2024-03-21 09:37:55
In a continent where the majority of bosses and some corporate executives and corrupt politicians take the lion’s share and throw crumbs to their workers and to the hungry, sick and miserable people, many people think that it would be useless to wake up in the morning to go and worry in exchange for lousy pay that disappears after three days of pay. However, for these poorly paid workers who have dubbed themselves slaves, life goes on because they have no choice.
Issa DA SILVA SIKITI
“My boss has just bought a new 4×4 vehicle and now has four, but he is struggling to increase our salaries which have remained stable for five years. On top of that, he has concubines here and there who extract cash from him from time to time. Look at this level of bad-heartedness and selfishness. Frankly, I’m distraught but I can’t do anything,” confides an executive secretary, single and mother of one child, whose father disappeared a long time ago. “It’s just a way to live to find something to feed my child and pay his school fees, otherwise I would have left a long time ago.” Same story on the other side of the border in Benin, in Nigeria, where a computer scientist comes from time to time to Cotonou to do “small business” to supplement his poverty salary which has not been increased for ten years. “I wonder if working for a black boss is equivalent to serving the devil. Before, it was better but now with the fall of the naira and the severe economic crisis hitting our country, it has become unbearable. It’s no longer slavery, it’s something else. I lost the desire to work for this shitty company run by a hard-hearted boss like Satan who makes me work until nightfall. I’m no longer motivated.”
Die poor and ostracized
Often, such statements and complaints discourage job seekers, some of whom ultimately make the decision not to dare enter the job market for fear of dying poor and ostracized by society, especially women, who only value people who have “succeeded in life”. “I don’t care about the financial sacrifices my parents made to pay my school fees. I prefer to do something else, perhaps a small business around the corner, rather than waking up very early in the morning and coming back in the evening exhausted and stressed in exchange for peanut seeds,” insists Richard, a university graduate.
“Inadequate salaries have a negative impact on life and affect many aspects of life. Because of them, employees face difficulties and have to think every month about how to make ends meet. Low wages create a vicious cycle of poverty because people cannot save on a low salary. They cannot invest in education that would allow them to progress in their career and obtain a better-paid job,” underlines an analysis published on the Greek site Athena.sk.
Q. A.
mars 21, 2024
#slavery #means #living