Opinions: Journalists’ and activists’ strange approach to low-wage workers

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-medias-strange-approach-to-low-wage-workers/2014/03/19/a5155256-aefe-11e3-a49e-76adc9210f19_story.html

By Sarah Jaffe, Published: March 19

Sarah Jaffe is a staff writer at In These Times magazine and the co-host of Dissent magazine’s Belabored podcast.

McDonald’s might raise its wages, according to its recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Wal-Mart is considering supporting an increase in the minimum wage, or at least that’s what spokespeople for the company have been floating in recent interviews (though at other times the company has denied this). It seems that strikes and multiyear pressure campaigns by low-wage workers have some impact on their employers. McDonald’s even admitted as much; the SEC report noted “increasing public focus on matters of income inequality” and worker actions were affecting their public image. Labor organizing, often declared dead on arrival, is having some impact. Even President Obama’s decision to raise the minimum wage for workers under future federal contracts was inspired by seven different strikes by low-wage workers at places such as the Smithsonian and the Pentagon.

Not that you’d know it from stories in Politico, Bloomberg, NBC News and elsewhere. Strikes and worker organizing were nowhere to be found in their reports.

It is probably safe to say that journalists, outside a small but dedicated cadre of labor reporters, have talked to more minimum-wage workers in the past year than in the previous 10. The stories we write can all start to sound the same after a while. Wages are too low, and that spawns a thousand problems. Poverty is expensive, as Barbara Ehrenreich recently detailed for the Atlantic; if you can’t afford a bank account, your pay might come to you on a prepaid debit card loaded with fees for accessing your own wages. If you can’t afford rent, you might be stuck living with that abusive ex. You may be caring for a terminally ill parent on top of your workweek, and when jobs are scarce, your commute might take you two hours.

I say “you” deliberately here, because much of the writing about low-wage workers tends to obscure just that fact — that these stories could well be about you. Too much writing on the left and the right has tended to treat the people in some of the nation’s most common jobs as if they are some exotic Other rather than our neighbors, our family members and ourselves. McDonald’s workers are trotted in to tell stories of hardship again and again, pushed for more detail, asked to lay themselves bare.

FULL story at link.

[The Magistrate]

1. An Excellent Piece, Sir

[reformist2]

2. Good. White collar workers need to start thinking about unionization, too.

[Omaha Steve]

3. Kick