Every Day Search

A quick Google search on “every day terror” brings several articles about the street vendor in New York City who brought up the suspicious SUV left in Times Square to the cops’ attention. The search on “every day human rights” results in a series of websites demanding action against violations suffered by children and women in developing countries around the world. When searching for “every day genocide,” one can expect a variety of books on how genocide affected the every day lives of those involved in such cases. What surprised me the most was the lack of sources looking to prevent terror, genocide and human rights violations. All search results were based on events that are happening or have already happened. Have we not learned to identify these issues until it’s too late? Or, are we just not looking carefully enough?

I recently heard a story on the radio about Fred Harvey, an Englishman who changed the way the restaurant business was done in the U.S. west in the 1880s. According to a new book on the businessman, "in New Mexico, all waiters at that time were African-American men, and there was an incredible amount of racism." Harvey wanted to change not only the quality of food but also of service. His solution: bring single white women from the Midwest to serve tables.

The Harvey Girls were to become the first female work force in the U.S. Allowing women to earn their own money, came at a high price though. Every girl was to sign a contract restricting her from getting married in the following six months. Furthermore, all Harvey Girls were to live to together in barracks for the duration of their employment.

I understand the context in which this occurred is different from today’s; however, how did the decisions made by Harvey in the 1880s affected women’s right for the years to come? My main concern is expectations of women in the labor market. Marriage and pregnancy have always been a concern for employers hiring women, in Harvey’s case to the point of legally prohibiting the first. It was over 100 years later, in 1993, that The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) made it legally okay for women in the labor force to get pregnant and give birth without having to leave their job. Men were fast to catch up since the Act applies to both male and female.

So, what is my point? My point is that in the 1880s few may have noticed how the Harvey Girls were shaping women’s rights in the labor force. Today, there are many issues we must closely observe AND speak out against before it’s too late. Whether it’s exploitation at Chipotle or a national coffee shop, a flawed education system focused on standardized testing and pleasing teacher unions, the denial of health care for all residents of a world power, or racial profiling in Arizona, we must keep our eyes open wide to avoid terror, genocide and human rights violations.

Of Burritos and Exploitation

A couple of years ago, while still living in Austin, TX, I decided to have lunch at Chipotle. Perhaps due to my immersion in a sociological theory class I had been taking, this visit was unlike previous ones; it changed the quotidian experience of buying a burrito into real life illustration of subtle worker exploitation.

Although the location was inundated with burrito-craving customers, the line moved rather quickly; this encouraged me to stay. As I ate, I could not help but to notice the efficiency and alacrity of the lunch shift workers. The burrito-making process resembled a factory assembly line; in fact, the assembly and sale of my burrito had taken four people, excluding the cooks. It was obvious that the intensity of the process and the productivity of each worker increased significantly at lunch time, while their low, hourly wage did not.

Accustomed to the economic rationale under which businesses nowadays operate, we may not think much of this, if any. To us, it is just a burrito. However, absorbed in theoretical readings, which included Marxist theory, I noticed that these workers satisfied Marx’s maxim that “the worker becomes poorer the more wealth he produces, the more his production increases in power and extent” (in Alienated Labor). The number of burritos they produced per minute, per hour, or whatever measure, was not positively correlated to their hourly wage, which remained constant. Hence, each additional unit of output translated into diminishing earnings per unit of input effort. To illustrate, while the restaurant owner profited from forty burritos the first hour and from one hundred the second, the workers continued to make the same hourly wage throughout, but worked harder.

Despite our proclivity to view this as a triviality of the labor market, one should consider that in other jobs, employee compensation increases with the amount of input effort, measured in some specific way, such as number of insurance policies sold or number of baskets of tomatoes collected. In a profit-driven world, the employer’s choice between hourly wage and fixed compensation per unit of something is economically rational: reduce costs, maximize profit. Usually, the worker, limited by his/her immediate skills and trade, abides by the method chosen without his/her best interests in mind and enters an exploitative relationship.

At the time of Marx’s writings, the world economy was dominated by the manufacturing industry, the factories; hence Marx mainly discussed physical labor or labor that can be externalized and objectified into a tangible good. However, with the rise of the tertiary sector in the world economy, other aspects of labor first overlooked my Marx must be taken into account to clearly understand how this current exploitative relation also encroaches on what we consider our non-marketable humanity.

Biting once more into my burrito, I thought of Arlie Hochschild’s work on the commercialization of human feeling and the growing service sector. Sitting in my booth, with Hochschild in mind, I noticed that some of the workers not only made burritos but offered smiles, kindness and thanked patrons. They in fact conveyed an emotion for a wage. As noticed by Hochschild in other studies, what the worker ought to feel is decided in advanced by the company. Already not entitled to directly benefit from their labor and productivity, the burrito workers, as other service workers in America and worldwide, have also given up part of their humanity, of their private life, for the economic gain of the owners. Not being tangible, I must note, emotions remain non-measurable in units of output and therefore subject to subjective compensation, subject to exploitation.

While writing this piece about what I know should have been a trivial experience, I feel as if I should ask the reader not to reach conclusion I am not in exploring this area of everyday life. While I recognize that many workers would not consider their employment relations as exploitative, that many workers consider their compensations fair and that many workers do have some level of choice, I am noting that many can find themselves exploited, if subtly, and lacking a choice. If a worker voluntarily enters an exploitative relationship, is this any less exploitative? Is this any less of a human right violation? I do not yet have a concrete answer to this question and leave it open to discussion. However, whether having a burrito, a hamburger or a pizza, one should not forget that something as ostensibly trifling as a lunch choice can have significant human rights implications.

Everyday Stories of Terror, Genocide and Human Rights: The Barista

   Please, do not misunderstand me when I relate the story of an employee of a nationally owned coffee shop in our Baltimore neighborhood as a way to approach the object of our studies – there ARE graver and imminently more violent, more terrifying events and issues to cover. But there are also more everyday approaches to consider, more mundane objects to identify and different perspectives to explore.

   I was just standing in line, waiting to place my order, watching the three clerks or “partners” on the morning shift go about their business, taking customers’ orders, filling them, thanking us for our business, when I asked for water. I ordered a hot drink first, probably a coffee, maybe an espresso or tea, too. But then it struck me that the barista who was serving me pushed a button on his register to make note of the order for a tall water [I assume they do not also make note of the size of the cup of water]. Without looking up, the barista began to explain this computation to one of the other two baristas standing nearby that the water did not cost the customer anything extra (my reaction: whew!), but it was still important to register this transaction for water. So I asked why, after we had completed my transaction, and it turns out that registering water, as my barista explained, is a measure of the baristas’ work, which is used to determine how many baristas the company needs to employ – not (!), I might add, to augment employees’ wages. In response to my follow up questions, other such transactions that require more effort from the worker as well as incur more cost for the owner, but do not result in a higher cost to the customer include using the oven to heat pastries and sandwiches. Other baristas do not always make note of these transactions because they do not cost the customer anything more, but my barista said that his coworkers should note these transactions more often.

   Why (I thought out loud)? Registering more work does not directly benefit the employee – the one who does the extra work - even this minuscule task, taking time and effort to complete it. It means more work and requires workers to police each other in more detail in their work. If there are benefits for the worker, they must be more indirect. Knowing the right number of employees needed for the work, one could argue, may even translate into more workers for more work and therefore, a more humane and socially just corporation – just not more wages. Such measures are clearly intended to increase the efficiencies of the business. in favor for the owner, and perhaps, over time, the benefit of its "partners."  All pennies, but pennies add up. To me, it is just coffee and a free water.