watch it: “Ten Dollars an Hour”
Excellent short documentary on economic inequalities many people never even notice:
Ten Dollars an Hour from Ben Guest on Vimeo.
(more below the ad... scroll down...)
The level of cluelessness on display here is astonishing. Of course the kitchen worker says, “No problem, I’ll be there” when asked to work extra days: she’s terrified of losing even this crappy job, and because she only gets paid a lousy ten bucks an hour, she always needs more money. She’s not doing it out of kindness and consideration for you, Mr. Boss Man.
Via Suburban Guerrilla, where Susie Madrak has tagged this “Class War” and “Fuck the Poor,” and rightly so.
(links here are good for finding recent posts, but will not be fully functional till I finish tagging 11 years worth of reviews and blog entries; I'll post a notice when tagging is done)
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comments
posted by Accounting Ninja (Mon Oct 12 09, 2:45PM)
Wow, awesome class smackdown. That poor woman.
posted by Victor Plenty (Mon Oct 12 09, 6:06PM)
"Meritocracy" for the win. If she'd wanted to be paid more than ten dollars an hour, she should have had the good sense, self control, and Protestant work ethic to be born into a wealthy white family.
posted by Alli (Mon Oct 12 09, 6:26PM)
Am I the only one who wants to punch that house mother in the mouth? 25 cents an hour for their attitude... Let's just treat these grown women like children, shall we?
posted by Tonio Kruger (Mon Oct 12 09, 6:52PM)
Perhaps because they're more preoccupied with more important matters like how crappy the food tastes at Appleby's...
Because, of course, that's my Mexican-born father and most of his siblings got out of the Detroit slums...
posted by chuck (Tue Oct 13 09, 2:46AM)
Agreed, that lady really thinks that $0.25 is the big prize, and in a really snot dripping way.
Most of us would not stand for that treatment, but some do, why?
Hanging on to a job with all your strength just empowers a bad employer to be bad, it allows them think that they are doing you a big favor with that $0.25 raise.
I am afraid that the cook in this story is in just such a position. Her employer is certain they have her where they want her and they undervalue her. Not much can change that. The cooks only way out is to seek work elsewhere. She has likely learned a great deal about cooking for large groups and is probably more marketable than she believes she is.
The problem is, she probably believes that she would have a hard time finding anything better and therefore takes the safe route and clings on.
Who knows if this is the case or not. I have met lots of people over the years who undervalue themselves and often their employers undervalue them too. They tend to work the same place for years under valued and under appreciated.
posted by Ben Guest (Thu Oct 15 09, 8:38PM)
I'm the filmmaker. Thanks for posting.