THE TWO GAUNT rich guys currently vying for the attention of a fat, broke electorate talk about “jobs” all the time, and their minions spin the latest unemployment numbers back and forth like sports talk radio callers parsing an on-base percentage. The candidates also speak frequently about “hard-working middle-class families” and employ a variety of euphemisms for the working class. But because running for president is an exercise in sentimental abstraction, the working lives of Americans rarely crack the surface of a campaign. It’s very difficult for candidates to talk with any meaningful precision about who’s working and who isn’t, what the work is like, and what kind of life it makes possible.
So Jeanne Marie Laskas’ new book, “Hidden America,” comes along at just the right moment to provide a useful perspective. Laskas examines the lives of coal miners, migrant fruit-pickers, air traffic controllers, oil rig workers, truckers, landfill workers, and others who do vital but often invisible labor. We want electricity when we flip the light switch, we want to order something online and have it show up on our doorstep soon after, we want to fly without incident. But on the rare occasions when consumers think about those whose labor makes such things possible, it’s usually because some of these workers died on the job, screwed up, or went on strike. “If the disconnect between us (the people who demand) and them (the people who supply) says anything about us, it’s probably not flattering,” writes Laskas.
Comments
Nice tone to the article. Don't think many people will get it, though.
I disagree. Most people will get it and react favorably to the mix of empathy, reality, as well as the author's skepticism on the motives of our red and blue politicians. Nicely written piece.
I am also reminded by this article of firefighters, police officers and nurses, who job is to save your posterior, but, somehow, only seem to be remember during the times when they have said 'no' to the demand that they kiss the same.
Can't type this AM. whose job...remembered. My former English teacher Bro. Flynn must be turning over in his grave.
The politician that emphasizes the realities of this article would lose, and would continue to lose until ordinary folks care...if they will ever care!
This comment has been removed.
Can't believe the Pope and birth control found their way into this discussion. See what happens when you give a lib a chance to rant: ONE TRACK MIND.
As far as the article goes, I real the Grapes of Wrath in the 5th grade. I don't need the Globe to enlighten me!
So you must be in the 6th grade by now!
This comment has been removed.
Also recommend: Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America. (about 2005?) Barbara Erenreich goes undercover into several low wage jobs and writes about it.