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NATIONAL
JOBS FOR ALL COALITION %
CIPA, 777 UN Plaza, Suite 3C, NY, NY 10017
UNCOMMON
SENSE 26 July 2002
It's
Not Just Money:
Thirty-Five Million Workers in Low-Wage Jobs*
By Beth Shulman,
formerly an International Vice President and Executive Board Member
of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union,
now a lawyer and a consultant to labor unions and non-profit organizations.
Her forthcoming book is The Betrayal of Work (The New Press).
Full employment means more than jobs for all. It
also means, among other things, decent wages, benefits and a humane
workplace-that is, a social contract.
As MIT professor Tom Kochan noted in his presidential address
to the Industrial Relations Research Association, a social contract
is "the expectations and obligations that workers, employers,
and their communities and societies have for work and employment
relationships." Since World War II, if one worked hard, the
expectation of a livable income and basic securities for oneself
and one's family was the implicit understanding of this social
contract.
If the social contract--far from universal even in its heyday--has
eroded for many workers, it is nonexistent for those who work
in low-wage jobs. For thirty-five million workers--one in four--who
get up every morning or evening and go to work in low-wage jobs,
however, the most basic expectations from work--a decent wage,
basic benefits, and respect--go unfulfilled.
These low-wage workers educate and train our children, care for
our parents and friends, clean and assist us in our hotel rooms
and offices; answer our questions on toll-free calls; prepare
our food and serve our families in restaurants; protect us in
airports, offices, and government buildings; cash our checks and
take our deposits; harvest and process the meat, chicken, and
other food we eat; sew and clean the clothes we wear; wait on
us in department, grocery, and drugstores; and enter information
into databases. These low-wage jobs are intimately involved in
every aspect of our lives, yet they provide workers with wages
that are at or near the poverty line. While recent tight labor
markets have helped inch up the wages at the bottom, in the economic
boom of the late 1990's, thirty-five million workers still earned
less than $8.75 an hour.
Low wages-only part of the problem
Inadequate wages, however, are only part of the problem. Workers
in low-wage jobs lack the basic security, freedom, control and
flexibility in their lives that most other workers take for granted.
Most workers in low-wage jobs are not provided any health coverage--not
even that paid for by employees. Those that are, generally cannot
afford to buy it. Not surprisingly, these workers are exposed
to more physically damaging working conditions and workplace safety
and health hazards than in most higher-paying jobs, which put
them at a higher risk for sickness and accidents. Their jobs give
little leeway to take a day off for illness and, if they can get
off, they rarely get paid.
Little flexibility exists to balance work and family. Planning
for family responsibilities is more difficult in low-wage jobs
because their schedules are less predictable. Low-wage employers
give their workers little time to tend to a sick child or for
personal needs or emergencies. Because of this inflexibility,
tending to family concerns can become a choice for workers between
taking care of their family or keeping their job. Paid vacations
and holidays are less available than in higher-paying jobs, meaning
less time to spend with family members. A disproportionate burden
of working night shifts falls on workers in low-wage jobs, which
makes child-care even more expensive and difficult to obtain.
And there is little security in these jobs. These workers experience
more frequent and recurrent periods of unemployment than workers
in higher-paying jobs. Yet it is these workers who receive little
if any employer-provided severance pay to help them make the transition
to another job. Low-wage jobs provide fewer and more variable
hours for workers than higher-paying jobs. Many of these workers
have part-time or contingent status and earn a lower hourly wage
than a full-time worker in the same job.
Unlike many higher-wage jobs, where cooperative models have
been introduced in the workplace and employers value workers'
input, most workers in low-wage jobs have little voice or autonomy.
Their employers frequently discourage workers from voicing their
opinions. Many of these employers lack basic respect for their
workers. Low-wage jobs are the least likely to have labor-union
representation, leaving these workers without power to change
their situations. Employer-provided training opportunities are
largely unavailable, diminishing the possibility of job-advancement.
Profit sharing is half as likely for these workers as for workers
in higher-paying jobs. At the end of their time on the job, these
workers will have minimal employer-provided pensions. When such
plans are offered, they require worker contributions, which these
workers cannot afford.
The final cruelty is that government programs created over the
years to protect workers and their families have excluded this
most vulnerable segment of the workforce. Laws covering workplace
health and safety, protection from discrimination, family and
medical leave, wage and hour enforcement, unemployment compensation,
workmen's compensation, and business-closing notice bypass many
of these workers. A majority of workers in low-wage jobs work
in small businesses, which fall outside many worker-protection
laws. Some eligibility requirements for employment and labor statutes,
such as minimum hours required or minimum income levels, disqualify
many low-wage workers. In other words, workers who are the most
vulnerable to the dictates of employers are left without assistance
from the government.
It is this "piling on" of all these deprivations together
with the meager earnings that make low-wage jobs not just quantitatively
different, but qualitatively different from better-paying jobs.
The employers' failure to provide the most basic benefits for
low-wage jobs is the antithesis of the reciprocal responsibilities
envisioned in the notion of a social contract. Workers in low-wage
jobs are meeting their side of the bargain. Employers and politicians
are failing to live up to theirs.
Reforming the system
If work is to work for all Americans we must establish a new
set of ground rules for these millions of responsible workers
who must provide for themselves and their families, yet get little
in return. We need an employee bill of rights. We have established
standards and rights in the past to ensure that older people would
not be impoverished or go without health care; to prevent children
from working; to keep our environment clean; and to ensure that
workers have equal opportunity regardless of their race, religion,
national origin, sex, or age. We must do so now for these thirty-five
million workers. We must also restore the right of workers to
organize. In prior generations, we have seen low-wage workers
move into the middle class through the power of labor unions.
Yet as Professor Kochan pointed out in his address, "Study
after study has documented the failure of labor law to provide
workers with the means to implement what the international community
has (correctly) described as a fundamental human right, the right
to join a union." We must ensure that workers have the tools
to improve their situation, including the right to choose to have
a union. Our work must contribute to the betterment of all those
in our society, not just the few.
Because this nation values work, we must reform a system that
fails to provide the basic necessities of life to its workers
and their families. We must reward work. There are serious consequences
to our nation, our communities, our economy, and to us as a people
if we fail to rectify this terrible social injustice. A wide economic
divide challenges our solidarity and stability. If work does not
work for millions of Americans, it challenges our very foundations
and beliefs as a nation. It destroys our sense of fairness if
we ignore those living by the rules and taking responsibility
for themselves and their families. It has consequences for the
next generation of children if we ignore this harsh reality. We
must act. These workers are not looking for a handout. They are
looking for fairness, which will be easier to attain in a society
that embraces a full employment policy. It is our responsibility
to see that this happens. It is not too much to ask.
Citations available on request.
_________________________________________
*Adapted from "Working Without a Social Contract,"
Perspectives on Work, v. 4, no. 1, copyright © 2000
Industrial Relations Research Association, Champaign, IL. Reprinted
by permission from the publisher.
Editors: Helen Lachs Ginsburg, Economics (Emer.),
Brooklyn College and June Zaccone, Economics (Emer.), Hofstra
University
The National Jobs for All Coalition is a project
of the Council on International and Public Affairs.
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