'Nickel and Dimed' makes dollars and sense for business students
By Janel Prejean and Mark Ruiz
When Professor Shawn Berman, a Dean Witter Associate Fellow for the management department, invited his capstone classes to see a play in San Francisco about Wal-Mart, he fulfilled university claims of valuable student-professor relationships that previously seemed unfounded.
However, "Nickel and Dimed," a play based on the book by journalist Barbara Ehrenreich, wasn't exactly about Wal-Mart; it was about "Lenny's Restaurant," a cleaning service, and "Mal-Mart." The play investigates the difficulties of surviving in America on a minimum wage salary. Ehrenreich, an upper-middle-class writer, set out to discover whether or not a single woman could support herself on such a meager income. To accomplish this, she went to three different towns, finding an apartment and job in each. Her goal was to keep each job for at least one month. She was only able to accomplish this once.
Obviously, these minimum wage workers lead very difficult and challenging lives. For example, they can't assert their rights as workers (worker's comp, overtime pay, etc.) because they simply cannot afford to anger their bosses and risk losing their jobs. Also, these workers must contend with abuse from both managers and customers alike, and this kind of oppressive dominance is precisely what Ehrenreich found most difficult to deal with during her experiential research.
Although we fully sympathize with the workers, we cannot say that we're shocked by their circumstances. Having worked in difficult jobs, we can understand their many hardships. However, there was always that metaphorical bright light at the end of the tunnel: the chance to go to college. As people who do have an alternative to dead-end, low-wage jobs, can we ever really know what it is like to be in that type of desperate situation? Was Barbara Ehrenreich doomed to fail in her quest to understand life as a cleaning lady or as a worker at "Mal-Mart?" Can we really understand someone by walking a mile in his or her shoes? Those shoes might not seem so unbearable if we know our flip-flops await us.
These questions provoked discussion within our class. Namely, is the "Homeless for a Day" program condescending? A friend of mine was homeless for a few nights and he said that alcohol is absolutely necessary because he was too cold and too scared to sleep without it. Does an outdoor sleepover in front of the campus bookstore really capture the reality of homelessness? Another question that arose: why are we so surprised at the behavior of Wal-Mart and companies like it? Labor supply is increasing while labor demand is falling, so how can wages possibly rise? Instead of getting mad at the companies, shouldn't we reconsider our immigration policy or the trend of U.S. companies transferring manufacturing jobs overseas?
What is our role in protecting unskilled workers? Would a real living wage help?
Short of just giving people money, what options do we have to make life easier for minimum wage workers. One is that we probably shouldn't reserve trips to Denny's for only after we've consumed large quantities of alcohol. Two, we should just smile more. And three, we should tip more for everything: cleaning services, hotel workers, waitresses, etc. These are small things, but the differences they make are huge.
Our class "field-trip" was a valuable experience. It was a time for business students to get to know one another in an environment that was somewhere between class and partying. We need more professors like Berman, who take a genuinely active interest in their students. We also need a lot more activities that provoke serious discussion among business majors.