Nickel and Dimed

In the novel Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich faces many struggles as a low-wage worker. The two struggles she faced most was finding a job to support her new lifestyle and also finding a place to live that she could afford. While living in Minneapolis, she had a very hard time finding a place to live. Most of the places were $200 to $300 a week, something she couldnt afford on her $7 an hour wage at Wal-Mart. Finding a job also proved to be difficult especially when she had to consider how far away it was from her current home, how much it paid, and even if she could handle the work environment. For example, while in Maine Ehrenreich got a job at a maid's service but found it very difficult to work while ignoring the fargile state of her workers; many never had money to eat lunch and worked through health conditions because they couldn't afford to miss one day of work. Working in three different cities Ehrenreich realized that the workers at these low-wage jobs are being paid way less than they deserve for the work they do. She feels that workers should come together to get better wages or threaten to find better paying jobs, but realizes that it is very hard for a person living on a low income to just leave a job and start fresh with a new one as there are many factors to take into consideration; transportation, the hours, learning something new all over again, and having to wait for that first paycheck that might be with held from you anyways.

Question #9: Why do you think low-wage workers are reluctant to form labor organizations as Ehrenreich discovered at Wal-Mart? How do you think employees should lobby to improve working conditions. I think that people would be afraid to form labor organizations because they think that it might not work and then they could be fired and without a job, which they desperately need to live. I think that if workers want to lobby to improve working conditions than they should make sure that they all ban together and not back down until they get what they want; if they all stick together than it would work bettter than if all the employees weren't for the same cause.