The best definition of wage labor is when one sells time out of one’s day to labor for someone else, most commonly at an hourly rate. Under a capitalist economic system, the majority sell their time (set by the owner), to perform labor that is not of one’s choice, for money. Even though workers sell their time to an employer, the employer does not own the workers. Every worker has the right to protest when their liberties are under threat. One of the most common ways workers’ freedoms are violated is poor working conditions resulting from excessive overtime, poor pay, lack of benefits, etc. At the beginning of industrial capitalism, the wage worker experienced a traumatic life. Uprooted from the land they had always known into new working and living conditions, they struggled for many decades. When capitalism underwent its biggest crisis between the two world wars, workers gained the most power they ever held. During these very short years when workers had a seat at the table of economic decision-making, their lives improved drastically. However, the dynamic of capitalism had not been exhausted. Workers in the imperial core became mini-capitalists; they received a home with their own fiefdom (yard), a car, and endless amounts of consumer products—along with the American dream of perhaps one day owning their own business. Workers became invested in a system that is actively against them. And when capitalism went through another crisis during the 1970s, labor unions were excluded from the circle of economic decision-making, thereby removing workers from the table once again. In the aftermarket of the 1970s, the working class of the United States has either checked out or become reactionary. In consequence, the proletariat’s conditions have worsened and continue to decline. Contemporary labor conditions in warehouse distribution centers are an excellent example of how workers are robbed of their freedom.
After receiving a bachelor’s in history, I’ve been working in a distribution warehouse located in the largest inland port of the U.S. outside of Chicago. In order to work at the warehouse, one must go through a temp agency. The reasoning the company gives is because the turnover rate is high, so one must go through a 90-day probation period to make sure one is reliable before being hired onto the company. The temp agency offers little or no benefits and takes $1.50 out of every paycheck under the contract they hold with the company. When I applied at the temp agency, the application stated 6am-2:30pm, but on my first day I was asked if I could stay until 4:30pm. Technically, a temp worker can leave at 2:30, but it was made clear by other workers that the company would cut you if you didn’t stay. One older temp worker always left at 2:30. During that time, we would have to work every other Saturday, not mandatory for temps, but the same deal applied. The older worker did not show up one Saturday, and he was cut. The company was having a hard time keeping lumpers. Lumping is labor where one spends one’s shift in the back of semi-trailers building pallets consisting of 45–55-pound bags, six to eight layers high. Aside from the fact that no one wants to do this work, the most common reason the company can’t keep lumpers is that they just can’t work the ten-hour shift, since they were told that they would be working eight hours. They had no prior time to plan their lives around a ten-hour shift. The company expected them to walk in and be able to work ten hours, with no prior knowledge of it. When the ten-hour shift would end none of us knew. Before I started, they had been on tens for a month already. Management was pushing us to do at least 3 trailers a day, offering incentives, and cutting any worker who couldn’t meet their quotas. Then, randomly, one day we came to work and were told we were on eight hours, and the inbound truck number was lower than usual. The next day it was lower, and by the next week, there was no work. During this time, the lumpers did clean up. The number of lumpers started to drop, and I got certified on a forklift and switched to the second shift (10:30am-7pm). It was another 3-4 weeks until work began to pick up for lumpers again. Their conditions have only gotten worse. They are frequently on overtime, understaffed, and their work is only increasing with a recent company decision making the warehouse the main distributing center for the product that gets lumped. For a time, it was common for me to work the first half of my shift as a forklift driver lumping instead, finishing at least one trailer. The experience as a forklift driver is slightly different than a lumper but the conditions are the same.
When I was moved to a forklift position my ninety-day probation was coming to an end. However, since I made a position change, the company started my probation period over again. It would be another 3 months until I would be hired on. If I was someone in desperate need of some type of benefits, that would have been devastating. As a forklift driver overtime is more sporadic. One day we will come into work and be told we’re working overtime till further notice. Then one day we’re told we’re caught up and back on eight hours. The two important things a forklift driver needs to pay attention to are hitting the required number of pallets one needs to touch per day and damaging product. As a temp, if you come in damaging multiple products your first couple weeks, your days are numbered. Now, one may say, isn’t that a reasonable reason to get rid of someone? But they do not know that there is absolutely zero to no training. One is taught how to operate one’s scanner and the basics of whatever task one is directed to do. Everything else one must learn as one goes, for example learning that certain pallets don’t fit in the racks, and there’s a bulk section for taller pallets. Or how you can’t mix up lot numbers when putting product in the bulk. One safety precaution that one would think would be one of the first things new drivers are told is not to mix allergen products that each allergen product has a specific rack. Instead, this is left to the workers to teach the new person, or for the newbie to make the mistake of mixing allergen products, opening the risk of cross-contamination. As a forklift driver, one is basically required to know five different positions. And capable of coming into work and performing any of them. It’s common for me to work in the receiving department, where I’m required to perform two separate positions throughout the day, sometimes three. And any day I can walk into work and be told to work in the shipping department. Right now, we are understaffed, and supply inbound numbers are low. So, it’s common to start the day in one department, and end it in another, work multiple positions, or even get sent to lump, just to keep us busy for eight hours.
There are numerous other examples of poor conditions in the warehouse, for example, unfair punishment of workers. Recently, up to three workers were written up for not reporting a mess. Someone had damaged product and the mess was still in the aisle. The workers were written up for driving past it and continuing to do their work. How do they know the worker isn’t currently reporting it and getting the equipment needed to clean it up? In fact, it was picked up by a worker without any manager having to tell them to. If a worker receives three write-ups, they will be terminated. What was the point of the write-up, putting these workers in a closer position of losing their job? This situation got many of the workers mad, it was understood that it could have happened to any of us, and it was only a matter of luck none of us also drove by the mess. The workers are not totally submissive to their poor conditions. The majority do not like when we are on overtime, or how we are treated. However, it never escalates more than kvetching. The only time that a strike or a walkout was mentioned was when the company issued mandatory vaccines. However, only two people left, every other worker, although many were against it, got the vaccine. One can’t help but wonder why when something has no impact on their conditions, they are willing to go on strike, but when it comes to the things that create poor conditions for them, there’s no mention of going on strike.
The most important thing to understand is that the majority of workers are working to survive. They have rents, mortgages, car payments, health costs, child costs, and one can’t forget the need to eat on top of everything else one has to pay to live. Yes, conditions are poor, but what can workers do, when they must wake up and live every day? They cannot afford to be out of work. Workers fail to see that their power is in their time. The biggest leverage the workers have against their employer is their time, that is what they pay us for. One of the greatest victories in labor history was winning the 8-hour day. Workers need a seat at the table of decision-making. Workers are completely kept out of the loop of what’s happening. Historically, a union would provide workers with the power to assert their will. However, many workers in the U.S. are anti-union. They view unions as just another reduction from their pay, a remnant from the days of deindustrialization, when the unions abandoned workers, and union leadership had undergone bourgeoisification. The biggest problem workers face is that there is no working-class identity in the United States. Workers have been turned into individual consumers. Workers must form a common identity related to their conditions. Only then will they band together in solidarity to better their conditions and fight for a better future for themselves and their children. What happens instead? In the town nearest to which I live the focus for the past few months has been changing the local high school mascot. The current team is called the “Redskins.” My father was telling me how many people from the town went to the local meeting to discuss whether to change the name. The vote was in favor of keeping the mascot 5-4. While my dad was telling me about the passions of the meeting and how many people were mad about the change, my only response was simply, How does keeping or changing the name affect their living conditions? So, they got to keep the name. Great! In four years, half the team will be working in a warehouse, with little or no benefits, under poor conditions, on low pay, and renting what their parents use to mortgage, but at least they get to keep their mascot name in high school, right? Not that I don’t think the name should be changed, I do, but the important point being made is that WE ALL suffer by working within a capitalist economy. The left needs to focus first and foremost on changing the conditions of labor, and finally, when the base of capitalism has transitioned to socialism, the superstructural stuff will follow.
Signed,
Cody (Kern)
Normal Thoughts 