[A guest essay by a friend of mine]
Raise the Minimum Wage
by Matt Funiciello
CEO, Rock Hill Bakery
I am the owner of Rock Hill Bakehouse, a small, wholesale bread bakery in upstate New York. As an employer of forty people, it is my job to ensure that they each receive a livable wage. This can often be a Herculean task, but it is my responsibility, nonetheless. As the CEO of a 2 million dollar corporation, I make just over $50,000 dollars a year. This is well below the six-figure salary commonly garnered by CEOs in similar businesses, but, as all CEOs should, I have consciously decided not to live off my workers’ backs.
I care about the people who work for me and I feel it would be immoral to keep the bulk of the profits to myself. I live in the world, not in some “gated community”, where I can avoid the realities that plague my fellow workmates. I have worked unbelievably hard and I do feel that I am entitled to a little bit extra, but I’m honest enough to know that my investment could never justify a salary dozens of times larger than my entry level employees. I am astounded that other CEOs feel they are entitled to thousands of times what they pay their workers. I see myself as an empowered worker and I see [New York] State’s current minimum wage as misguided and insufficient, at best, and as cruel and the result of too much attention paid to corporate lobby efforts, at worst.
The “WalMarts” of this world market themselves as models of honor and decency. Why, then, are such a huge preponderance of their employees paid starvation wages ($5.15 - $6.00 per hour)? No self-respecting human being would ever dream of paying someone so little for their labor and, perhaps, that’s the key. Most large companies are not run by compassionate human beings, but by the unchecked and unconscious avarice of their stockholders. This situation has created a whole new class of unthinking robber barons, totally bereft of conscience.
I think of small business as a canvas by which one may express a more enlightened model of the employee/employer relationship. There are many obstacles to successfully completing the “portrait”, primarily that we are forced into unfair competition with huge corporations who eagerly suckle at the government teat (subsidized development, payroll, benefits, tax cuts, grants, etc). While small business (the largest employer group in the United States) sees it as its duty to make its own way and does not denigrate its trade by demanding handouts, big business doesn’t seem to have this problem. Pride in one’s ability to be self-sufficient, like compassion, is a uniquely human characteristic and not a function of greed. It’s cruel irony that these companies are allowed to use our own tax money against us in their constant push to achieve economic hegemony over small business ands its workers. They are truly pariahs.
In 2002, the gross individual income in New York State was roughly $684 billion dollars. This means that, if shared equally, each three-person household would have brought in just over $108,000 dollars. In actuality, the median household income was just $36,000 dollars. Who got the other $72,000 dollars? A very small minority of the population keeps the lion’s share of the wealth, apparently feeling justified in keeping more than two-thirds of our potential income! Boy, they must work awfully hard!
I recognize that everyone’s contribution in the workplace is not equal and therefore, they are not necessarily entitled to an equal share. However, I am only a fan of regulated capitalism, in which greed and bad judgment are forcibly tempered by both compassion and common sense. The best way to remedy this situation is to raise the minimum wage. It’s long overdue. Small business-owners already pay far more. The unofficial minimum is much closer to $7.00 an hour, anyway.
Corporate opponents (and fake lobby groups like the NFIB [National Federation of Independent Businesses]) say that this will drive up prices. It’s very interesting to me that no one ever brings this up when Tyco CEOs pay themselves an extra 2 million dollars because they’re planning a birthday party, but the second a worker’s child says, “I’m hungry”, the world is going to come to an end. Prices might go up, but the additional money being put into workers’ hands will also fuel higher consumption. Right? Raising the minimum wage is a win-win situation. It has been in every state in which it has been affected thus far. The big-box stores will take a hit, but they will survive. They just need to change their priorities as a whole new crop of consumers become able to consider quality as a factor when making a purchase.
State officials need to stop appeasing corporate lobby groups and ignoring their mandate to take care of the people who put them in office. They need to increase the NYS minimum wage to $7.25 an hour, now. If New York would have the courage and intelligence to do this, perhaps the federal government would take note and do what is right, as well. No full-time American worker should be living below the federal poverty level. It’s shameful! If you are a worker or a small business owner, you need to support and vote for only those public officials who vow to repair this grave imbalance.
**To visit Rock Hill Bakery's website, click here
**For a portrait of the author and his enterprise, click here
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