Low- Wage Workers

I recently wrote about the Atwood novel Cat’s Eye and how I had run out of Atwood (I have since found one at the local library, and one I had overlooked at school, not Surfacing which I really want to re-read, but still) luckily I found a book on the shelves at home that looked interesting and again found myself revisiting jobs of the past, Calbeck’s and the other grocery stores that kept me employed before I responded to the call.

The book was Nickel and Dimed – Undercover in Low-wage USA by journalist Barbara Ehrenreich. The premise is for the journalist to explore life working and living on the wages that keep millions of Americans in poverty. The author leaves home and heads to three different locations where she tries her hand as waitress, cleaner, and finally Wal-Mart associate. What she finds are hardworking people who are barely able to survive, struggling to find housing, to buy food, to pay for health care.  

At the same time in class our songs unit has become a focus on ‘Songs for Change’ and we have been talking about various movements and songs related to those movements, watching a documentary on YouTube narrated by Chuck D (yes!) which chronicles the modern history of protest in pop. Hearing all those union songs, learning about Joe Hill, listening to Pete Seeger, it was inspiring to hear about songs that may have actually influenced some change. But then I thought about the low wage Wal-Mart workers and about the Russell Brand interview I watched recently (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YR4CseY9pk) where he comments on the environment, the poor, and the division of classes, and I wonder: what would Woody Guthrie say?