Thread by @Bob_Hudgins

You may have noticed I have a big mouth. It has gotten me in trouble. I'm going to take a risk and run what I will call a hypothetical with you...

I work at a tutoring service. You must be a certified teacher to get the job. You can't get it if you are not a teacher. Sounds exclusive, right?
It pays $13 per hour.

The owner makes about $150,000 a year doing nothing. Yes, she has things to do, and she does them. The fact is that is what is happening.

The model we support and buttress with laws, policies, and even folkways, states that you must buy the tutoring center.

What teacher, or teachers, can afford to buy a tutoring service? None.
So who *does* buy the tutoring service? Someone who already has a good deal of money.

We charge $50 per hour for tutoring. (Who can afford that?) I get 13 of it. 37 goes to the owner, who doesn't know the kids, didn't teach the kids, and didn't understand or install the accounting program.

We all know the deal: no one can live on this. It is supposed to be supplemental to the 50 or 60 hours you're putting in elsewhere.

But what if that is all I can get? I need to live.

We have a good team--older master teachers, energetic, competent young women. I am well-liked. I was very happy before this.

I don't know how we could pull it off, but what if our laws, and policies, and folkways buttressed the idea of a cooperative for this place?

What do you think the retention is like in the present situation? The esprit de corps? Actually, they are good. You know how Americans are at work. It's usually fun.

What if we could get a fair loan, promise to stay a while, and could purchase the center?

We would pay ourselves $30 per hour with benefits. That's without health care, as that would be paid for differently.
No more tying health care to jobs. That was a 1940's union bargain made so Harry Truman wouldn't give us health care.

I just ran the numbers. Thirty dollars at 12 hours per week for 51 weeks is $18,360. That's about $2,000 less per year than I take up to sit here writing to you tonight. That's right: it takes about $20,000 to keep me going.

Again, you have to be a certified teacher. You have to be good.

I would be ecstatic with $20,000. It's all I need. I know I'm not going to be rich. I know I will be far from it. Yet, you'd have one happy, fulfilled guy prowling the streets. And I wouldn't need any government help.

So we do the work; the owner gets the money.
It does not have to be this way. This is all by design. We can draw up other plans.