value to a “professional” course expected not only to be an academic – researching and writing an “expected” number of papers – even if their field does not lend itself to such. Too often are they also expected to bring academic scholars and papers for conferences, or “catch” students for admission. Too often the contracted 6 hours a day becomes 9. All of this with no corresponding increase in pay, to compensate for the increase in duties. Why? Because the employer, in our “only 70 years removed from feudalism” culture, fancies themselves as the “mai baap”, the owner of their workers, the lord and master with divine right over every minute and every thought and action of their employer, simply because they pay for a *contracted* amount of labour.

 

Now imagine (and it is not hard to do) that a pandemic strikes. This makes things worse. Not only are work hours now stretched to something like 24, with no way to leave “the office” behind, not only are there "meetings" that last all day or most of the evening-night, but new and innovative duties get added on. A professor contracted for a particular institute, in a particular city, gets ordered to take classes for a completely different institute, in a whole other city (owned by the same employer), because it is all online and hence possible! Mind you, there is no additional pay for what is essentially a secondment, no extra moolah for the extra time and energy that the employee will have to spend on this, since “our own children are at internships now and our own classes are therefore not happening”. There is no asking if this is ok, no seeking of cooperation for the extra (and unusual) burden of work, just imperious edicts, because, of course, lord and master owns the labour.

 

Now imagine, further, that the basic contract of employment is not being met either. While the employee is forced to work and work and work some more, they are not being paid! For anything up to six whole months at a time, imagine no salaries being paid out. Simple logic says that the contract then stands broken, and any work that the employee does, any time that the employee devotes, is essentially charity. They are donating their time and labour to the organization, if they are working in the absence of a salary. So, is the employer going to be thankful for the charity and suitably polite and obsequious to the employee then?  As one should be to one’s donors/sponsors? Is the donation of time and effort, and even money (every penny spent on getting to work and back in the absence of a salary would also count as a donation to the organisation, would it not?) going to be appreciated?

 

Of course not! Remember, this is the mai baap… they will continue to be rude, high-handed, imperious and frankly unreasonable! They will expect, nay demand for, every employee to be at the workplace in the middle of this pandemic, putting their lives at risk for no extra money or hazard pay (expecting such is laughable since contracted salaries are not forthcoming). They will demand that people travel by public transport (placing themselves and their families at much greater risk) for hours at a time to get there, and refuse to provide transportation help (which would somewhat reduce the risk of exposure). They will stop previously available canteen and pantry facilities, forcing employees to carry their own beverages and food, increasing not just cost but also hassle and time and energy spends. And, obviously, they will take absolutely no responsibility or liability in case one of the employees should fall sick, need hospitalisation, or die.

 

They will insist on professors being on campus even though there are no classes going on, and no students whatsoever. They will insist on (and very rudely, in a general staff meeting) senior citizens, and people on immunosuppressant drugs, who have been clearly warned not to leave the house by their doctors, being at the office. They will refuse to listen to medical histories of other injured employees who have legitimate cause to be homebound, but are discharging all duties nevertheless, even extra, unfair ones. They will accuse all of them of gallivanting around for "social reasons" but not going to work, and when told that no such "social gallivanting" is taking place, will flat out refuse to believe it or accuse the employee of lying and insult them some more. They will upbraid a senior employee for being seen smoking on camera during the meeting while they themselves smoke like a veritable erupting Vesuvius at EVERY staff meeting ever (because lord and master can but a slave cannot). They will, imperiously and very rudely, lecture their extremely responsible and dedicated workforce on professionalism and ownership of their responsibilities, accusing them of being anything from lazy to deceitful, all the while steadfastly ignoring their own HUGE unprofessionalism of not paying their staff! They will go so far as to blame low student admissions on the fact that professors are not on an empty campus every day (go figure) while steadfastly ignoring the many shortcomings of infrastructure they have refused to fix or the immense lies told by their "marketing" teams that kids see through the moment they step onto the campus, and which brings them such a bad rep. 

 

And, this is the culture and such is the obsequiousness of employees that most people will silently digest all this, listening with bent heads and zipped lips, and will tell each other "oh that's what they are like, just ignore it," etc, after the fact. Happily, a few there are who won’t. Who would rather starve, or eke out a basic subsistence as freelancers or at some other job(that actually pays), than be treated this way, for free. So the lord and master is welcome to his free wage slaves he does not even feel the need to pay. He is welcome to insult, order around, be rude to, treat unprofessionally, whip, chain, what he will to the ones who never seem to mind. After all, masochists exist, and consent is king! The few who have a spine, and refuse to be violated against their wills in so many ways, will just say good riddance to bad rubbish!