Sociology 4949: Outline--Week Eight

Sociology 4949: Week Eight

I. No Shame in My Game, part II

A. Getting a Job

1. Among Harlem's fast food establishments, ratio of applicants to jobs is 14/1

2. Majority of 200 workers in her study had begun their work lives when they were 13-15... begin to cover "marginal cost" of living in household

a. bagging groceries

b. "summer youth"

c. "Walking all over town, calling in at every place that looks likely, can indeed produce job possibilities...but not as many as most job-seekers hope. Harlem's Burger Barn owners have whole closets full of applications completed by the walk-in trade, so many in fact that they cannot review more than a fraction of them, even when they are hiring."

d. Social networks... e.g. "People in my family find jobs mostly through my grandmother." (She's worked at the same daycare center for 17 years).... those with large families advantaged, and if they work out well, can often bring in siblings or cousins.... but at the same time, they have to protect their own credibility (which is why networks are so useful to employers)

B. The Social Costs of Low-Wage Work: the grief these workers take as they walk/bus to work wearing their uniforms....

C. The nonmonetary benefits of working at Burger Barn

1. The time squeeze... you don't have time to hang out with your nonworking peers... (Travis Hirschi, control theory)

2. Your friends apt to become your co-workers for a variety of reasons... and these are people who are committed to the values of work.

"I've been working at Burger Barn for a little more than a year now. The best thing that's happened there is that almost all my friends--no, all my friends--are from work."

Q, p. 116

Often friendship across race and ethnic lines.

3. Romantic relationships may also grow out of this setting. e.g. Kyesha and Ron both worked at Burger Barn, and between them make about $9/hr... though their relationship didn't last, they both contribute to the care of their son

4. The impact of scheduled work, as it affects personal organization and motivation. Q, 123.

5. Burger Barn employees attending high school, graduating high school, attending post-secondary education, in greater numbers than their unemployed peers. Employers and managers very explicitly promote school achievement... the owners of these businesses were themselves minorities, with a "missionary zeal" about schooling and hard work... they visit schools for career days, they want to see report cards. Q, 129

There's also the negative lesson; you don't want to be doing this kind of work all your life and you see older folks without the schooling doing exactly that...

In the case of Burger Barn employees attending college, Newman cites incidents of managers advancing pay to meet tuition deadlines and rearranging schedules each term.

D. Challenges of work that are not at all obvious from the outside

1. Rush hour and absenteeism necessitate "work-arounds" and a lot of teamwork

2. Customer relations problems discussed earlier

3. Multi-cultural environment, both with fellow workers and with customers.

4. Training of new workers (supposedly based on video tapes, but tapes missing, vcr not working, etc.)

"They can communicate at a very rudimentary level in several dialects, and they know enough about each others cultural traditions to be able to interpret actions, practices, dress styles, and gender norms in ways that smooth over what could become major conflicts on the street."

E. Getting stuck, moving up

1. Newman's belief that these jobs should be treated as teaching some major lessons that could generalize to better paid and more prestigious jobs, but the public image of these jobs gets in the way.

Workers themselves don't see what Newman sees. When she asks them to explain the skills involved in their jobs, they look surprised and say something along the lines of "Any fool could do this job."

2. Constant search for better jobs. Civil service tests, putting in applications.

3. Wilson, When Work Disappears. Chapter on attitudes of employers toward inner city applicants, including many minority employers

4. Networks: crucial for getting their fast food jobs in the first place or getting another job if their job ends.

a. Others in their networks apt to be poor themselves and therefore not a point of contact for better jobs.

b. Also quite a few with grandparents, parents or other relatives in better paying (often unionized jobs--factories, hospitals) but in industries experiencing lots of layoffs and limited ability to help.

5. Advancement in the workplace. Burger Barn mostly promotes from within, but many more low level workers than managers. Still, for workers who show extra initiative and leadership, they may be able to move up.

6. Work ethic. Newman thinks these Harlem Burger Barn employees may well work harder and younger, for less pay, than their suburban counterparts... in some cases, their parents are themselves models of hard work in lowly jobs... in other cases, it's more of a negative example and shows the teen what s/he doesn't want.

7. Relationship between those with what Elijah Anderson calls "street values" and what he calls "decent values"... "A Code of Honor regulates the relationships between denizens of the underground economy and the straight residents of inner city neighborhoods; you don't deliberately harm people you've known a long time, unless they get tangled up in your business affairs.... For this reason, the working poor are careful to acknowledge the troublemakers... Building this social relationship... is a protective act."

B. Availability of jobs: the jobseekers' sample (a random sample of about 100 workers who had tried to get jobs at Burger Barns in central Harlem)

1. 73% of those who applied for jobs at Burger Barns were unemployed one year later, when Newman's team tracked them down... and many of them had been looking for jobs all over the city... had to add pages to their questionnaire to list all the places

2. Dominicans and other Latinos more often successful in their job search (at least partly the product of employer preference not to hire locals)

3. The younger job seekers having an increasingly hard time.

4. The network-poor job seeker stands little chance.

5. The longer you've been here (the U.S.), the harder it gets. 25% of the native-born had found jobs; 40% of the foreign born

6. Do job applicants have unreasonable expectations? No, on average willing to accept minimum wage, even when they'd worked for more in the past.

7. Very few of these job seekers have never worked, and they have worked at jobs that are low in prestige and low in pay.

"To maintain, as many political figures anxious to cut welfare rolls do, that anyone who wants a job can get one is clearly to ignore the facts."

II. Takaki, chapter 8: "Searching for Gold Mountain"

A. Combination of pushes and pulls that brought Chinese men to the U.S. beginning around 1850

1. Defeat of Chinese government by Western imperial powers in the Opium Wars led to large indemnities and heavy taxes on Chinese peasants... many lost their lands

2. Economic opportunities in the U.S.: gold mining, railway construction, farm labor

B. Many viewed themselves as sojourners--planning to return to their wives and families with their earnings

1. Largely male society

2. Chinatown in San Francisco already by 1850s

3. What Chinese women came often brought forcibly as prostitutes

a. Debt peonage

b. 1870 census: 61% of 3,536 Chinese women in California listed occupation as prostitute

C. Met with racism and violence, especially when the economy turned weak

1. Effort to form railway union crushed by employers

2. Not eligible for citizenship: remember 1790 federal law limited citizenship to whites

3. Stereotypes that grouped Chinese with blacks and Indians as nonwhite... e.g. couldn't testify against whites in court

4. Eventually often self-employment the only viable way to make a living: by 1900 one in 4 employed Chinese in California worked in laundries

5. Chinese Six Companies tried to influence American policy: noted racism in treatment of Chinese, who were few in number compared with immigrants from Europe, and who were "persecuted for their virtues"

6. (Seattle)

D. Repeatedly mounted court challenges to their lack of civil rights: compare to court battles by American Indians and African Americans... a few modest victories but....

Sociology 4949: Week Eight

I. No Shame in My Game, part II

A. Getting a Job

1. Among Harlem's fast food establishments, ratio of applicants to jobs is 14/1

2. Majority of 200 workers in her study had begun their work lives when they were 13-15... begin to cover "marginal cost" of living in household

a. bagging groceries

b. "summer youth"

B. The Social Costs of Low-Wage Work: the grief these workers take as they walk/bus to work wearing their uniforms....

C. The nonmonetary benefits of working at Burger Barn

1. The time squeeze... you don't have time to hang out with your nonworking peers... (Travis Hirschi, control theory)

2. Your friends apt to become your co-workers for a variety of reasons... and these are people who are committed to the values of work.

"I've been working at Burger Barn for a little more than a year now. The best thing that's happened there is that almost all my friends--no, all my friends--are from work."

Q, p. 116

Often friendship across race and ethnic lines.

3. Romantic relationships may also grow out of this setting. e.g. Kyesha and Ron both worked at Burger Barn, and between them make about $9/hr... though their relationship didn't last, they both contribute to the care of their son

4. The impact of scheduled work, as it affects personal organization and motivation. Q, 123.

There's also the negative lesson; you don't want to be doing this kind of work all your life and you see older folks without the schooling doing exactly that...

In the case of Burger Barn employees attending college, Newman cites incidents of managers advancing pay to meet tuition deadlines and rearranging schedules each term.

D. Challenges of work that are not at all obvious from the outside

1. Rush hour and absenteeism necessitate "work-arounds" and a lot of teamwork

2. Customer relations problems discussed earlier

3. Multi-cultural environment, both with fellow workers and with customers.

4. Training of new workers (supposedly based on video tapes, but tapes missing, vcr not working, etc.)

"They can communicate at a very rudimentary level in several dialects, and they know enough about each others cultural traditions to be able to interpret actions, practices, dress styles, and gender norms in ways that smooth over what could become major conflicts on the street."

E. Getting stuck, moving up

1. Newman's belief that these jobs should be treated as teaching some major lessons that could generalize to better paid and more prestigious jobs, but the public image of these jobs gets in the way.

Workers themselves don't see what Newman sees. When she asks them to explain the skills involved in their jobs, they look surprised and say something along the lines of "Any fool could do this job."

2. Constant search for better jobs. Civil service tests, putting in applications.

3. Wilson, When Work Disappears. Chapter on attitudes of employers toward inner city applicants, including many minority employers

4. Networks: crucial for getting their fast food jobs in the first place or getting another job if their job ends.

a. Others in their networks apt to be poor themselves and therefore not a point of contact for better jobs.

b. Also quite a few with grandparents, parents or other relatives in better paying (often unionized jobs--factories, hospitals) but in industries experiencing lots of layoffs and limited ability to help.

5. Advancement in the workplace. Burger Barn mostly promotes from within, but many more low level workers than managers. Still, for workers who show extra initiative and leadership, they may be able to move up.

B. Availability of jobs: the jobseekers' sample (a random sample of about 100 workers who had tried to get jobs at Burger Barns in central Harlem)

1. 73% of those who applied for jobs at Burger Barns were unemployed one year later, when Newman's team tracked them down... and many of them had been looking for jobs all over the city... had to add pages to their questionnaire to list all the places

2. Dominicans and other Latinos more often successful in their job search (at least partly the product of employer preference not to hire locals)

3. The younger job seekers having an increasingly hard time.

4. The network-poor job seeker stands little chance.

5. The longer you've been here (the U.S.), the harder it gets. 25% of the native-born had found jobs; 40% of the foreign born

6. Do job applicants have unreasonable expectations? No, on average willing to accept minimum wage, even when they'd worked for more in the past.

7. Very few of these job seekers have never worked, and they have worked at jobs that are low in prestige and low in pay.

"To maintain, as many political figures anxious to cut welfare rolls do, that anyone who wants a job can get one is clearly to ignore the facts."

II. Takaki, chapter 8: "Searching for Gold Mountain"

A. Combination of pushes and pulls that brought Chinese men to the U.S. beginning around 1850

1. Defeat of Chinese government by Western imperial powers in the Opium Wars led to large indemnities and heavy taxes on Chinese peasants... many lost their lands

2. Economic opportunities in the U.S.: gold mining, railway construction, farm labor

B. Many viewed themselves as sojourners--planning to return to their wives and families with their earnings

1. Largely male society

2. Chinatown in San Francisco already by 1850s

3. What Chinese women came often brought forcibly as prostitutes

a. Debt peonage

b. 1870 census: 61% of 3,536 Chinese women in California listed occupation as prostitute

C. Met with racism and violence, especially when the economy turned weak

1. Effort to form railway union crushed by employers

2. Not eligible for citizenship: remember 1790 federal law limited citizenship to whites

3. Stereotypes that grouped Chinese with blacks and Indians as nonwhite... e.g. couldn't testify against whites in court

4. Eventually often self-employment the only viable way to make a living: by 1900 one in 4 employed Chinese in California worked in laundries

5. Chinese Six Companies tried to influence American policy: noted racism in treatment of Chinese, who were few in number compared with immigrants from Europe, and who were "persecuted for their virtues"

6. (Seattle)

D. Repeatedly mounted court challenges to their lack of civil rights: compare to court battles by American Indians and African Americans... a few modest victories but....

E. 1882: Chinese Exclusion Act, renewed and made "permanent" in 1892

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