Today's letter to the local paper

[thatcrazycajun]

Letters to the Editor
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
72 Marietta Street, NW
Atlanta, Georgia 30303-2899

30 July 2009

Dear Sir/Madam:

I have some questions for your new conservative columnist, Kyle Wingfield, who in his column today uses a local Subway franchisee as an example to show why minimum-wage laws and healthcare mandates are bad. Has this man, who claims he cannot afford to keep all his employees if he pays them an actual living wage, earn more than $250,000 a year himself from his enterprises? Does he live in an ordinary home or a gigantic McMansion? Do his children, if any, attend public school or a fancy private academy? Does his family take expensive vacations?

I work for a company where the owners have taken pay reductions along with their employees to keep the firm solvent and as many staff as possible employed. Can't your pal Ed Singleton do the same? Far too many business owners who complain about having to pay decent wages and provide health insurance have not worked hard enough at finding ways other than layoffs to make a profit, and are unwilling to sacrifice themselves as much as they ask of their workers. The federal minimum wage has never been enough to support even one adult, let alone a family, which is why some states are setting theirs higher. I'll want answers to the above questions before I'm willing to listen to his—or your—complaints about the Obama Administration's programs.

Sincerely,
TCC.

Comments

[starmalachite.livejournal.com]

Right on.

[scs-11.livejournal.com]

Nicely put. The Subway guy (is that who Ed Singleton is?) sounds just like my wifes employer, who talks poor-mount, cuts jobs and wages, and spent a cool quarter-mill of his companies money on an airplane that's his personal-use toy.

Letters To The Editor

[twiztedtexan2.livejournal.com]

I agree with you. As you may or may not know, my husband worked for Circuit City's corporate office for 7 years before he was laid off last November. The company was struggling for a few years and constantly laying off. Rather than stop building stores and close non performing stores (oh, and cut CEO bonuses that were in the millions) they let the company bleed to death. Now i'm forced to go to Best Buy for my electronic needs (a definite no-no for seven years). Because god forbid I buy something like that from Wal-Mart, another company that does not pay its employees a living wage. Very well said.