For many years and even now, public service employees at all levels of government have not been paid as much and have not received as many benefits as comparable workers in the private sector.

I would like to set that fact aside, however, and suggest that public service wages and benefit packages actually represent a bare minimum standard of compensation that all employees in all areas of employment should receive.

One percent or not, too many employers, especially our newly recognized corporate “humans,” are paying wages and offering benefits, if any, that are insulting and degrading to their employees.

Our government supports this abuse by subsidizing this exploitation through subsistence programs, which unfairly burden the shrinking middle class. This is unconscionable.

Employees have a right to expect a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work, and government at all levels should lead the way in establishing a policy that ensures opportunity and well-being for everyone, not just the “paper people” called corporations.

Ash Gilmore

Albion