Hazard pay: Comparing a stateside CEO's job description with a Marine's in Iraq

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http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_jane_sti_070219_hazard_pay_3a_comparin.htm

Hazard pay: Comparing a stateside CEO's job description with a Marine's in Iraq

by Jane Stillwater

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Trust me. The Marines themselves, the ones who are doing the actual fighting and laying their lives on the line, are NOT getting their pockets lined off of this war. Not at all. In fact, they are being taken advantage of, exploited, used and abused.

Let's take a moment to look at our loyal and brave Marines from another point of view and perhaps you will see what I mean. If you look at Marines not as soldiers and fighting men but as workers who are performing their jobs for a wage -- and then compare the work that they do (and the wages that they receive) with equivalent jobs here at home in the USA -- then you might start to see the work that they do from a very different perspective.

Let's pull out some job descriptions here. Let's look at a Marine's actual job requirements. These guys are required to work up to (and sometimes more than) 18 hours a day and they work in hazardous conditions -- even coal miners never had it this hard. Farm workers' jobs are easy compared to theirs. Marines are routinely subject to hazardous materials, hazardous equipment, hazardous housing, hazardous work environments, hazardous food rations, hazardous overtime and hazardous assignments -- but NOT HAZARD PAY.

Not since slavery was abolished, coal mine safety was instituted, "Robber Baron" monopolies were broken up and child labor was outlawed have American workers performed their jobs under such hazardous conditions for such little pay -- and under the thumb of such avaricious, scheming and cruel bosses -- as do our proud Marines serving in Iraq.

NO ONE would do this same job stateside for less that $200,000 a year. And a salary of $300,000 a year would still be a steal. Yet these loyal, trustworthy and skilled employees get HOW much take-home pay for the slave-labor they perform in Iraq? It's laughable.

Now compare a Marine's job description with that of a stateside CEO who takes home more than a million bucks a year. He sits behind a desk. He persuades teenagers to spend their parents' money on junk they don't need. He acerbates global warming. He outsources American jobs to overseas. And he gives money to lobbyists to corrupt our Congress. And he gets PAID bigtime to do this.

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