Workplace Note

Your Boss Likes It When You Blame Somebody Else

The right gives workers a false enemy. The workplace shows who controls wages, schedules, safety, and fear.

The boss likes confusion

Your boss likes it when you blame somebody else for what the boss is doing.

If wages are low, they tell you to blame immigrants. If hours get cut, they tell you to blame lazy coworkers. If rent eats your check, they tell you to blame people on assistance. If fuel goes up, they tell you to blame whoever is easiest to hate that week. Meanwhile the boss keeps the schedule, keeps the profit, keeps the power, and keeps workers divided.

Where this applies here

This is not abstract. It applies in hospitals, schools, warehouses, kitchens, grocery stores, construction crews, delivery routes, call centers, factories, janitorial crews, nursing homes, maintenance shops, and public-sector departments.

In Forsyth County that means workers tied to Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist, Novant, Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools, Forsyth Tech, Wake Forest, Winston-Salem State, city and county departments, Reynolds American, Gildan, Collins Aerospace, John Deere Kernersville, PepsiCo, WestRock, Lowe's Foods, The Budd Group, Flow Automotive, banks, restaurants, hotels, delivery companies, contractors, and the smaller firms that feed into all of them.

What bosses actually control

Pay

Base rate, raises, bonuses, overtime, differential pay, and whether the job is worth enough to live on.

Time

Schedules, forced overtime, cut hours, call-ins, split shifts, short staffing, and whether you can plan your life.

Safety

Speedup, equipment, staffing ratios, heat, injuries, violence, chemical exposure, fatigue, and whether people get blamed when the system breaks.

Discipline

Write-ups, attendance points, favoritism, retaliation, firings, background checks, and who gets treated as disposable.

How workers get divided

Workers get divided by race, citizenship, language, age, gender, criminal record, job title, department, shift, contractor status, full-time versus part-time, employee versus temp, and who knows the supervisor. None of those divisions are imaginary. They are real. That is why bosses use them.

The answer is not to pretend everybody has the same life. The answer is to find the demand that raises the floor for everybody: direct hire, equal pay, safe staffing, no retaliation, no wage theft, real breaks, stable schedules, protection from harassment, and no using immigration status or criminal records to keep people quiet.

Where the MAGA argument fits

A lot of working people are angry for real reasons. Rent is high. Groceries are high. Gas is high. Jobs do not pay enough. Managers talk down to people. Schools and hospitals are stretched. Young men are stuck between bad jobs, debt, and no clear future. Veterans get praised in public and abandoned in private.

The right takes that anger and gives it the wrong target. It says the enemy is migrants, “woke” teachers, Black cities, trans people, women, students, Muslims, China, or some vague government enemy. It does not tell workers to take power from their boss. It does not tell tenants to take power from landlords. It does not tell communities to control land. It redirects anger away from capital and into punishment.

The point is not to lecture people for being stupid. They are not stupid. They are being organized by somebody else. The answer is to organize better, on the ground where people are actually being squeezed.

First workplace steps

  1. Pick one issue people already talk about: pay, scheduling, safety, staffing, heat, breaks, favoritism, retaliation, or short checks.
  2. Talk to coworkers one-on-one. Do not start with a speech. Ask what is happening.
  3. Write down patterns. Which department, which shift, which supervisor, which contractor, which job title?
  4. Find two other people who will talk to two more people.
  5. Do one small collective action before attempting anything dramatic: a group question, a signed demand, a coordinated report, a meeting outside work.

Useful lines

  • Bosses raise prices, politicians blame migrants.
  • Direct hire, equal pay, no retaliation.
  • Safe staffing is not a favor. It is what keeps workers and patients alive.
  • The schedule is not private. It controls everybody's life.
  • Do not let the boss turn your coworker into your enemy.