Friday, November 24, 2006

Working for the Minimum Wage

Five dollars and fifteen cents per hour: that’s the federal minimum wage, and it’s the exact pay I earned at a shoe company in 1982. Even back then, it wasn’t enough to allow me to move out of my parents’ house. Two weeks ago, voters in six states approved increases in the minimum wage above the federal level. Since the last time Congress raised the minimum wage in 1997, our representatives have passed congressional pay raises nine times--probably on the logic that, you know, they needed the extra money. It’s funny how readily they understood their own financial needs. Meanwhile, corporate executive compensation approaches infinity. At some companies they don’t even bother to count, because it isn’t humanly possible to calculate the boss’s pay faster than it piles up. But suddenly a trend toward economic compassion for the workers seems to be sweeping the country. Of course, that compassion is largely expressed by the workers themselves; but even that is a refreshing change. And the Democratic congressional leadership is picking up the ball.

All this talk about raising the minimum wage reminds me of my earliest work experiences. I feel no nostalgia for those days, although I was young and as skinny and alive as a banjo string. First I had a summer job at an amusement park called Opryland USA in Nashville, Tennessee, where I earned the minimum $2.65/hour. (Surprisingly, that’s $8/hour when adjusted to today’s dollars.) Each little region of the park had its own musical theme. I worked in the Western sector. A short loop of western tunes blared from the speakers. I was a cowboy, I guess, but I didn’t get a big hat, just a tan polyester western shirt and brown polyester pants. Other theme areas had restaurants, but we cowpokes ran minor concessions--hotdog stands, popcorn carts. At the ice cream stand we sold Guitar Bars and Banjo Bars. That’s as fancy as it got for us.

Later I got something resembling adult employment stocking shelves at a drugstore wholesaler at little more than the minimum wage. It was the kind of place where they let you into the warehouse in the morning and locked the door behind you. A special room contained the opiates and other expensive drugs, but the packs of insulin sat right out there on the warm floor and were moved into the cooler only when the older packs had been shipped out. This way, they arrived at the pharmacies chilled, just as though they had been properly cared for from the start.

So there was the moral squalor of the place. And the endless stocking of shelves. I disapproved of illegal drug use, but as the days seeped away I found myself wondering how someone like me could access the morphine vault. Luckily, another of my job applications came through—the position at the corporate office of the shoe company. There I had my own desk and phone. But was I happy? A telling moment came two weeks later, when I bumped my head in a car accident and temporarily lost my memory. To test me, my brother showed me a school annual from 1978 and asked, “What year is it?” “It’s at least 1978,” I said. “Where are you working?” he asked. When I confessed that I didn’t know, he named the shoe company, and I exclaimed, “Why am I working there?” But in fact, I didn’t have much choice.

Now when I look around, I see my former self everywhere, barely getting by, not getting by, slipping into debt, a sales clerk, a waiter—people who hardly have time for politics. Will they demand a living wage? Well, the time is ripe.

Broadcast by Joe Chaney on November 24, 2006
Commerce • News & Editorial • Work • Permalink • Printer Friendly
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