Yesterday I attended a get-together for an online meet up group that I joined a couple of months ago. One of the other members who attended was a passionate union organizer and we got to talking about this book: Working in the Shadows: A Year of Doing the Jobs Most Americans Won’t Do by Gabriel Thompson.
I have heard of this book recently and had put it on my wish list, but I have not read it yet. It seems to be similar in concept to Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed, which I loved. If you are not familiar with it, Nickel and Dimed follows Ehrenreich as she spent several months working a number of minimum wage jobs such as house cleaner, Wal-Mart associate and waiter. Her objective is to document the working and living conditions of our working poor – those of us who holds full time jobs but still do not make enough to rise above poverty level.
In Working in the Shadows, Gabriel Thompson spent a year working and living alongside undocumented workers in some of the most under-appreciated jobs – lettuce picker, restaurant worker, line worker at a chicken-processing factory, etc. So his premise is similar to Ehrenreich, but he focused specifically on undocumented workers and the working conditions and challenges they have to endure as a group who have no voice or recourse to demand justice because they operate in the shadow/margin of American society.
As I mentioned before, I have not read this book yet so I cannot tell you my opinion on the book yet. After last night’s discussion I really want to look for it in the library or find a cheap used copy so I can check it out pretty soon. The subject matter is something on which I have had a long interest.
Especially in our current economic condition, the middle class and the working class of America has been taking a beating with the loss or outsourcing of manufacturing and service jobs, the stagnation of wages, and the changes in workers-employers relationship. Despite the bleakness of our job markets, I disagree with those who blame this on the undocumented workers. I won’t go on too long about it, but for one, the majority of jobs taken by undocumented workers are menial, low-paying jobs that most American workers are reluctant to take. Since even low-paying jobs at large established employers such as McDonalds or Wal-Mart still ask for social security number, the low-paying jobs taken by undocumented workers are also those that exist in the margins (such as day laborer, seasonal farm worker and jobs at smaller, privately owned establishments). As such, these jobs typically offer compensations at or lower than living wages with likely no benefit, and where working condition or work place safety are difficult to regulate. Two, while countless rants and uproars have been raised on the subject of illegal immigrants who came to this country to “take our jobs,” too little objections (in my opinion) have been raised against companies who have outsourced American jobs overseas. In contrast to the marginal jobs taken my undocumented workers, jobs that have been outsourced in recent years include occupations that have been typically filled by American middle and working class workers such as manufacturing, customer and technical services, and creative services like graphic designs. Three, while some may defend the choices of companies to outsource their workers overseas to save money as an economic strategy and as their full right under the free market rule of capitalism, ultimately this very same reason of economic interest is also what motivates workers to come to this country illegally. Unfortunately, the only parties “allowed” to exploit this rule of economic self-interest are corporations.
No comments:
Post a Comment