Dollar General Store Closed After Employees Stage Mass Walkout
Employees at a Dollar General store in Maine quit this week in order to publicly protest “capitalism,” but their actions ended up being a demonstration of the entitlement mentality currently plaguing the country.
WMTW-TV reported that a store in the southern Maine town of Eliot was briefly closed earlier this week after the store’s staff locked up and let their resentment toward the company be known with signs placed on the building’s front door.
A Facebook post shows what some customers saw when they arrived to shop.
“Closed indefinitely because Dollar General doesn’t pay a living wage or treat their employees with respect,” one sign on the door read.
“Google ‘general strike’ and learn how we can take our power back,” a second one said.
Another sign on the door read, “Capitalism will destroy this country. If you don’t pay people enough to live their lives, why should they slave away for you?”
Former employee Berndt Erikson told WMTW that he “decided to quit because I was no longer going to take the abuse that Dollar General was giving us.”
“As the day progressed, I got more upset and I decided to start writing these signs. … We closed early, we put the signs up and left.”
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Behind Erikson during the interview was writing on a window along with the hammer and sickle symbol of Soviet communism.
Dollar General’s corporate office told WMTW that the store is back open but declined to comment on the job status of those who left the place unattended.
“Out of respect for these individuals, as well as the value we place on open and direct communication with our employees, we do not plan to comment on their employment status further,” the company said. “Our Eliot store remains open to provide the York County community with convenient, affordable access to everyday essentials.”
The company ignored the protest signs, and it absolutely should have. What did those who walked off the job expect from a company that sells $1 picture frames, affordable cereal and plastic toys?
To be fair, a great many people who work or have worked in retail wouldn’t give the experience a five-star review. But an hourly job at Dollar General isn’t supposed to feed a family. Being paid by the hour at a discount store is not supposed to help one finance a Cadillac.
These jobs, by and large, are for young people, students, people seeking to get a leg up after facing hardship and those who live in areas where there simply aren’t many jobs.
Some of the most pleasant people you’ll encounter are the retirees who greet you when you walk into the stores they maintain on a part-time basis. They tend to give a human face to multinational corporations, and they feel entitled to nothing.
But so many American workers, particularly younger people, have no technical skills, few qualifications and no ambition.
They accept at-will and simple jobs, they sign the dotted lines, they fill out the IRS W-4 and, in return for an agreed-upon wage, they are expected to do that job for a paycheck.
Some then become angry that the jobs they accepted aren’t making them wealthy, and, in cases such as this one, they childishly abandon their workplace.
Working retail might be an adequate source of income for some people who put in the time and effort and move up. Working at a dollar store is noble — as is a position anywhere in which people can exchange their hard work for pay that they agreed was sufficient when they took the job.
But a job at Dollar General, for most people, is a steppingstone to a better opportunity. That’s simply the way it is for the majority of positions in retail, hospitality and some other job sectors.
But since the federal government began handing out money last spring, fewer and fewer people are willing to do these jobs. People feel entitled to things they didn’t earn and don’t deserve, and they want the world’s luxuries in return for nothing.
Some of the people who were working at the Eliot Dollar General presumably caught wind of another lifestyle — one where people are paid handsomely by Uncle Sam to “stay home and stay safe.”
After all, how is Dollar General supposed to compete with Uncle Sam’s boosted unemployment checks?
The Eliot location’s anti-capitalist workers are now seeking a handout, rather than a leg up — and they’ll probably get it.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
