Hand to Mouth: Living in Bootstrap America Read Online Free Page B

because they hire these workers through temporary work agencies, they have to pay no benefits and offer no job security. To save a buck, companies will regularly hire such workers for years—
years
.
And they do it because it’s cheaper than hiring labor directly, and they are legally entitled to do so. The laws in this country are so weak that we’re actually way behind South Korea (!) in temp worker protections.
    So when financially comfortable people with health insurance and paid sick leave and all kinds of other benefits that pad their wallets and make their lives easier and healthier think that the poor are poor because somehow we lack the get-up-and-go to change our circumstances . . . well, I’m not sure my reaction is printable.
    I regularly thank the gods that I don’t have much experienceworking in the temp industry. I’ve got friends that do, though, and it’s pretty awful. You get to work for a company full-time, as anything from a janitor to an attorney, but you don’t get any benefits and they sure as hell aren’t telling you to count on keeping this paycheck. They don’t guarantee anything. You might have worked there for years, but as long as they keep hiring you through the agency, they can save on pesky things like raises and promotions. One plant I lived near used to hire a revolving number of temp workers whom they laid off after ninety days—the point at which a temp worker is supposed to get permanent job status. Then after three weeks of unemployment, the plant hired them again.
    That factory isn’t in town anymore. It had gotten a break from the local government, making its first years there tax-free. And wouldn’t you know it, after the tax break expired, the company decided that the plant wasn’t profitable enough and closed it. A temporary factory that hired temporary workers.
    Who says capitalism isn’t cruel?

2
    You Get What You PayFor

A s far as I’m concerned, I earn my wages with my scars. Anything above and beyond that is me doing my employers a favor. And I’m not inclined to do favors for people who treat me poorly. See, we work in insane conditions. Dangerous, even. Most kitchens in the middle of the summer are intolerable, with temperatures well into the triple digits. I’ve seen people sent to the hospital with heatstroke. A lot of us will run into the freezer for a few minutes until we cool down. I’m not a doctor and I can’t say for sure, but I’m fairly certain that going from overheated to a minus-5 environment can’t be healthy.
    My arms and hands are covered in scars from the fryers. Oil at nearly 400 degrees doesn’t tickle when it hits your skin, and you can’t avoid the spatter entirely. I’ve burned my handsbecause the oven gloves had worn through and the owners were too cheap to spring for another pair. I’ve sliced my fingers open nearly to the bone when knives have slipped. I’ve dropped equipment on my feet because it was so busy I didn’t have time to wash the grease off my hands. I’ve hurt myself in more ways than I can count because that was how I got my seven or eight bucks an hour.
    Stuff like that is unavoidable; it’s the nature of the work. We know and understand that when we take the jobs. Any dangerous job is like that; we’re not stupid. The point is more that the risk is devalued—that our injuries, rather than being seen as a sign of our willingness to literally bleed for our employers, are seen as a liability.
    The kitchen scars are more dramatic, but the emotional toll of retail is the worst. The conditions are patently impossible. I’ve been expected to spend three hours per shift stocking in the back, while also being told that the register was never to be left unattended. I’ve been told to always have coffee ready for customers and that it should always be fresh, and in the same breath been told that I was going through too much coffee. My section of the store is always supposed to be neat, but there’s only one of