Author: workerstories

Lewd Mr. Matt

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By Jamie C. Baker

My first job was working at what is still one of my favorite fast food restaurants, specializing in chicken. The schedule was perfect and the benefits of free meals on break definitely appealed to me as a 16-year-old. I was quickly moved from a fry station to drive-thru based on my customer skills and speed.

Each location was independently owned and our owner, Mr. “Matt,” seemed to be a fairly good boss. Granted, he was way too enthused about giving me a 15 cent raise, but all in all he treated employees well. 

One night, I was mopping the bathrooms after the dining area had closed, doing women’s first and then cleaning up in the men’s. Mr. “Matt” opened the swinging door and I assumed he was checking in on me, so I let him know that I was nearly done. He proceeded to unzip his pants and use the urinal in full view of me. And I mean in FULL VIEW. No 16-year-old girl needs to see an over 40-year-old ding-a-ling and I high-tailed it out of there!

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Living Wage

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By Shonntay Butler

What is this thing that they call the living wage, when families can barely maintain?

Mothers become single while fathers keep leaving trails of despair; forcing mothers to lose their mental frame!

Lost sleep over little feet’s…

Lack of memory due to the fact they have to eat.

Seconds become minutes; minutes become hours; hours become days of lost time without sleep!

Losing Public Assistance and the decrease in Food Stamps causes my bills to add up!

With rent, electric and needing more eats; combination of clothing and basic needs I’m staring at defeat!

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If I Made a Living Wage

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By Elliott DeLine

If I made a living wage
I think that I could disengage
The guilt I’ve felt for being alive
And doing what I must to survive.

The time wasted, the sickening rage
Uncivil servants in my face
Accusations, threats, and lies
Profits from my teary eyes

My mother’s silence
My father’s shame
The intergenerational pain
“We pulled ourselves up, why can’t you?”
“A college degree should get you through.”

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Living Wage and Reclaiming My Humanity

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By Stephanie Harris

“Every time I hear the door opening, I feel the person coming into the restaurant and taking a piece of me”. I work at Mehaks Indian Cuisine, located in Ithaca, NY and I make $7.25 an hour-which is about half of what the proposed living wage is for Ithaca. My co-workers, Heidi, said the aforementioned quotation when musing on how she felt during a Friday night shift. At first, I was taken aback that she said such a claim. As a server, it’s engrained into the way you think that you just have to accept the flow of customers that come in on any particular night. You don’t question any of the pain you feel in your body from the long hours and various tasks that you have to do, because it becomes an accepted part of your lifestyle.

But there is a certain danger than comes with this complacency. You become your own worst bully. Your mind goes through the motions of accepting the work conditions and the derogatory treatment by people as part of the work that you’ve chosen to participate in.

When your wage is based off the number of people who walk through the door of a particular restaurant, there becomes the inherent need to sell yourself.

The money I make for a living isn’t based on how much I make per hour.

It’s based on who walks through the door of the restaurant.

It’s based on the whim of a person and their feelings about my service.

It’s based on the inherent assumptions the customer makes about my persona, the type of work I do, and why I do it.

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Pride

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By Tal Mintz

Burnt hands carrying calloused fingers
I take pride in my work.
Smells of meat and sweat stain my clothes
I deserve every cent of that paycheck.

My co-workers threaten to strike for living wage, I cannot afford too.
In a sea of high school students, I am trying to pay my rent.
In a sea of debt, bills, and taxes, I am trying to stay afloat.

You see my dad was poor and his dad was poor
And I’m poor but have a degree, but my child will likely be poor like me.
The American Dream of socioeconomic mobility
Is now a modern day caste system where we celebrate the few who achieve.

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Just Shy of Full-Time, It’s Virtually Impossible for Me to Visit My Family

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By Evelyn Olano
I work for FSS as a wheel chair agent. I am the person that makes sure passengers who need assistance make it to their gates on time for their flights.

I work hard. But I would like to take some time off to visit my family in the Philippines. Unfortunately I only qualify for paid vacation if I work 2,000 hours in a year. But with the 32 hours/week I am given, I can never get there because we lose our hours at the end of every year and have to start again from zero. I don’t know when I will get to see my family without losing pay or even my job because it seems like I could never earn enough time to actually qualify for a vacation.

Reprinted with permission from It’s Our Airport.

We’re Not Treated With Respect

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By Ikran Sheikh

I have worked at [Seattle–Tacoma International Airport] cleaning airplane cabins since 2008. I work hard making sure that Alaska Airlines cabins are clean.

But at the workplace, it feel like there is no respect, and nobody seems to value what you say. If you don’t speak English, you are treated like a donkey.

After three years of working graveyard shift I was finally transferred to days. After just six months, I was transferred back to graveyard. I think it was because my managers found out I was speaking out about the bad working conditions. When I complained, they told me if I don’t like it, I can turn in my badge — that means no more work.

I can’t afford to lose my job. I support my whole family on my hourly wages. That is why I am speaking out. Alaska Airlines and the Port of Seattle depend on the hard work of people like me. I am only one of the hardworking people at Sea-Tac that earn poverty wages. We deserve respect and fair wages.

Reprinted with permission from It’s Our Airport.

Cleaning Planes is Hard Enough Without Safety Problems and Rushed Schedules

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By Inola Graham
While you are sleeping I work though the dead of night on the graveyard shift cleaning aircraft cabins. My name is Inola Graham, and I work for DGS.

On the day shift, the cabin cleaners do a quick turnaround cleaning – important work to ready the cabin for the new passengers. But on the graveyard shift my crew and I do what is called deep-cleaning. I am constantly stressed and rushed to do a thorough cleaning of the entire plane from top to bottom in only 45 minutes.

It is a stressful job and managers don’t give us enough time to do a thorough cleaning of the entire plane. We are rushed and rushed and often I am forced to work for more than 5 hours without a break, food or drinking water. The air conditioning is off during the graveyard shift and the heat in the plane is stifling. Our equipment is in poor repair, electrical vacuum cords are taped together and spray bottles of cleaning fluid leak onto our faces and arms when we clean the overhead compartments. Can you imagine working while your arms are being burned by chemicals?

We work hard to make passengers comfortable and the cabins sanitary. Big companies like Alaska Airlines profit from my hard work. We should be treated with respect and make a living wage.

Reprinted with permission from It’s Our Airport.

Why Are Nursing Assistants So Poorly Paid?

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By Yang, Certified Nursing Assistant

his week there has been a lot of talk in the media about the movement to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour.  While most of the attention was focused on fast food workers, advocates for direct care workers took the opportunity to highlight the negative impact that poor wages have upon caregivers and their residents. In an article in McKnight’s, Matt Yarnell, the Executive Vice President of SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania, pointed out that nearly one in six of the state’s nursing home workers are paid so poorly that they are forced to seek public assistance through the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, Medicaid or both.

Yarnell wrote “If we are serious about providing the highest quality care for our residents, then we have to back our rhetoric with action. It means we have to provide living wages to caregivers to cut down on turnover, to not force caregivers to work excessive overtime and double shifts. It is about not forcing workers to have to look to the state for public assistance to provide for their families.”

Why are direct care workers so poorly paid? A common argument points to the low educational requirements necessary to work as a caregiver. Often this point of view comes from within the Long Term Care community itself.

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The Neverending Job Search

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By Maile Skye

I’ve been on the job hunt on and off for about seven years. I worked a restaurant job that I adored for over five of those years, but every few months I would put my feelers out, looking for an opportunity that would offer me more stability. I’ve spent so many hours of my life on craigslist, on monster, on hcareers. I don’t know how to not look for a job.

And yet, I haven’t found that job yet.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had jobs that I enjoyed. Again, I loved working for the restaurant. I made amazing, lifelong friends there. I enjoyed going to work. Hell, I like interacting with the public. But it was the job for my twenties, and I’m no longer there.

I’ve worked for start-up companies where what I had to say really mattered. I adored that feeling, the concept that my words would make a lifelong difference in the company. But while the hours may have been regular, these companies offered even less stability than the restaurant industry.

I haven’t had benefits since I was too old to be on my mother’s plan.

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