Lmao my boss did a very thinly veiled version of this before I quit. The offer was “would you take a pay cut if I promised to give bonuses to more than make up for it contingent on performance”. Like what’s the difference between that and docking pay if you underperform, just with extra steps? The only purpose of taking the deal of the pay cut was to act as a punishment if I didn’t earn the bonus. So I refused, and a week later they told me I could take half time/pay or be fired. Except that deal made no sense either because if I get fired I get unemployment for 6 months, which is almost half pay. So I can keep my job and make half pay and no insurance or let them fire me and get paid half pay to not work for 6 months, and also not have insurance.

No surprise I chose to let them fire me. I had been asking for a raise for 4 years, any reduction was out of the question.

You know what your life is when you are out of work; and when you do have a job, how the fear of losing it hangs over you. You are also aware what a danger the standing army of unemployed is to you when you are out on strike for better conditions. You know that strikebreakers are enlisted from the unemployed whom capitalism always keeps on hand, to help break your strike.

‘How does capitalism keep the unemployed on hand?’ you ask.

Simply by compelling you to work long hours and as hard as possible, so as to produce the greatest amount. All the modern schemes of ‘efficiency’, the Taylor and other systems of ‘economy’ and ‘rationalization’ serve only to squeeze greater profits out of the worker. It is economy in the interest of the employer only. But as concerns you, the worker, this ‘economy’ spells the greatest expenditure of your effort and energy, a fatal waste of your vitality.

It pays the employer to use up and exploit your strength and ability at the highest tension. True, it ruins your health and breaks down your nervous system, makes you a prey to illness and disease (there are even special proletarian diseases), cripples you and brings you to an early grave — but what does your boss care? Are there not thousands of unemployed waiting for your job and ready to take it the moment you are disabled or dead?

That is why it is to the profit of the capitalist to keep an army of unemployed ready at hand. It is part and parcel of the wage system, a necessary and inevitable characteristic of it.

It is in the interest of the people that there should be no unemployed, that all should have an opportunity to work and earn their living; that all should help, each according to his ability and strength, to increase the wealth of the country, so that each should be able to have a greater share of it.

But capitalism is not interested in the welfare of the people. Capitalism, as I have shown before, is interested only in profits. By employing less people and working them long hours larger profits can be made than by giving work to more people at shorter hours. That is why it is to the interest of your employer, for instance, to have 100 people work 10 hours daily rather than to employ 200 at 5 hours. He would need more room for 200 than for 100 persons — a larger factory, more tools and machinery, and so on. That is, he would require a greater investment of capital. The employment of a larger force at less hours would bring less profits, and that is why your boss will not run his factory or shop on such a plan. Which means that a system of profit-making is not compatible with considerations of humanity and the well-being of the workers. On the contrary, the harder and more ‘efficiently’ you work and the longer hours you stay at it, the better for your employer and the greater his profits.

You can therefore see that capitalism is not interested in employing all those who want and are able to work. On the contrary: a minimum of ‘hands’ and a maximum of effort is the principle and the profit of the capitalist system. This is the whole secret of all ‘rationalization’ schemes. And that is why you will find thousands of people in every capitalist country willing and anxious to work, yet unable to get employment. This army of unemployed is a constant threat to your standard of living. They are ready to take your place at lower pay, because necessity compels them to it. That is, of course, very advantageous to the boss: it is a whip in his hands constantly held over you, so you will slave hard for him and ‘behave’ yourself.

from Now and After, by Alexander Berkman, Chapter 5: Unemployment. Available to read for free here.

Isn’t me working something I do for survival?

The only correct answer is no.

Don’t give in to their tricks

No, if my survival was on the line, I’d say I’ve got more important things to do than work more hours.

How would working solve my survival issues, if that were the case it would mean i have control over my survival situation, so i’m my own boss? Sure then yeah but at some point if the situation isn’t solved i’ll look for an alternative instead like a different job or rioting