By Shahin Shabanian
Minimum Wage
Minimum Wage deserves a rage;
The Market has placed us in a cage.
We should muster our courage:
A Living Wage is needed for this age
And our solidarity is on the same page.
Minimum Wage doesn’t pay the rent
But we are told to relent:
Eat grass, drink rain, live in a tent,
Work hard and be content.
While corporate masters drink champagne,
Contemplate mischief, celebrate their reign,
They are deaf to workers’ cries, whose children get one meal,
They pay no Living Wage; from workers they steal.
They claim the Market decides workers’ worth,
And their million dollar bonuses with mirth!
But the Market is a lawless entity,
Yet, in charge of nations’ economic security!
It is manipulated by the same corporate nobility;
Without any due public accountability.
It’s been proven again and again:
Corporations cheat and pay no taxes on gain
And they drive the system insane.
Corporations move on whims;
Laws are null or on freeze.
Corporations follow no rules;
The public is lied to and made fools.
Corporations buy politicians cheap;
They put the public in crisis deep.
Corporations write our laws to control;
Then, politicians are played like trolls.
These laws favor the rich,
By keeping Labor in a ditch.
A sage has said it well, “This game is rigged.”
In absence of equity, our pockets are picked.
Workers are milked for capital to retain
Prosperity for rich, austerity for poor and workers in chains.
Great poem- thanx- we need a workers party and to kick out the bosses- check out SPARK. best, dave
Hi Dave,
Many thanks for your input. Workers party is necessary but not sufficient. There should be ample strive to focus on the culture of the working class and its movement, which is to fulfill two functions: 1)- to raise consciousness of the workers, so they would not undermine their own collective interests, as it had been reported to have happend in the Wisconsin gubernatorial recall process ,where apparently union members in the private sectors sided with the establishment and voted against the workers of the public sectors. Also, a very recent and similar divergence among the workers in a VW plant in Tennessee which defeated an attempt for unionization and collective bargaining.
2)- working class culture should claim its deserved space, in any nation’s cultural arena, representing much better values than the dominant Consumer culture which is full of selfishness, triviality and devoid of human empathy
We need writers; we had Lincoln Steffens, Jack London, Sinclair Lewis and others,
We need musicians and composers: we had Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and others,
We need poets: We had Karl Sandberg, Langston Hughes and the whole lot of Wobblies,
We need painters, film-makers etc to show the positive aspects of the working class culture to the new generation.
In light of these, sites such as Creative Resistance and others have a vital mission to promote such cultural space.