Is Frigo really worth it?
by James Augustynski
Again Le Frigo Vert wants (more of) our money! I cannot understand the mentality of “Le Frigo Vert.” They steal our money, feed themselves like CEOs with wages nearly double what they should be relative to the work done and now are bitching for more, all in the name of “social justice.”
What a justice. Le Frigo Vert’s Dorter says they make below the poverty line, at $14 per hour. Forty hours at $14 is $560 a week. A normal job is 2000 hours a year—$30,000. Poverty line? Presumably they are working few hours and thus not making much money. The problem is obviously there are too many employees working too few hours. Saying they are students and thus can’t afford the time is certainly correct, but such “poverty” is part of student life.
The Concordia Student Union’s “Sustainability” VP demonstrates a classic ignorance of the meaning of the word “sustainable,” noting that the Frigo is a “beacon of a social economy.” Yes! Yes, it is such a beacon! But for those of us who study history, we can clearly see the results of social economies, which have been tried many times. The Soviet Union! Mao’s China! Fidel’s Cuba, the Khmer Rouge, Ceausescu’s Romania, Honecker’s “Democratic Republic” of Germany, Mengistu’s Ethiopia. And of course, the “Democratic People’s Republic” of North Korea, as is well-known, is neither democratic nor a republic, and the influence of the people not directly related to Kim Jong-Il is quite evidently very low. The only common thread between all of these “social economies” is crippling poverty, starvation, political repression and state-sponsored murder of anyone who doesn’t like it. Thankfully, none of these economies have been sustainable, and all of them have, or will, collapse, peacefully or chaotically.
The Frigo declares they want to use “democracy” to increase their funding. What a disgusting use of the word. True democracy in regards to the Frigo’s funding is the clients of the Frigo paying the Frigo. The most powerful democratic tool we possess in our society is our wallets. Stealing money from students who do not use the Frigo, nor have any interest in doing so, is quite evidently grossly undemocratic.
—James Augustynski,
Mechanical Engineering
The Link Volume 31 Issue 01