Labor Day used to be one of those special dates that delineated segments of our lives when I was young. Its arrival meant that summer was ending and that we’d be going back to school. These days I suspect that its main significance is as a long weekend.
After the first Labor Day holiday was celebrated on September 5, 1882, in New York City, the idea of celebrating a workingman’s holiday spread to other states.
One of my relatives who could be a standup comedienne regaled us about a recent and very short-lived experience as a cashier in a megastore.
A retired office worker, she decided to get a part-time job. She has much experience and superb skills, but age was probably an issue. Determined, she applied for a job at a megastore pushing carts. “You’re too good for that,” they said. “You can be a cashier. The pay will be more than what cart pushers make.” Her pay was under $10 an hour.
Using a manual, she taught herself how to run the complicated cash register. “You have to be able to multi-task at top speed, enter sales for all kinds of stuff and deal with coupons, food stamps, gift certificates, credit cards, and change. The cash register panel has a red and a green indicator, and a supervisor comes if you’re too slow and are in the red zone. One time she was frenziedly entering items at top speed while a supervisor stood nearby. “I can’t get this thing to scan.” She was trying to scan the stick that divides customers’ orders.
“The customers were so sweet. They never got mad at me even though the line was long. I’d yell, ‘Now get your coupons and stuff ready before you get to the counter.’” She’d ask them to leave heavy items in their carts to be scanned, rather than putting them on the counter. Instead, they’d “help” her by putting cases of beer on the conveyer belt which meant that she had to lift them into the cart after entering them.
She quickly mastered the cash register, but her knees hurt so much from standing that she couldn’t kneel during Mass. A neighbor who has worked for many years at another store told her, “You get used to your knees hurting.” (What kind of life is that?)
My relative said, “Everyone at that store was so nice, and the company is a good one. I’ve gained a huge respect for retail workers who earn so little for their very hard work.”
The debate about the minimum wage continues. One commentator said, “People who have no skills shouldn’t expect to be paid more.” My nephew’s wife made less than ten dollars an hour, taking care of little babies in a daycare center. Many workers in nursing homes make minimum wage, including our daughter who had sole care at night of three profoundly retarded males.
Think of it: We entrust the care of our precious babies, those who cannot speak for themselves such as the men in the house where Vicki worked and frail elders to “unskilled” workers. We pay millions in bonuses to some and subsidize others while refusing to recognize the worth of millions of the “unskilled.”
Some people work so hard and even drive many miles to work at low-paying jobs, while others cash in on government subsidies. There was a discussion on the news today about the advantage of going on welfare rather than working. I was enraged by a report on 60 Minutes about a young man in California who unabashedly spends his days surfing while he lives off government subsidies.
I still believe that capitalism is the best road to the economic success of nations and individuals and that a rising tide will float all boats. America is so rich in freedom, educational opportunities, technology and resources that surely a way can and must be found to seat more people at the capitalistic banquet table. wclarke@comcast.net