Modern America has overcome vast amounts of worker mistreatment, from child labor to unsafe work environments. Each time the corruption thrived for a while before anyone found a need to put a stop to it. Slowly but surely, the flaws in the system crept out of the shadows, disturbing every individual who had been previously ignorant. Mac McClelland reveals that warehouse workers still suffer from such unjust treatment in her article, “I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave.” After working in a real warehouse, she exposed the cruelty of her employers by providing an emotional description of her experience. A particular point of frustration for McClelland was the time constraints. After a short 15- minute break, the workers are required “to be back at whichever …show more content…
“We run to grab the wheeled carts...We run past each other and if we say something, we say it as we keep moving” (McClelland 400). A practically inhuman speed is expected from the workers, forcing them to rush from place to place. They do not have time to spare for walking. They are even deprived of socialization, which is essential to human satisfaction, due to a lack of time. There is not a moment of peace as long as they are clocked-in, no matter how hard or long they work. Enjoyment is impossible, and no effort is made to reduce the highly stressful environment of the workers. The company shows no concern for its workers’ mental well being. A single aspect of McClelland’s experience illustrates the issue within warehouse operations. The workers are forced to work in a fast-paced, highly stressful environment with minimal to no social relief to break up the day. Long jaunts and short breaks lead to maximum levels of worker discomfort, but they have no choice but to keep going if they wish to keep their jobs. Always being on the move is unhealthy. The operators of the warehouse obviously disregard the health of their workers for the sake of saving a few
Throughout her article, “I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave,” reporter Mac McClelland refers to her employer as some rendition of “Amalgamated Product Giant Shipping Worldwide Inc” (394). She justifies the use of this nickname by explaining how “to do otherwise might give people the impression that these conditions apply only to one warehouse or one company. Which they don’t” (395). McClelland utilizes her legal liability to make her experience apply across the nation, instead of only in the one particular warehouse she describes. While it is clever, it leaves me curious as to exactly which and how many companies participate in the indecent employee treatment she unveils. The generalizing statement poses the danger of condemning potentially innocent
Sloane. A. A., Witney, F. (2010). LABOR RELATIONS (13th editions). Prentice Hall. Upper Saddle River, NJ
Often, children were forced to work due to money-related issues, and the conditions they worked in were terrible. Children worked in coal mining, such as at Woodward Coal Mining in Kingston, Pennsylvania (Doc. 7). Children were used to make the process of producing products cheaper, and they were paid low wages; the capitalists hired children just to keep the process of making products going and to make profit. One cause of child labor in harsh conditions was the unfateful fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company factory in New York City in 1911. Teenaged immigrant girls that were employed there worked under sweatshop-like conditions. The building they worked in was inadequately equipped in case of a fire, for the doors were locked, leaving no exit for the girls, and the single fire escape collapsed with the rescue effort; as a result, when the fire started, they were unable to escape. 145 workers were killed, but the company owners were not penalized harshly for this tragedy. This further demonstrates that capitalists were able to get away with the harsh conditions that they put their laborers, especially child laborers, through for their own benefit, which is making more money and using any means to get it, even if those means are low wages and harsh working
The articles by Meika Loe and Charlie LeDuff both exhibit how working conditions for women and minorities post-Industrial Revolution United States has not changed. Though some of what was happening at Bazooms was not the same as the slaughterhouse, both had do deal with verbal abuse, considered to be the lowest common denominator in the workplace, and fearing for your job. In today’s society, such affairs still happen within the workplace. People are viewed based on their gender or race and not their actual work ethic. Those who are illegal aliens get exploited for their status and get scrutinized for the wages being lowered since, they have little to no power cannot challenge authority. The women at Bazooms are degraded not only with the managers, but also the customers; however they can challenge authority.
Mainly, the article focuses on the injustices people have encountered in a work environment. Rhodes appeals to her audience as everyday “average” people who identify with the plight of another. Although she makes a compelling argument referencing studies and personal stories of people this has happened to, there are flaws in her argument that could discredit the validity of her reasoning. The logic in her article highly finds favor with the general working public. It is both consistent and appropriate. However, it is not complete, nor fully believable. I will discuss the following in the next paragraphs. Her use of research and anecdotes are mostly one-sided and while it brings valid points for the workers, fail to portray opposing views on the issue, that of the employer. She also neglects to further explore and compare the validity of this claim against wel...
The injustice that transpires within these workspaces evoke disparate responses from concerned citizens. From reading Bob Jeffcott’s article “Sweat, Fire, and Ethics,” the reader is challenged to urge their governments and educational institutions to condemn the exercise of exploitation of sweatshops be demanding evidence of improvements in working conditions. In Jeffrey D. Sachs excerpt “Bangladesh: On the Ladder of Development,” the working conditions of the women factory workers in Bangladesh is revealed yet the reader is persuaded to support these sweatshops because it is the only opportunity that these women have to gain a better life for themselves and their families. Upon reading both pieces, it is evident that sweatshops do not necessarily need to end completely, yet the business strategies employed within these facilities that negatively affect the workers must be monitored and addressed by the government in order for these companies to abandon labor
Fink explained that the title of her book “describes the painful and extended process by which women and ethnic minorities inserted themselves into the meatpacking workforce and redefined the struggle for recognition of workers’ rights”, (Fink, p. 3). Fink detailed that because the majority of the early meatpacking industry was centered mainly in the Midwestern cities which grew in part from receiving government help and contracts, the government then had some influence over labor in these packinghouse plants. Government regulations has strengthened the unions, improved the workers’ compensation, and “improved the conditions on their production floors”, (Fink, p.193). Furthermore, Fink also described that the entrance of Iowa Beef Packers in the 1960’s has resulted in the shift of the packinghouses from urban to rural areas which later on resulted to the government pulling away from “labor and toward business” (Fink, p. 193) which eventually weakened the union. Moreover, when the power of the union degraded, so did the incomes and the conditions of the workers on the production floor. In addition, Fink also explored how the union’s ability to represent the wage workers in the packinghouse has eroded with the admission of women in the workforce during and after the World War II. Although the union added women in the workforce, they were treated not as men’s equals and were paid cheaply less than men. Furthermore, Fink added that “Women’s position in post-World War II packinghouse continued to erode until the situation came a head with a passage of the Civil Rights of 1964” (Fink, p. 194) which was supposed to stop gender bias in employment but did not. Similarly, Fink mentioned that “contempt for women facilitated the meatpackers’ use
Employment is hard to find and hard to keep and a job isn’t always what one hoped for. Sometimes jobs do not sufficiently support our lifestyles, and all too frequently we’re convinced that our boss’s real job is to make us miserable. However, every now and then there are reprieves such as company holiday parties or bonuses, raises, promotions and even a half hour or hour to eat lunch that allows escape from monotonous workloads. Aside from our complaints, employment today for majority of American’s isn’t totally dreadful, and there always lies opportunity for promotion. American’s did not always experience this reality in their work places though, and not long past are days of abysmal and disgusting work conditions. In 1906 Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” was published. His novel drastically transformed the way Americans felt about the unmitigated power corporations wielded in the ‘free’ market economy that was heavily propagandized at the turn of the century. Corporations do not have the same unscrupulous practices today because of actions taken by former President Theodore Roosevelt who felt deeply impacted by Sinclair’s famous novel. Back in early 1900’s in the meatpacking plants of Chicago the incarnation of greed ruled over the working man and dictated his role as a simple cog within an enormous insatiable industrial machine. Executives of the 1900’s meatpacking industry in Chicago, IL, conspired to work men to death, obliterate worker’s unions and lie to American citizens about what they were actually consuming in order to simply acquire more money.
Levine, Marvin J. "Mines, Mills, and Canneries." Children for Hire: The Perils of Child Labor in the United States. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003. 21. Print.
... The workers were taking great pride in their work. Something else that set them apart was their mission. They had a five-point constitution. The very first point was to protect the health, safety, and well being of every person in the department. Every other department in the factory was putting profit first in their missions.
Turbulent times of a newly freed democracy bred a longing for civil liberties and birthed what would become equality for all. The United States of America, known for independence, has not always been balanced in its freedom. The labor movement in America was a significant step in developing equal opportunity. In the nation’s infancy, working conditions were abominable. Workers were underpaid, overworked, and abused. Women and children in the workforce were ubiquitous in certain industries, often earning far less than a man would. Countless laborers were injured or killed on the job, and there was no health insurance. If a worker was wounded while working, he or she would simply be replaced. As a result of the deplorable labor environment, unions
Axtman, K., & Clayton, M. (2005, August 12). Worker right or workplace danger? (Cover story). Christian Science Monitor, 01-10. Retrieved from https://web-ebscohost-com.libdatab.strayer.edu/ehost
Young girls were not allowed to open the windows and had to breathe in the dust, deal with the nerve-racking noises of the machines all day, and were expected to continue work even if they 're suffering from a violent headache or toothache (Doc 2). The author of this report is in favor of employing young women since he claimed they seemed happy and they loved their machines so they polished them and tied ribbons on them, but he didn 't consider that they were implemented to make their awful situations more bearable. A woman who worked in both factory and field also stated she preferred working in the field rather than the factory because it was hard work but it never hurt her health (Doc 1), showing how dangerous it was to work in a factory with poor living conditions. Poor living conditions were common for nearly all workers, and similar to what the journalist saw, may have been overlooked due to everyone seeming
In the case of Dukes vs. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (Dukes), the court found that there was a lack of significant proof that Wal-Mart had a general policy of discrimination (Schipani, 2013). The plaintiffs needed commonality to establish uniformed disparity within the Wal-Mart organization, and statistical evidence was deemed unworthy of proving this commonality (Schipani, 2013). The numbers were astounding; seventy-two percent of the hourly workforce of Wal-Mart are women, yet only 10% are store managers, and a mere 4% of female Wal-Mart employees are district managers (Bernardin & Russell, 2013). The numbers seem to reflect a painfully obvious presence of discrimination, and with Wal-Mart’s market power within its industry, it can be frightening to evaluate the impact their practices have on the American employment culture.
Employee stakeholders have another story. The discrimination lawsuits ranging from female employees not getting equal pay or equal positions, to disabled employees, class-action lawsuits stating that Wal-Mart doctors questionnaires to prevent disabled workers from applying, Wal-Mart does not rank very high with these employees. Lawsuits stemming from Wal-Mart’s failure to monitor labor conditions at oversea factories and hires illegal immigrants add to the rift in relations between the employees and the company. Wal-Mart continues to deny charges...