Yesterday was Labor Day in the U.S., and if you noticed how many hourly wage employees were spending the day off from their office work serving those lucky enough to receive labor contracts, you’re not alone. Although this holiday is built in late century as a memorial of the American labor movement, naked The facts—namely, that salaried workers are often on vacation and service workers have recently made news for unionizing at companies like Starbucks, Amazon, and Trader Joe’s—don’t seem to quite add up.
That disparity is exactly what writer and activist Barbara Ehrenreich, who died last week, saw , died
, and made a living by writing. In Ehrenreich’s hits 715 BOOK
Nickel and Noire: On (not) getting along in America , she takes aim at the false promises of welfare reform and sets out to understand how unskilled workers can maintain their wages by taking a range of minimum-wage jobs across the country .
Although the term “unskilled labor” has fallen a bit out of favor in progressive circles out nickel and dime
out A few years ago (after all, isn’t all labor skilled?), the core of her message felt like it was for us Written at the moment of current life: While inflation is on the rise, the minimum wage in the US has stagnated at an absurd $7. 16 One hour. (In some states, including New York and California, that number is double that, but in many parts of the country you can work a full day for minimum wage and still barely afford a can of gas.)
in a stress
nickel and digon
in The most striking thing in
It was Ehrenreich who handled her assignment with no condescension at all. Luckily, she admits, she can only try low-paying work instead of relying on it to make ends meet, as some of her family members do: “For me,” she writes, “it’s all about sitting at a desk for a day not only It’s a privilege, and it’s a responsibility: I owe it to everyone in my life, living and dead, to speak more than anyone hears.”
When news of Ehrenreich’s death spread on social media oops, many of my female friends recalled the impact her writing had on their class consciousness How critical development is, for me too. Before I was in high school Nickel and Noire
I knew a lot Lots of people all over the world work hard and don’t make much money, especially since their labor powers the systems I rely on every day (from my days in school to when I take the subway there). But I was a privileged kid, and the only work setting was the occasional babysitting gig. I don’t think there’s any book that can replace the life experience of doing service work, something I wouldn’t have done until college, but Ehrenreich taught me more about empathy, economic justice, and being a low-paid woman in America Special difficulties are more than I have learned in any course.
in
Nickel and Diode Metals
, Ehrenreich managed to convey in an urgent way the fundamental injustice of the plight of the minimum wage worker; I learned from my parents and from my history and civics classes that things in America are far Not fair, but I didn’t really realize there was a lot to do. Ehrenreich changed that for me, stating that it is almost impossible to make ends meet on $6 or $7 an hour, while taking care to point out that “low-wage workers are no better in personality or ability than people who write for a living” More homogenous, and no less likely to be funny or smart. Anyone in the educated class who thinks differently should expand their circle of friends.” (Why do I feel like some modern writers need to listen to this?)
Although I hope her legacy is no longer very relevant – since
Minimum wage has risen by at least a few dollars since Nickel and Dimed Published – We’re lucky Ehrenreich’s words guide us to be like fighting for $ Such an organization and the National Federation of Domestic Workers do their best to mitigate the huge burden on national service workers. Perhaps the best way we can honor her is to commit to helping them.
Nickel and Noire: In (not) OK in the US
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