Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for October 17, 2021

The Revolution just kind of sneaked up on us.

I remember how hard a lot of people were working only a few year back to try to get the legal minimum wage raised to $15 an hour, and now a lot of employers have just blown right past that on their own, without being required to do it. Honest question: Has this taken all the steam out of the $15-an-hour minimum-wage movement?

In Italy we are arguing for a minimum wage of € 9.

$15 minimum wage is from many years ago. Mid 20-’s is what it takes these days. Minimum wage talk always lags a decade or so behind reality.

I have a relative who was in the Med Canabis biz, him and his son cleared 750000$a year, only shut down because of Illness , just saying !

Covid-19 and a workforce with so many of retirement age — that just decided that this was the time to retire — have done what unions and worker advocates couldn’t do.

My son-in-law was offered $130k to be a manager at McDonald’s. Didn’t take it. Works for himself, at home, makes more.

Have any of you been hearing about John Deere trying to get untrained managers and engineers to replace striking factory workers? It feels like a plot point out of a Doonesbury strip.

It is well past time to get wages anything close to 1950 or 60’s paychecks. Even Henry Ford knew that his workers should make enough to buy a new Ford.

I never thought my employees made enough for what they did. The problem was that if I paid them what they should have made I would not have staid in business. So it is a balancing act.

Business here spent a lot of time scraping wages and benefits away from workers, wages were stagnant for decades. Now after a little time to think, people are tired of that and have found other things to do. How do you feel about immigrant labor now, construction, fast food and hotel industries?

“How about a lucrative contract to market your cannabis in our stores?”

“How much profit would you claim?”

“Uh, 25%. No? How about 10%? 5%…”

Zonker sure did push a lot of McFriendly calories back in the day.

I KNEW those fast food restaurants were good for it.

It’s not just the food service and retail industries that are struggling to get by because of the crappy wages and subpar treatment. Education took a serious hit, too, with substitute teacher shortages all over the country. Districts are practically begging for building subs and raising wages to try and get more people to cover for teachers as needed since the pandemic is still raging.

https://imgur.com/3VVWld0

I suggest that he’s using too much of his own bud.

There was this silly show on TV where the bosses posed as workers to see conditions. It was just a ploy to make them seem human. Anyway one episode, the worker at a fast food joint took the boss to another place for lunch because he couldn’t afford the food he served!!!!! They make believe the boss improves conditions, yeah and the Earth is Flat!!

Nice to see Zonker has finally matured.

Did Trudeau just knock the Biden administration?

There is a devastating shortage of workers because of COVID. Many restaurants are closing early, opening late or just closing. Workers are hard to find. With university students staying home for classes online and the fear of being in public with the unknown factor of facing customers, retail and restaurants are desperate.

The reality is that employers are mostly not offering that much, which is why they can’t get workers. Changing the minimum wage is a big debate. This toon is not always 100% realistic, which is ok, it is fiction. It does reflect the reality that many workers are leaving the restaurant and hospitality industry.

The same thing happened with the peasants after the Black Plague – they started negotiating for better pay and conditions, and then buying their own land and starting their own businesses. The government had to basically force them to keep farming.

I notice a lack of check-out clerks in the grocery store. They were always cutting back, training the customers to use the self-checkout, but now its even more so.

Wait…wait…I think I get the joke of the strip: that corporate America might be feeling some pressure to actually give a bony rat’s azz about the well-being and survival of the millions of workers who line their pockets with untold wealth? That IS funny!!! (rolling eyes)

All this and still, some people can’t find jobs. I mean really, are you really qualified to work at Waffle House? It’s not as easy as you might think.

Let’s see. All those benefits from the restaurant, vs free samples at Zonk’s current job. Decisions, decisions.

All of the companies that thought they could treat their employees like dirt and get away with it are suddenly finding that the employees have figured out that they don’t have to take it. Now the companies are literally begging for workers and can’t figure out why nobody wants their lousy, low paying, high stress jobs.

The nerve of some people, thinking that their labor has worth and that their lives deserve any sort of consideration aside from how they can make rich people even richer. This is all the liberals’ fault, putting ideas into the slaves’- err, I mean workers’ heads!

Uncle Sam can hardly wait for you to get your paycheck!

if only…

That is what they are offering IN THE ADs, but in reality, no so much. You will start out at minimum wage with no benefits until you are there 6 months. Then you will go up to 15 dollars an hour. After a year, you get offered crappy health insurance.

There are plenty of Afghan refugees in this country who are willing to work.

Dang.. that’s .ore than I get driving Uber. .. I didn’t realize Z got fired from Mcfriendly’s, missed that part of the story.

Everybody would have to stand downwind.

Throw in free Big Mac, fries and a diet coke. Don’t forget an apple pie and kid’s meal.

Broomhlda just ran a strip making fun of her for asking for a raise when she get hired. She was ahead of her time.

Z + Z Bud, marketed toward a gay male clientele:

“Different Tokes For Different Blokes”

Reminds me of the companies that have fired me…except for how they haven’t called.

I feally love today’s strip. It’s topical and FUNNY. Plus I like good old Zonker

Dude, pack up your best plants and hightail it out of there until fire season is over! This is probably the best offer you’re going to get.

A lot of the Chains are having to readjust their attitudes as low paid Employees are just Quitting.

Shortages of employees in many businesses are creating unique opportunities for people at the bottom to move Up in the world to better paying jobs leaving companies with Sub Minimum Wage Jobs going Begging.

Other businesses have employees Quitting to pursue Self Employment opportunities.

They deserve this…

One new problem is that people are being hired as managers who 2 years wouldn’t have been hired as dishwashers. And service has gone down the tubes.

Regardless of whether you think marijuana farming is a respectable profession;the only way Zonkercould have ANY kind of a job is if he was h is own boss and could be as lazy as he wanted on his own time.

And going WAY back to his time as a substitute mailman,there has never been any such thing as a “Tony The Tiger Ray Gun”.

Biden just talked about a fast food place he coyly didn’t want to name but “they offered $20 and everybody came back.”