How many times have you heard or voiced the sentiment that someone lazing about on welfare ought to go down to McDonald’s and flip burgers or go and work a cash register at a discount store? Certainly, people should take responsibility for themselves and for their families, and obtaining gainful employment seems to be the most obvious answer to the problems we associate with poverty.

However, for those relatively unskilled members of the labor force, even full-time employment leaves them in a class of working poor, a sort of economic purgatory between welfare dependence and a living wage.

When I worked in a nursing home during high school, I certainly made more than my classmates at the Dairy Queen, but had I been a single parent like so many of my co-workers, my child and I would have been living below the poverty line. Those who worked the night shift on Christmas, and every day bathed and fed the elderly and infirm, were often forced to choose whether to enroll in the company insurance plan, knowing that a sizable chunk of their wages would go to something they may not use or might desperately need.

The only monetary certainty was knowing how tough it would be to pay for food, clothes and their rent if they enrolled in the insurance program.

I remember talking to a co-worker on her smoke break. She had already had two heart attacks, and her kids had just helped her buy a trailer house, but since she was taking care of a terminally ill brother, her finances were stretched to the max. She dragged on her cigarette and told me the company insurance would take her for $800 a month. The $100 it would leave was simply inadequate.

She was a walking time bomb: overweight, high blood pressure, a smoker, two heart attacks and she couldn’t justify having health insurance.

Like so many others I encountered in nearly five years at the nursing home, her health was subordinated by the wages she earned as a health-care worker. People who couldn’t afford to take a sick day cared for patients while battling the flu or an upper respiratory infection; in a few weeks, we would be caring for patients with the same complaints.

During college I worked as a temporary employee at Wal-Mart. Even though my stay was only about a month and a half, it was more than enough to develop a strong distaste for the company.

Several disconcerting aspects of our orientation bear mentioning. After all the schmaltzy Sam Walton footage, we were regaled with Wal-Mart’s international expansion. The first “international” location mentioned? Puerto Rico. I managed not to ask the trainer since when places with members of Congress were considered international.

We breezed over company procedure, going over things like operating a cash register and what to do with shoplifters, and were stuck in a glut of low-budget training videos describing Wal-Mart’s anti-union stance.

The video hilariously depicted the evil pinko union recruiter sidling up to unsuspecting blue-vested Wal-Mart drones and, akin to the nefarious drug dealers in public service announcements, tempting the employee to “just try it.”

The video narrator gave us tips for “just saying no” to the union organizers who lurked amongst the clothing racks or loitered in the parking lot, or who might accost us in the restrooms with their pro-union propaganda.

The end of each of these videos in the series culminated with telling us how unions would only take away our hard-earned money and with Wal-Mart’s employee-friendly policy, we would never need anyone but ourselves to advocate on our behalf.

Some employees of Wal-Mart are trying to change the company’s anti-union policy and report being blacklisted for their activism. In late November, Wal-Marts around the country saw protests, their company policies called into question by workers who want to organize and lobby for better health insurance, compensation and working conditions.

Certainly, a company like Wal-Mart must mind its bottom line to be successful. But often, a company and its bottom line are not aligned with the needs of workers.

While any attempt to increase employee benefits such as wages, insurance and retirement plans may affect a company’s balance sheet, in the past year, we have seen plenty of companies employ less-than-financially-solvent methods to shower their executives while ignoring their workers.

If workers had the opportunity to voluntarily join organizations they believe will further their lot, they should have the freedom to do so.

Unions are not the silver bullets for all the problems facing low-wage earning workers in America.

However, without a forum for furthering requests and complaints, the cycle of the working poor will only be perpetuated.

As consumers in support of workers’ rights, supporting firms who do allow their employees the freedom to join groups that advocate is one way to demonstrate a willingness to pay for fairly compensated labor.

Until U.S. consumers are willing to vote with their pocketbooks in support of companies with progressive labor policies, we will still have health-care workers in poor health and discount store workers who ring up thousands of dollars of Christmas gifts every day in December while wondering how to make it to the end of the month.

Rachel Faber

Machacha

is a graduate student in international development studies from Emmetsburg. She is a member of the Daily’s editorial board.