MARK MITCHELL
Los Alamos
Editor,
Because of my interest in the recent Los Alamos County Council vote on raising the minimum wage, I listened to all of the public comments made prior to the vote, the discussion between the various Council members, and read all of the letters sent to the County Council pertaining to this proposed ordinance from an Inspection of Public Records (IPRA) request. I often make IPRA requests on proposals that interest me in order to find out where people stand.
As a result, several things have been made clear to me. First and foremost, the local Chamber of Commerce has a firm grip over our County Council. I’m not surprised to see power cozying up with power to the detriment of the little guy. It’s too bad there isn’t a powerful organization looking out for the little guy. Secondly, we have many citizens here in Los Alamos that care about and advocate for the least among us. One such citizen even forwarded a link to the Council that documented a living wage calculation for Los Alamos County conducted at MIT [1]. Thirdly, every local business owner/manager that engaged the County Council did so to defend their businesses against this newly proposed expense. This too was expected, and understandable.
Lastly, and this caught me completely off guard, more than one of the business owners, sharing their thoughts with the Council bad mouthed their employee(s). They said things like “my employee is not worth $15.00 an hour.” One such business owner lamented that “they have had only one person apply to work here since 2018,” as if this is somehow a logical argument against raising the minimum wage.
Picking up on these negative vibes, I conducted further research on these businesses by taking a look at the published Google reviews on-line. I’m not surprised by the following review, shared only one year ago. I am repeating this comment below with the author, the business name, and their products blanked out because they are not material to my commentary.
“I am incredibly disappointed with what I witnessed at XXXXXXX today. The way that lovely young lady was treated was just disgusting. I have come in to get XXXXXXX on several occasions now and have always been met with nothing but kindness and warmth by the young lady that works there. She is so very patient and accommodating, I am always just so pleased with her services.
“Now, the treatment that I had to witness that sweet soul go through today is unjustifiable. The way that, who I assume to be the owner, treated her was just disgusting. That man continuously disrespected, degraded, and outright verbally abused her. Not only did he speak to her in a tone so condescending but he also said some of the most vicious of things.
“That girl handled it very well. She remained calm and kind, even made jokes so that us customers wouldn’t feel uncomfortable. But you could see it in her eyes, she was scared of that man. God forbid any man ever speak to my daughter or my grand babies that way.
“What was really heartbreaking and absolutely infuriating is seeing her walk out to her car with tears in her eyes, shaking.
“No one should ever have to experience such inhumanity. You, sir should be ashamed and disgusted of yourself.
“Everyone in this town should be brought aware to how it is you treat your employees.”
This last sentence is the reason for my commentary. Parents, if you have children working for any business here in Los Alamos, I highly recommend that you sit down with them and discuss their working environment with them. Show them this commentary and ask them if they have experienced any situations like this at their place of employment. If they share with you that they have had such experiences, I highly recommend that you do whatever you can to remove them from such an environment. These employers/business owners do not deserve your children for any amount of money per hour.
[1] Living Wage Calculation for Los Alamos County, New Mexico.