Week of October 5, 2010

The headnote to this chapter is also the title of the documentary you saw last week. The last time I offered this class I showed the folm after the reading assignment. This time I thought I'd reverse the project. If anyone could claim the title of father of the documentary it would probably be Edward R. Murrow. Some of you may have seen George Clooney's film biography of him, Good Night and Good Luck, nominated for a slew of Academy Awards. Shipler has chosen to title his chapter about migrant workers in honor of Murrow, beginning it with a quote from Murrow’s most famous documentary. Now that you've seen it, read what life was like for migrant workers about 40 years later. What progress has been made since 1960? What remains to be done? Lest one think the problems of migratory workers is something present in other parts of the country only, numbers of them visit Rhode Island every fall to pick apples.

For more than a century farmworkers had been denied a decent life in the fields and communities of California's agricultural valleys. Essential to the state's biggest industry, but only so long as they remained exploited and submissive farmworkers had tried but failed so many times to organize the giant agribusiness farms that most observers considered it a hopeless task. And yet by the early 1960's things were beginning to change beneath the surface. Within another fifteen years more than 50,000 farmworkers were protected by union contracts.

The quotation is taken from the website of the United Farm Workers, the legacy of Cesar Chavez, whose picture appears above. Click on the picture for a brief biography provided by the library of Congress. To visit the United Farm Workers website, CLICK HERE

I'm hoping you'll have gone to hear Tracy Kidder speak about his book, Mountains Beyond Mountains. The person about whom the book was written, Doctor Paul Fellows was influenced in his choice of vocation and mission in life by his meeting migrant workers in the tobacco fields of Virginia.

This chapter and the one which follows may be the two saddest chapters in Shipler’s book, yet even here, there are moments where people might dare to hope. As you read chapter 5, I’d like to have you think a little about how you felt when you first applied for a job? I’m going to ask people about this. I’m curious, for one thing, how many of you found your first employment by “networking”...working for a friend of parents, or perhaps for your parents themselves. I’m also wondering if that made a difference in the application process or in your first experiences on the worksite. I’m hoping volunteers will tell us a little about their experiences.

What happens when there is a gulf between classes? What kinds of misconceptions do employers and employees have about each other when they sit on opposite sides of the class divide? You’ll find a number of different narratives in this chapter. You’ll also encounter employers who approach the problem in very different ways. Which, in your estimation is the best, and has the best insight into how to work creatively with the working poor–not only for their benefit, but for the benefit of the business, as well. Which is most captive of his own stereotypes? Why can the workplace be an especially daunting (scary) place for those in poverty?

Bosses versus workers

When I take a long time, I am slow.

When my boss takes a long time, he is thorough.

When I don't do it, I am lazy.

When my boss doesn't do it, he's too busy.

When I do it without being told, I'm trying to be smart.

When my boss does the same, that is initiative.

When I please my boss, that's brown-nosing.

When my boss pleases his boss, that's co-operating.

When I do good, my boss never remembers.

When I do wrong, he never forgets.

Depending on how things went last Thursday, we may want to spend a little more time reacting to the video People Like Us. I want to explore laughter a little. As I asked when you left class last Thursday, think about what made you laugh, and why? Maybe write about it a little bit, too.