How Palette Keeps Its Writers Oppressed
Wages aren’t being paid at AJA’s Palette. You see, the esteemed newspaper promises chocolate to its student writers as payment for their work. But, recent research suggests that those chocolatey wages aren’t being paid.
Writers like freshmen Lucky Freedman and Leora Sokol did not get their fair share of the payment.
“I probably spent four to five hours… I didn’t even know the party was going on because nobody told me,” commented Leora on her work and lack of payment. Lucky too felt the harsh reality of not being invited to the party. He had a test to take that day, and the staff was unaccommodating.
Oh, I forgot to mention the party, one of the most incriminating parts of this dastardly plot. The Palette party is a party that the Palette staff throws after each issue is released. This party, in fact, is when the Palette staff, if they’re lucky, are paid their due. Now, this is a big issue and the first official crime that I can confirm has been committed. As per Georgia law, business owners must pay their employees at least twice per month, and Palette does not hold parties this often. Furthermore, Leora was not made aware of the party by the higher ups in Palette. Neither of her nor Lucky received as much as a single Hershey Kiss for their hard work. Not even a Hershey Peck.
Even some writers at the party went unpaid. “… it is extremely unfair to those who cannot have those sugary treats,” explained Matan Fleishman, a freshman and writer for Palette. Matan, a student with diabetes, could not be paid with this chocolate currency, the Hershey Kiss. In fact, because Matan could not accept the chocolate in good health, Matan was not paid at all!
Now, who is our shadowy villain? What criminal mastermind is pulling the strings behind this dastardly plot?
“People in charge… those people deserve [more] chocolate,” Asher Lytton, editor-in-chief of Palette claims. And who is more in charge than him? Who deserves the chocolate, the people who slave away all day on the articles, or the one in the chair, the overseer, who watches them work and laughs at their pain. “That’s not enough [chocolate] for the whole staff every issue, and so you have to understand that [I deserve more],” he admitted.
A confession from his own lips. And even better, I got it recorded.
The more I dug into this issue, the more disturbing information I found. Some of the worst were blatant violations of child labor laws.
According to Georgia law, minors 14 and 15 years of age can work only three hours on a school day. I myself, a minor at 14, have definitely been forced by my employer, the wicked Asher, to work more than three hours in a single sitting. Leora and Lucky’s testimonies revealed that they too were forced to work the same unlawful hours. “And don’t even get me started on that time I was writing at 7:01 PM!” Lucky commented.
Don’t worry Lucky, we won’t.
It seems that not only was Asher waiting to give wages, hoarding chocolate for himself, and breaking child labor laws, he also seems to be severely underpaying the employees that he actually pays at all.
At the Palette party, the number of Hershey Kisses in the bowl was definitely less than a hundred. I don’t know the exact number of Kisses but that’s unimportant. Palette has at least 23 employees. If the bowl of Hershey Kisses were divided evenly, which did not occur, everyone would receive 4.3 Kisses. That would be the perfect scenario; in the real world, there were less than one hundred kisses and they were definitely not allotted evenly.
If they were, they still wouldn’t have been enough to satisfy the law. A pack of 224 Hershey Kisses costs $13.24. With those numbers we can find that a singular kiss costs $0.06. If everyone receives their maximum of 4.3 Kisses, everyone earns $0.26. This presents a glaring problem. Under Georgia guidelines, minors under 20 must earn at least $4.25 per hour. Per hour, not per issue released.
Clearly, Palette employees aren’t earning what they deserve. Using Leora’s hours of work, she should be earning at least $17. But, because she was not aware of the party, she earned nothing. Other staff members are earning just as little.
And there you have it.
Asher Lytton, the tyrannical leader of Palette, is undeniably hoarding chocolate in the shadows. But after all this time, Asher has been unmasked. Now, we stand at a crossroads. We, in our moment, face a choice. As Morpheus from The Matrix said, “You take the blue pill… the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill… you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.”
It’s time for us to choose.
Will we revolt? Will we make sure that Palette members get fair pay and working times/conditions?
Or will we stay in the dark, consumed by our fears, waiting for a salvation that only we can make for ourselves?
This is a wake up call.
This is our moment.
Wake up! Claim the chocolate that is rightfully ours!
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