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.

On the Power of Faith

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By Angelica Ingunza

There are some people you admire for something.  Sometimes it is for their courage or for their work, for their honesty or for their will to live.  That I will call “faith.”

That is the case of my friend Gabriela.  She got lupus before she was married.  She was really sick, but she always believed that God would help her.  Her boyfriend proposed marriage to her even when he saw her with no hair or nails, and all her body covered with bruises.  I give a  thumbs up to this guy.  Another one in his place would have left her as many that I have known did.  He demonstrated for her a real love.  He worked in the Air Force, and he gave her his health insurance.

She got treatment for her illness and one year later, she felt better and then the unexpected happened.  She was pregnant. The doctors had told her that because of her illness, she couldn’t get pregnant.  But she always thought that a miracle could happen.  All her doctors said that she had to abort the baby or she would die.  She took the risk.  She knew that God would help her.  Five months later, her family took her to the emergency room.  The doctors said that they couldn’t feel the baby’s heart.  They had to do surgery because maybe the baby was dead, and they would try to save Gabriela’s life.  She had only one percent chance of living.

What was the miracle?  Both lived!  The baby weighed only 700 grams, and she was put in an incubator.  Now that baby is 20 years old, and she is adorable.  Currently she is studying to be a doctor.

This isn’t the finish.  Eight months ago, Gabriela had an accident.  She broke her hips.  The doctors said that it was going to be very difficult for her, and maybe she would never walk again.  But her willpower and her faith made sure that she did walk again.

How much I admire her!

ANGELICA INGUNZA came from Peru 20 years ago after graduating from university in Peru as a graphic designer.  She lives in in Flushing, and studies English in the Consortium for Worker Education/Workers United Education Program.  Her teacher is Jackie Bain, and the program director is Sherry Kane.

On Happiness

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By Marie Sainta Desravines

I am happy when I get paid.  I am happy when it is Sunday and I go to church.  When I buy a new dress, I am happy to put it on me.

I am happy when I speak English, and they know what I am talking about.  I am very happy then.

On my way to work, I am happy to buy my breakfast to eat before I start work.

I am very happy because my son is going to have a new baby.  I can’t wait to see what my baby girl is going to look like.

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Marie Sainta Desravines studies English in the Consortium for Worker Education/Workers United Education Program.  The program director is Sherry Kane.

A Strong Man I Know

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by Bakouan Kisito

When I arrived in New York City in November, 2014, I rented a house with two rooms in the Bronx. My roommate was an older African man of about 60. He had lived in the USA for 16 years. He is not tall. He was a Muslim. His wife lived in Manhattan in another apartment.

He works as a cleaner in a restaurant. This work is very hard and I wondered where this old man found the energy to do that.

He talks too much. I avoided him because when he start talking, it can take many hours.  He often wasted my time. Every day, he cooked his meal. He eats too much. I figured out why he can do a hard job.

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