Taking what they're giving

Recently we saw a piece on the news about a factory in China where our iphones, Xbox's and other electronics we pay hundreds of dollars for are made. The workers live on site and are paid 31 cents an hour.

Thirty one cents an hour does not translate to a living wage in any country. Perhaps it was a princely sum in the 19th century here when a loaf of bread might have been a dime and a glass of beer was a nickel but, nowhere in the world is that a fair wage, at today's prices. Oh well- that's the communists for ya! But, if not for that, those Xbox's would cost a thousand dollars. Maybe more. We couldn't afford them! Tough for them, good for us. And besides, though it may seem like slave labor because they are stacked in dormitory rooms, forbidden to talk to their roommates and heavy netting is stretched across the atrium of the compound to keep them from falling to their death in suicide attempts, they're getting paid. So, it's not like it's slavery....

The accompanying  link tells the story of a journalist, Mac McClelland, who went to work in a warehouse to find out what it was like for the wage slaves in that aspect of American life. You and I might know how it is for us but, how the other half lives and works is sometimes lost on us. It does affect us, especially if we don't know or care to know about it.  One of the things that has stuck with me since I read it is the prison-like questioning the workers had for each other when they would ask why a co-worker was 'here'.

'How did you fuck up to wind up here? What did you do?'

What might have once been described as an entry-level job is now a dead-end job for those trying to hang on in life, the flotsam and jetsam of American workers. A FB friend who is now a teacher read the article and told me she had worked in a warehouse while in college. "It wasn't like that then...." A good democrat, she was horrified at the story. I've never worked in a warehouse myself but, as I posted elsewhere, it seems the moment GW Bush was given the presidency, a memo must have went out that the party was over for the American worker. This didn't happen over-night. Not all evil does. But, as the news is filled with stories of thieving Union workers, pensions and lazy, over-paid teachers and snow-plow drivers, you can see who watered the seeds. That GOP politicians are calling for the abolishment of minimum wage and child labor laws- which they claim are killing the economy- is, in America, fucking abhorrent. In China, it's policy. It appears we are following their business model, one they ironically learned from our 19th century great-grandfathers.

Please read the story.If you're at work, don't let the boss catch you crying...

http://motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-free-online-shipping-warehouses-labor