Author: Paul Deaton

In adding my congratulations to Mike Owen for his promotion as executive director of the Iowa Policy Project, I also suggest readers check out his latest blog post titled, “We promise: We won’t cook burgers.” It is about the spurious advice of Visa® and McDonald’s®, that their lowly paid workers should become financially sustainable by working a second job. Iowa Policy Project is one of the few Iowa think tanks that has done substantial work studying living wage, low wages, and minimum wage. It is a subject close to my interests, and Mike and his team’s work at Iowa Policy Project have informed some of my thinking on low wage workers. It will be good to have Mike as executive director.

With regard to the Visa® and McDonald’s® suggestion of securing a second job, it seems a bit reactionary to me. Another low wage worker employer, Walmart, has been consistently hammered by progressive writers (see Thomas Stackpole at Mother Jones) for advising their employees on how to leverage the governmental social safety network of energy assistance, SNAP, Medicaid and other programs. The second job suggestion is an alternate version of the Walmart story: we won’t pay a living wage, so employees are on their own to sustain financial viability.

There is more to working a low wage job than pay. There has to be because the cost of living, including health care, transportation, food, shelter, and interest on debt, is more than low wage jobs pay, even two of them. Little would change if the minimum wage were raised to over $10 per hour as some propose. Low wage jobs fall short of a living wage, so people have to adapt, and one of the ways they do is to take advantage of governmental assistance programs. Beside government programs and working additional jobs, what else is there?

Another payday for low paying work is building a social network to help meet basic economic needs— one based in direct human contact, unfiltered by electronic media. A host of services are available because of work relationships in a low wage job. A tattoo artist offers his ink at a discount, people of means offer loans, and gardeners offered to exchange vegetables and baked goods. There is ride-sharing, child care and a network of discovery of ways to escape low paying work for something better. Human society in low wage work places is like a living coral reef, where everyone’s needs can be met at a certain level. These things have little to do with the progressive argument about wages, but they are every bit as important.

The tone deaf suggestions of Visa® and McDonald’s® demonstrate a lack of understanding of how people operate. Namely, if the company articulates the deceit, people may start believing it, maybe they will stay with the company a bit longer, and the cost of employee turnover can be reduced. A cynical view? Not really.

Working two jobs may be a necessity for many, but if we are on our own, as corporations want us to be, life becomes less about the job and more about who we know that can help us when we need a hand. Thanks for the suggestions and financial planning tools corporations, but no thanks, we can get by with a little help from our friends.

~ Written for Blog for Iowa

LAKE MACBRIDE— In a strip mall in Cedar Rapids, a temp agency opens at 6 a.m., ready to place workers in temporary jobs. A registered applicant can enter the waiting room, sign in on a clipboard at the counter, and wait for placement in a job in construction, hospitality or warehouse work— often the same day. There is no talk about careers or perquisites, and some days a person gets placed, others not. Every time I entered, someone was waiting for a placement— there seemed to be no shortage of labor. In a society where people need paying work, this is one place they find it.

Managing the bottom line for a large or small company, the cost of human resources stands out as a high percentage of expense. Owners and executives seek to manage these expenses— their argument is they have to to remain viable in the marketplace. They will do what is legal and necessary to optimize the dollars spent on people. One of the ways they do this is to transfer the risk and expense of having employees to other entities, like the companies that employ temp workers.

We hear a lot about outsourcing and off-shoring, but until lately little attention has been paid to temp workers: that group of low-paid people that works in our community, doing office work, construction, hospitality, light manufacturing, property maintenance and more. Large corporations have become masters of outsourcing, and when we ask where have all the jobs gone, some of them went back into the community in the form of subcontractors that use temp workers, and take expense off the bottom line.

Mike Grabell wrote an article in ProPublica titled, “The Expendables: How the Temps Who Power Corporate Giants Are Getting Crushed” which is worth reading. He wrote, “the people […] are not day laborers looking for an odd job from a passing contractor. They are regular employees of temp agencies working in the supply chain of many of America’s largest companies– Walmart, Macy’s, Nike, Frito-Lay. They make our frozen pizzas, sort the recycling from our trash, cut our vegetables and clean our imported fish. They unload clothing and toys made overseas and pack them to fill our store shelves. They are as important to the global economy as shipping containers and Asian garment workers.”

Massachusetts passed a temporary workers right to know law that requires temporary staffing agencies to provide basic information about jobs offered to temporary workers. Essentially, it is a temp worker bill of rights.

Perhaps Iowa should consider a similar law, even if groups like the American Staffing Association and the American Legislative Exchange Council would be expected to fight it.

On the other hand, Iowa is a state where organized labor has struggled to pass any initiative in the legislature, notably the recently failed campaigns for fair share and choice of doctor. This when Democrats, the party that received substantial political contributions from organized labor, controlled both chambers of the legislature and the governor’s mansion.

Temp workers are here to stay in Iowa. The protections they have are the bare minimum provided by the law. Companies push the envelope of the law to keep their bottom line expense of workers very low. For progressives, helping protect temp workers in Iowa should be on our short list of priorities. The situation lies mostly below the radar and is calling for justice.

~ Written for Blog for Iowa.