Trickle-up Economics

When I first went to work for a herein unnamed transcription company in 2002, I was paid a given amount per line, plus a differential--if I scheduled myself more than 50% after 5 p.m., I would be paid more per line for ALL lines I produced; I was also given a differential for scheduling myself at least one weekend day per week. The company also provided our internet access. Accounts back then also were assigned a level theoretically representing their degree of difficulty, and our pay was based in part on that--higher difficulty level, higher line rate.

Let the “trickle up” begin:

1. Instead of paying the differential for all lines produced, pay it only for those produced after 5 p.m. or on weekends. Small thing, right--but dollars out of my pocket, right back into the company’s.

2. Eliminate the weekend differential. Dollars out of my pocket, right back into the company’s.

3. Stop providing internet access, but “generously” give the transcriptionist a small monthly amount to cover about 1/3 of the cost. (Sounds like a small thing, right? But if you were taking home $2000 a month, the net difference between what the company gave you for internet access and the actual cost, say $20, amounts to a 1% pay cut after taxes. Money out of my pocket, etc.

4. Never raise the line rate. After not many years, the company is paying much less per line when adjusted for inflation (but you can bet, although of course mere employees weren’t privy to such information, that what they were charging hospitals for our services didn’t stay the same or go lower).

5. “Restructure” the pay scale so that pay wasn’t based on account level of difficulty anymore, but rather on experience/ability level of the transcriptionist. At some point or other we lost the level 6 account that I had been working on, and I was shifted to what had previously been a level 8 or 9 account. Under the “old” system, I would have received about a 10% increase in line rate. Under the new system, I not only didn’t get a raise, but was in fact basically informed that the company graciously and benevolently wouldn’t be reducing my pay by a tenth of a cent per line, which logic I never really got, but then, I was a mushroom.

6.  Keep raising the percentage of the health insurance cost paid by the employee (and reducing the percentage paid by the company).

(My "favorite" line uttered by a supervisor, a woman whom I actually liked, during this period:  "We can't keep being the highest-paying transcription company.")

And that is how a corporation can nickel-and-dime its employees from relative “comfort”--that is, ability to pay the mortgage or rent and keep food on the table, with maybe a little left over for “extras” like, I don’t know, new clothes once in while, or dinner out, a movie, etc.--you know, luxuries--to edge-of-the-precipice, how-can-I-pay-for-an-oil-change or something besides chicken or beans or rice, day-to-day uncertainty.

You wonder sometimes how your employers can live with themselves or even sleep at night, knowing what they do to the workers who keep their companies alive, even as you know that they simply don’t care--and in fact, some corporate heads or other higher level executives actually get bonuses based on how much they “reduce costs” (that is, how many workers’ lives they destroy).

This is partly why “I am the 99%.” And, Dear Mr. 53%? I’ve been paying taxes all along; I’ve gotten no government handouts and haven’t asked for any. So please, shut the fuck up.