Nickel and Dimed: Undercover in Low-Wage USA (27 page)

[17]
In Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House (Scribner, 1999), Cheryl
Mendelson writes, “Never ask hired housecleaners to clean your floors on their
hands and knees; the request is likely to be regarded as degrading” (p. 501).

[18]
In 1999, somewhere between 14 and 18 percent of households employed an outsider
to do the cleaning and the numbers are rising dramatically. Mediamark Research
reports a 53 percent increase, between 1995 and 1999, in the number of households
using a hired cleaner or service once a month or more, and Maritz Marketing
finds that 30 percent of the people who hired help in 1999 had done so for the
first time that year. Managers of the new corporate cleaning services, such
as the one I worked for, attribute their success not only to the influx of women
into the workforce but to the tensions over housework that arose in its wake.
When the trend toward hiring out was just beginning to take off, in 1988, the
owner of a Merry Maids franchise in Arlington, Massachusetts, told the Christian
Science Monitor, “I kid some women. I say, 'We even save marriages. In this
new eighties period you expect more from the male partner, but very often you
don't get the cooperation you would like to have. The alternative is to pay
somebody to come in'” (“Ambushed by Dust Bunnies,” Christian Science Monitor,
April 4, 1988). Another Merry Maids franchise owner has learned to capitalize
more directly on housework-related spats; he closes 30-35 percent of his sales
by making follow-up calls Saturdays between 9:00 and 11:00 A.M.—which is “prime
time for arguing over the fact that the house is a mess” (“Homes Harbor Dirty
Secrets,” Chicago Tribune, May 5, 1994).

[19]
At the time, I dismissed this as a scare story, but I have since come across
ads for concealable video cameras, like the Tech-7 “incredible coin-sized camera”
designed to “get a visual record of your babysitter's actions” and “watch employees
to prevent theft.”

[20]
This invisibility persists at the macroscopic level. The Census Bureau reports
that there were 550,000 domestic workers in 1998, up 10 percent since 1996,
but this may be a considerable underestimate, since so much of the servant economy
is still underground, or at least very low to the ground, where few data collectors
ever venture. In 1993, for example, the year when Zoë Baird lost her chance
to be attorney general for paying her undocumented nanny off the books, it was
estimated that fewer than 10 percent of those Americans who paid a housecleaner
more than $1,000 a year reported these payments to the IRS. Sociologist Mary
Romero offers an example of how severe the undercounting can be: the 1980 census
found only 1,063 “private household workers” in El Paso, although at the same
time that city's Department of Planning, Research, and Development estimated
their numbers at 13,400 and local bus drivers estimated that half of the 28,300
bus trips taken daily were taken by maids going to and returning from work (Maid
in the U.S.A., p. 92). The honesty of employers has increased since the Baird
scandal, but most experts believe that household workers remain largely uncounted
and invisible to the larger economy.

[21]
A report issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in July
2000 found most nursing homes dangerously understaffed, especially profit-making
nursing homes, such as the one where I worked. Among the consequences of understaffing,
according to the report, are increases in preventable problems like severe bedsores,
malnutrition, dehydration, congestive heart failure, and infections. While I
never saw a patient neglected or mistreated in the dining area where I worked
at the Woodcrest, it would have been easy for an aide to make a life-threatening
mistake, such as serving sugar-containing foods to a diabetic. I consider myself—and
my patients—extremely fortunate that I did not inadvertently harm someone on
this day when I fed the Alzheimer's ward by myself.

[22]
The St. Paul-based Jobs Now Coalition estimated that, in 1997, a “living wage”
for a single parent supporting a single child in the Twin Cities metro area
was $11.77 an hour. This estimate was based on monthly expenses that included
$266 for food (all meals cooked and eaten at home), $261 for child care, and
$550 for rent (“The Cost of Living in Minnesota: A Report by the Jobs Now Coalition
on the Minimum Cost of Basic Needs for Minnesota Families in 1997”). No one
has updated this “living wage” to take into account the accelerating Twin Cities
rent inflation of 2000 (see page 140).

[23]
There are many claims for workplace drug testing: supposedly, it results in
reduced rates of accidents and absenteeism, fewer claims on health insurance
plans, and increased productivity. However, none of these claims has been substantiated,
according to a 1999 report from the American Civil Liberties Union, “Drug Testing:
A Bad Investment.” Studies show that preemployment testing does not lower absenteeism,
accidents, or turnover and (at least in the high-tech workplaces studied) actually
lowered productivity—presumably due to its negative effect on employee morale.
Furthermore, the practice is quite costly. In 1990, the federal government spent
$11.7 million to test 29,000 federal employees. Since only 153 tested positive,
the cost of detecting a single drug user was $77,000. Why do employers persist
in the practice? Probably in part because of advertising by the roughly $2 billion
drug-testing industry, but I suspect that the demeaning effect of testing may
also hold some attraction for employers.

[24]
The last few years have seen a steady decline in the number of affordable apartments
nationwide. In 1991 there were forty-seven affordable rental units available
to every one hundred low-income families, while by 1997 there were only thirty-six
such units for every one hundred families (“Rental Housing Assistance-The Worsening
Crisis: A Report to Congress on Worst-Case Housing Needs,” Housing and Urban
Development Department; March 2000). No national—or even reliable local—statistics
are available, but apparently more and more of the poor have been reduced to
living in motels. Census takers distinguish between standard motels, such as
those that tourists stay in, and residential motels, which rent on a weekly
basis, usually to long-term tenants. But many motels contain mixed populations
or change from one type to the other depending on the season. Long-term motel
residents are almost certainly undercounted, since motel owners often deny access
to census takers and the residents themselves may be reluctant to admit they
live in motels, crowded in with as many as four people or more in a room (Willoughby
Mariano, “The Inns and Outs of the Census,” Los Angeles Times, May 22, 2000).

[25]
Under the Fair Labor Standards Act it is in fact illegal not to pay time and
a half for hours worked above forty hours a week. Certain categories of workers—professionals, managers, and farmworkers—are not covered by the FLSA, but
retail workers are not among them.

[26]
I may have to withdraw my claim. Until it was closed for fire code violations
in 1997, the Parkway Motel in southern Maryland boasted exposed electrical wires,
holes in room doors, and raw sewage on bathroom floors. But if price is entered
into the competition, the Clearview Inn may still win, since the Park way was
charging only $20 a day at the time (Todd Shields, “Charles Cracks Down on Dilapidated
Motels,” Washington Post, April 20, 1997).

[27]
I thank Sona Pai, an Indian American graduate student in literary nonfiction
at the University of Oregon, for giving me a glimpse into the Indian American
motel-operating community and the lives of immigrant brides.

[28]
Actually, rents usually have to be less than 30 percent of one's income to be
considered “affordable.” Housing analyst Peter Dreier reports that 59 percent
of poor renters, amounting to a total of 4.4 million households, spend more
than 50 percent of their income on shelter (“Why America's Workers Can't Pay
the Rent,” Dissent, Summer 2000, pp. 38-44). A 1996-97 survey of 44,461 households
found that 28 percent of parents with incomes less than 200 percent of the poverty
level—i.e., less than about $30,000 a year—reported problems paying their
rent, mortgage, or utility bills (Welfare Reform Network News 1:2 [March 1991,
Institute for Women's Policy Research, Washington, D.C.). In the Twin Cities,
at the time of my stay, about 46,000 working families were paying more than
50 percent of their income for housing, and, surprisingly, 73 percent of these
families were home owners hard-pressed by rising property taxes (“Affordable
Housing Problem Hits Moderate-Income Earners,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, July
12, 2000).

[29]
Middle-class people often criticize the poor for their eating habits, but this
charitable agency seemed to be promoting a reliance on “empty calories.” The
complete inventory of the box of free food I received is as follows: 21 ounces
of General Mills Honey Nut Chex cereal; 24 ounces of Post Grape-Nuts cereal;
20 ounces of Mississippi Barbecue Sauce; several small plastic bags of candy,
including Tootsie Rolls, Smarties fruit snacks, Sweet Tarts, and two bars of
Ghirardelli chocolate; one bubble gum; a 13-ounce package of iced sugar cookies;
hamburger buns; six 6-ounce Minute Maid juice coolers; one loaf of Vienna bread;
Star Wars fruit snacks; one loaf of cinnamon bread; 18 ounces of peanut butter;
18 ounces of jojoba shampoo; 16 ounces of canned ham; one bar of Dial soap;
four Kellogg Rice Krispies Treats bars; two Ritz cracker packages; one 5-ounce
Swanson canned chicken breast; 2 ounces of a Kool-Aid-like drink mix; two Lady
Speed Stick deodorants.

[30]
In 1988, Arkansas state senator Jay Bradford attacked Wal-Mart for paying its
employees so little that they had to turn to the state for welfare. He was,
however, unable to prove his point by getting the company to open its payroll
records (Bob Ortega, In Sam We Trust: The Untold Story of Sam Walton and Wal-Mart,
the World's Most Powerful Retailer [Times Books, 20001, p. 193).

[31]
According to Wal-Mart expert Bob Ortega, Sam Walton got the idea for the cheer
on a 1975 trip to Japan, “where he was deeply impressed by factory workers doing
group calisthenics and company cheers.” Ortega describes Walton conducting a
cheer: “'Gimme a W!' he'd shout. 'W!' the workers would shout back, and on through
the Wal-Mart name. At the hyphen, Walton would shout 'Gimme a squiggly!' and
squat and twist his hips at the same time; the workers would squiggle right
back” (In Sam We Trust, p. 91).

[32]
“During your career with Wal-Mart, you may be cross-trained in other departments
in your facility. This will challenge you in new areas, and help you be a well-rounded
Associate (”Wal-Mart Associate Handbook, p. 18).

[33]
Wal-Mart employees have sued the retail chain for unpaid overtime in four states—West
Virginia, New Mexico, Oregon, and Colorado. The plaintiffs allege that they
were pressured to work overtime and that the company then erased the overtime
hours from their time records. Two of the West Virginia plaintiffs, who had
been promoted to management positions before leaving Wal-Mart, said they had
participated in altering time records to conceal overtime work. Instead of paying
time and a half for overtime work, the company would reward workers with “desired
schedule changes, promotions and other benefits,” while workers who refused
the unpaid overtime were “threatened with write-ups, demotions, reduced work
schedules or docked pay” (Lawrence Messina, “Former Wal-Mart Workers File Overtime
Suit in Harrison County,” Charleston Gazette, January 24, 1999). In New Mexico,
a suit by 110 Wal-Mart employees was settled in 1998 when the company agreed
to pay for the overtime (“Wal-Mart Agrees to Resolve Pay Dispute,” Albuquerque
Journal, July 16, 1998). In an e-mail to me, Wal-Mart spokesman William Wertz
stated that “it is Wal-Mart's policy to compensate its employees fairly for
their work and to comply fully with all federal and state wage and hour requirements.”

[34]
In 1996, the National Labor Committee Education Fund in Support of Worker and
Human Rights in Central America revealed that some Kathie Lee clothes were being
sewn by children as young as twelve in a sweatshop in Honduras. TV personality
Kathie Lee Gifford, the owner of the Kathie Lee line, tearfully denied the charges
on the air but later promised to give up her dependence on sweatshops.

[35]
Jared Bernstein, Chauna Brocht, and Maggie Spade-Aguilar, “How Much Is Enough?
Basic Family Budgets for Working Families,” Economic Policy Institute, Washington,
D.C., 2000, p. 14.

[36]
“Companies Try Dipping Deeper into Labor Pool,” New York Times, March 26, 2000.

[37]
“An Epitaph for a Rule That Just Won't Die,” New York Times, July 30, 2000.

[38]
“Fact or Fallacy: Labor Shortage May Really Be Wage Stagnation,” Chicago Tribune,
July 2, 2000; “It's a Wage Shortage, Not a Labor Shortage,” Minneapolis Star
Tribune, March 25, 2000.

[39]
I thank John Schmidt at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., for
preparing the wage data for me.

[40]
Interview, July 18, 2000.

[41]
“Companies Try Dipping Deeper into Labor Pool,” New York Times, March 26, 2000.

[42]
Personal communication, July 24, 2000.

[43]
“The Biggest Company Secret: Workers Challenge Employer Practices on Pay Confidentiality,”
New York Times, July 28, 2000.

[44]
Bob Ortega, In Sam We Trust, p. 356; “Former Wal-Mart Workers File Overtime
Suit in Harrison County,” Charleston Gazette, January 24, 1999.

[45]
See, for example, C. A. Shively, K. Laber-Laird, and R. E Anton, “Behavior and
Physiology of Social Stress and Depression in Female Cynomolgous Monkeys,” Biological
Psychiatry 41:8 (1997), pp. 871-82, and D. C. Blanchard et al., “Visible Burrow
System as a Model of Chronic Social Stress: Behavioral and Neuroendocrine Correlates,”
Psychoneuroendocrinology 20:2 (1995), pp. 117-34.