APEngLangper711-12

"Another aspect of this general problem is "injury of the spirit;" in other words, when the reward to excel is minimal, why bother trying to excel?"

You make a good statement; often workers feel compelled to just give up and surrender to the companies. And honestly, who could blame them? You work 16 hours in a day and sleep the rest. You're tired, sleep deprived, hungry, in constant stress. You live only to work, and you work just to live. What is the point of life? Like honestly the condition these people live in just sucks.

I agree with all of you and the quote depicts why businesses promote the hiring of uneducated workers because they will work for less and perform at the same speed as a normal worker since there is no reward for excelling.

This article mainly shows how Steinbeck gathered his information that he later compiled into the Grapes of Wrath. Steinbeck lived among the "Okie" families and talked to them about their struggles in California. He was hosted by the Weedpatch Camp numerous times, and Tom Collins was especially helpful in Steinbeck's work. Both men fought an battle to better Okie migrant laborer and family living conditions. Steinbeck's work was also influenced by some of Collins', who was an influential reporter himself

I think this is interesting, because by living with the people he was really able to get a feel for what he was writing. Instead of writing from a 3rd person point of view, he wrote from a member of the migrant class. This creates a deep personal connection, as opposed to an outside perspective.

Another act of ignorance on McDonald's part-- most employees are not trained to clean a flooded basement. Another question that should be raised is why allow a fast food joint to be operational when a basement is flooded and chemicals and bacteria float with all that stagnant water. Worker conditions are poor because of the poor environment the company is not so urgent on maintaining. 

If any executives of these major corporations were tossed into a situation that these workers were dealing with they would not hesitate to complain and shut down the restaurant immediately. It seems the larger the corporation the more and more disconnected the upper management becomes to the people that are doing the dirty work and the people that are actually making their money

This page is interesting because it talks about the tactics that employers used to combat unions and strikes. They used a combination of black listing, espionage, strikebreaking, and company unions. Unions were the only threat to the industrial machine, and had to be dealt with. Profits were the only goal for employers, so even mistreatment of the laborers and their unions was common.

I found this article very interesting, it seems ridiculous by our standard what some of these companies. To these workers though it is just a part of life. It seems that they would do nothing short of poisoning or killing their employees if it resulted in them turning a profit!

Article about why and how the environment produces so much violent crime.

Willie what are you talking about? It's an article about McDonald's aggression and how angry customers are clowning around and causing commotion! That doesn't mention Jurgis or Joads. It just talks about how the workers, ex-workers, and even customers of the fast food industry get incited to take aggressive action. It reminded me of the chapter of FFN where it spoke of how restaurants are robbed incredibly frequently; and said robberies even result in more deaths than police-related activities. Or something along those lines.

Hahahaha calm down ^ But this is good! It's funny that fast food restaurants are the place for so much crime when they were originally meant as a safe place for families.

"In an attempt to defend their right to earning living wages, migrant workers tried to organize labor unions. Naturally, this was strongly discouraged by the growers, who had the support of the police force, who often used brute force. In Kern County in 1938, for example, a mob led by a local sheriff burned down an Okie camp that had become a center for union activity."

The quote you addressed, out of context, would easily assimilate with the points made in FFN, N&D, and The Jungle as well.

Oooh. Ellen, calling her out on context! Nice ;) I still think Sarah makes a decent point though. GOW and small parts of the Jungle are the only books where actual and real brutality and force are used to oppress workers. While the other books simply mention corruption or unethical practices, maybe even some law-breaking here and there, her quote addresses physical abuse and literal violence towards the workers, almost like slave-era times.

For many families with minimum-wage income,welfare becomes a necessary means for survival. However, not everyone that needs it can obtain it and not everyone that can obtain it, will the welfare help to survive.the article speaks of the poverty, specifically in Wisconsin and how even though some impoverished families desperately need it, it is considered socially unacceptable for them to apply and they are discouraged from doing so.

Great quote, and it highlights a reoccurring theme in many of the books where aid given by the wealthier classes is never enough, goes unnoticed, or in the case of the Jungle is for a different reason. This is when the immigrants are given money to give up their right to political freedom, but the free funds are too needed to resist.

This is actually a GOOD interesting source. Unlike the books and the typical secondary source, it provides USEFUL and NEW info. It gives quality statistics which can actually help prove a point, rather than just repeat it or restate it.

Reports are out: modern day meatpacking is still considered to be one imposing extreme hazard to the worker. This is only one of the many modern instances of ethical injustice as employers continue to intimidate their workers from creating unions, as described with Fast Food Nation and McDonald's. It is a marriage of Sinclair's eye-opening description of the meatpacking industry and Schlosser's depiction of contemporary business ethics. 

This is a great source and annotation showing how the horrors of the meatpacking industry first brought up in the Jungle, and later in Fast Food Nation are still going on today. The terrible ethics of these big businesses are still a problem to this day.

You guys bring up valid points. Honestly it gets frustrating hearing the same topic being incessantly repeated, but it still is a good source about these novels and the poor treatment of the workers. I like how your second quote even relates it to modern times, just like FFN

That's a good point. They do actually have to do really tough work, just like everyone else, except they can't make ends meet just because their jobs are deemed insignificant and their corporations are full of greedy aristocrats. These people suffer and are just disposed.

"...the typical middle class, like, "Well, I should look for something better," you know. And then, I began to figure out, if you're paid very little, it could be a disaster to change jobs. Because you might have to go one, two, three weeks without any paycheck at all. And that's not doable." For a low wage worker, there is not the option of finding something better. No matter how hard the work is, or how bad they're treated, they must stay in the conditions just to survive.

"The most shocking in the new book came from an ex-employee of one large retailer, who told Ehrenreich that in 2003 the company held him captive for six hours and interrogated him for giving a colleague a discount on a videogame, before getting him to write a false confession and firing him. A former colleague alleged that such incidents were not unusual." In this article, an interview with the author, Ehrenreich looks back on the reception she has had from the book. In once instance, a worker was fired for something he didn't do. This shows the lack of ethics in the workplace, and the lack of respect employers have for the workers.

"But one of the big shocks for me, almost from the beginning, was how little privacy or rights you have in the workplace. Very early, the first or second flay of my life as a waitress, I was warned by a coworker that my purse could be searched at any time. I just didn't believe that could be legal. But I have since, of course, checked with labor lawyers, and it's true. At work, you have no privacy as to your personal effects, purse or backpack, in any state that I know of." In the workplace, you have no privacy. Instead, you're just another machine who's under the control of the bigger business. Privacy, a right we often take for granted, is almost always denied to minimum wage workers.

(Click the PDF full document at the top, it downloads the article) "In Nickel and Dimed, Ehrenreich paints the picture of millions of American workers who serve our tables, clean our houses, restock our stores, and take care of our parents. They are paid salaries with which no person can live in dignity, let alone with the hope of ever moving out of the low-class status in which they find themselves. She points out what many of us sense, but few dare articulate, namely that we are willing to accept a form of labor exploitation in our midst while at the same time decrying it in other parts of the world." Talks about how the lower class are all around us struggling, yet mostly we do not know they're there. Their salaries are exceptionally low, but they must try their best to make ends meet and work through the pain.

"I had kept in touch with "Melissa" over the years, who was still working at Walmart, where her wages had risen from $7 to $10 an hour, but in the meantime her husband had lost his job." Based on this there is no possibility for advancement in low wage jobs no matter how long one stays commited to a company and that in the end the corporate executives only care about how much is in their pockets.

This is a good source because it can be seen in all the books as their is little to no room for advancement

I completely agree, and it also translates to The Jungle where Jurgis is loved by his bosses but only until his strength runs out and he sinks back into the pack and is eventually let go after he is injured and therefore useless to the bosses.

She finds most of these jobs are physically and mentally exhausting. Employers overwork employees in return for low wages, few benefits, and minimal health care coverage.  She notes that it is not uncommon for many Americans trapped in the low-wage workforce to juggle two or three jobs to make ends meet.  Just like pretty much every secondary source site, it sums up the primary source and repeats the same information in a different manner. Employers abuse and take advantage of their workers, milking them for all they're worth. Big surprise. Who would have thought?

I agree with Evan in that this site gives evidence of all this, and it can all be tied to any one of these outside sources, as well as any one of our books that we have read. An example is Fast Food Nation, where the employees are treated poorly and kept down so they do not get payed much, and do not gain anything from the job.

"The math just doesn't work. The average woman coming off of welfare since 1996 earns $7/hour, that's $280/week before taxes, and you can't support children on that, or even one person"

This is actual commentary from the author on the book, and it highlights how the working class cannot live a healthy and safe lifestyle in today's society with the wages that they earn. Ehrenreich truly believes that a change must be made to help the poor working class of our country.

I partially agree with this as it is extremely difficult for the low-wage workers to live on their salaries but with the help of welfare, medicare, and social security, I feel like it is possible, however change should be made

This again shows the connection between Nickel and Dimed and The Grapes of Wrath. Both Steinbeck and Ehrenreich are in favor of evoking the readers passion and having the people try to rise up. By using passion and feelings to motivate the people and display the poor treatment of workers