Editor, The News:
Re: Sorry, but you’re just like the rest of us (Letters, Nov. 4).
If the occupy movement supporters would show as much ambition towards improving themselves as they have to putting down everything, we could have a lot accomplished.
This group of negative anti-business crusaders are the type of people that most businesses would avoid hiring. For instance, Ms. Sabanski states her talented computer programmer brother can only get only a $10-an-hour job. My son and all of his friends (recently graduated computer programmers) got good jobs.
It takes more than talent to get a job. One must have attitude, be presentable, show honesty, ethics and a number of other skills. The strong sense of entitlement displayed by those claiming to represent 99 per cent of the population does not help.
To get a job also requires the right skills. It certainly is not for me to say one person is less skilled than another, but it is for a business to determine which skills it needs.
Companies are obsessed with profit? Of course they are. That is why they are in business. They are not in business to provide high pay to someone who puts their business down. Businesses are organizations that hire people because they can make a profit from their labour. They hire people who choose to work for pay rather than take the risks of starting their own business or people who lack the skills or know how to start their own business.
Ms. Sabanski, your strong sense of entitlement to business profits is unjustified. If you feel you are entitled to more money and you feel your skills are worth more than you are paid – go start your own business. This is a free country.
No one is forcing you or anyone to work for $10 an hour.
I started a business a short time ago and hired people with positive attitudes for $10 an hour. I did so, knowing I could not make a profit if I paid more and would not have been able to open the business. My employees are looking to getting more profitable skills to earn more in the future.
So start your own business and pay your employees $30 an hour. It seems you have a number of skilled people at your finger tips that are only paid $10 an hour and would be entitled to get paid so much more.
It is so easy to blame others. Those evil businesses that exploit the 99 per cent of the people that are entitled to more pay.
I agree with Ms. Sabanski, we do need more Warren Buffets.
Dan Banov
Maple Ridge
Chosen few?
Editor, The News:
Re: Sorry, but you’re just like the rest of us (Letters, Nov. 4).
What the Occupy movement is about is awakening to the fact that we are now living in a pure, unrestrained capitalist system, in which 99 percent of the people, or labour, have no power, lobby or input into the system.
Big money is the one per cent that has the money, therefore the lobbyists and ultimately control over the politicians. The crucial missing ingredient that has made capitalism work as well as making the system sustainable. Unions have been crushed, so labour has literally no voice, no lobby, no value.
We have to put labour back in the equation. Love them or hate them, unions are a crucial component in making capitalism palatable to the 99 per cent. We need union worker representatives on all company and corporations boards of directors to address workers concerns and issues such as wages, hours of work, holidays, benefits, health benefits, sending jobs offshore, anything that affects workers and their families livelihood.
After all isn’t that what a society is all about – families, raising children, providing a good nurturing environment, food, a roof over their heads, proper schooling right up to university, good health care and a pension and social safety net to take care of the old or sick. Or is it just about how super rich we can possibly make a chosen few?
Wayne Clark
Maple Ridge