Appreciated, valued, deluded and underpaid

According to a piece of professional development drivel I just came across, people who are 'appreciated' work harder. The capacity for self-delusion amongst the horny-handed toilers never ceases to amaze me. Having been told for years that unions are evil, that any form of collective expression of dissatisfaction is wrong, it seems we now have a generation of workers that feel beholden to those who employ them or commission them to work - is it any wonder that pay rates are, at best, stagnant? The best way to show appreciation for work well done is to pay for it properly, and on time (if performed by one of the growing ranks of the self-employed). Recent years have seen a growth in CPD as a means of ensuring that skill levels remain relevant across a whole range of sectors, but - hand-in-hand with this - has been the insidious spread of a species of management-speak that constantly chips away at the need to pay well (or even at all - witness the growth in reliance on volunteering or the apparently unstoppable rise of the unpaid interns). There is clear danger here: by denigrating concern about pay levels, we are creating an underclass of impoverished workers, at a time when management sees its pay levels increase out of all proportion to those they employ. We need politicians and economists to demand a far greater correlation between the two - and soon.