While examining the working class persectives for the Center of the Working Class, I came across many stoylines that I like many are all too familiar with, the single parent with an alright job trying to support their family, two parents who still cannot manage to make enough, or even the kids right out of high school or college that just cant seem to find a job that pays adequatly.
The Center for the working class providedmany useful links to government websites where misuses of payroll can be reported. Also the website listed what your employer can and cannot do in regaurds to how you are paid. Many of the links were about working overtime and not being compensated for your full hours. I first handedly know how it feels to work fifty plus hours a week and then my paycheck says that I only worked 40. As a waitress the overall mentality is that you dont work for your paychecks, you work for your tips, but then again every penny counts.
I once was assigned to read "Nickl and Dimed" by Barabra Ehrenreich, I consider it one of the most influencial books that I have read in my college career. Wiki Nickel and Dimed. This woman who is a well known journalist set out to try and live on minimum wage. Taking any job she could get she attempted to make it in over three cities, sadly she was not successful. Like many other woman, some of the only jobs she could get were cleaning houses, waitressing or working at a walmart where she faced problems with union and pay.
On the PBS website, people like us attempted to show that although it may not seem like it, there are many people who you would not think were working class but are. One of the things that I disliked about the PBS website is that it almost reinforced the sterotypes through the games that they had. In one of the games it told you if you were working class or not by the items that you chose. One of the items that really stood out to me was the gun rack that you could put in "your living room". The gun rack represented working class because some people hunt for their food, yet there are plenty of wealthy people who are gun collectors and would love having a gun rack in their living room. The website tried to open our minds about who is working class yet I believe it did the opposite. I really hope that the movie doesn't convey that message as well.
I know all to well what you mean to say working 50 plus hours. That seems to be the common consensus in the hospitality business, that is the only time that you can make the money you need to, but those people in the hospitality business are not appreciated. They help build our tourist attraction, and bring money to the state at the same time entertaining the regulars or the locals. Even though I don't do it any more I know what it is like to work crazy hours, and count on what you make. Hearing about the woman trying minimum wages jobs to get by and seeing if she makes it. Quite interesting the jobs that were available and the impossibility of survival in those cities, that was very heartening.
ReplyDeleteI read Nickel and Dimed for my Sociology course. It was really eye opening and I've used it in so many other courses. One of my social work courses had us write a paper about WalMart and I was able to use it for that too. I highly recommend it.
ReplyDeleteI also read nickel and dimed in high school. its definitly enlightening...and its acctually surprising how many companies and businesses dont pay their employees fairly. where i work they dont pay time and a half or give proper breaks. trying to get by is hard for a lot of people today, especially in this economy.
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