The sorry state of labor this Labor Day
Labor Day is a day we honor American workers and recognize the great gains we’ve made from the days when children worked in factories. It’s generally devoid of the larger political meaning for most Americans. It’s the end of the summer season for us. May Day, the first day of May, is the celebration of labor for most of the world even though it has its origins here in the U.S.
And here in the U.S. the labor movement is barely breathing even though it’s needed more than ever. I’m not a member of a union though I’d gladly join one. I work in public relations now, having “gone over to the dark side” from journalism two years ago.
And the news business is suffering and still handing out layoffs left and right. I’ve seen journalists and writers training their Indian replacements before being laid off. There wasn’t a union around to do anything about that; a real labor union would have fought tooth and nail to stop that and at least made sure the executive who thought that up was given an attitude adjustment.
In the public relations agency business, you have a number of different bosses in the form of the clients the firm represents. Some of these clients are very bright and savvy businesspeople who are a pleasure to work with and some of them are ignorant succubae who think they should be on the front page of the Wall Street Journal every week. I’m the oldest person in the small office and the one with the most journalism experience.
Just this past week, I got an email from a client at 7:50 p.m. Friday night and another one Saturday night at around 8:30 p.m. This is needless head game crap from a high-maintenance client and I’m not going to be part of it. Bosses and customers are like dogs not because they are loyal and lovable but because they have to be trained and housebroken. A client or manager will shit all over everything and eat your lunch if you let them. So I am going to patiently wait until our long weekend is over before I respond to these weekend emails. Unless a client’s CEO kills a hooker, I’m not going to work weekends.
There’s a sick strain in our culture where people claim to work absurdly long hours, trying to look like they’re some kind of mad workaholic genius. It’s really stupid, phony and transparent to think that sending emails at bizarre times means you’re a harder worker or better at your job. You don’t look dedicated when you do that, you look dumb.
I am convinced that my boss once emailed me from the toilet in the men’s room of our office. It’s a small office and I got an email from him and he wasn’t at his desk and there was no one in the conference room. Perhaps I should have been insulted but I thought it was funny. I wanted to respond to him that I was convinced he was on the toilet when he sent this email, but that might have been counterproductive. On one hand I admired his ability to multitask at all costs and his ability to be doubly productive while ensconced on the company throne. I cannot help but smile at the thought of our leader addressing an important client matter while squeezing out a growler.
But on the other hand, having to work at your job while sitting on the toilet is a sad state of affairs. If ever there is a time that a person should be alone with their own thoughts and have a moment of quiet personal contemplation, it should be their bathroom time. No one would consider it proper to send work emails from their smart phone while sitting in church, and the toilet has become the de facto confessional and meditation center of the American worker today. I don’t ever want to have a job where I feel it’s necessary to send work emails while sitting on the toilet.
At any rate, I like my boss well enough but don’t want his job. If I ever decide to quit in a big way, I’ll walk out and head home, maintaining a Zen-like calm over everything as the chaos and bad blood swirls around me. The media business is a rough business and those that work in and around it know that the times are changing faster than we can keep up with it. If you have a job in media or public relations, you are closer to unemployment than you’d like to think.
I’m lucky this Labor Day because despite the sorry state of American labor I have a wife who would forgive me if I quit tomorrow and dug ditches for a living. As long as I have hands that will work and feet that will carry me to the next work site, I will keep a roof over my family’s head and food in their stomachs.
Making a dent in the world of media “interns” and “entry level” jobs
Recent rules issued by the U. S. Department of Labor have mandated overtime pay for employees who work more than 40 hours a week if they earn $47,476 per year or less. That adds a lot of people to overtime and will put a much-deserved dent into the business models of innumerable shady corporations. It’s one of those rule adjustments that outgoing administrations do: it’s something Obama wants credit for but wasn’t willing to spend any political capital on.
The New York Times pointed out that this plan threatens to disrupt the “Prada Economy,” referring to the novel and film “The Devil Wears Prada,” a fictionalized account of working for Vogue editor Anna Wintour. That many publications or institutions of measurable influence are horrible places to work is no surprise at this point. I know people with Masters degrees who are brilliant at what they do yet live in poverty because access to paying work in their field is through unpaid or nearly-unpaid work.
A friend I worked with years ago once had a job interview with the prestigious Paris Review. George Plimpton asked her at once point, “How important is it to you to get paid?” She was newly arrived to New York City and getting paid was very important with any job she took and she told Plimpton that. She did not get the job.
When I was trying to get a writing job I managed to get an interview with a trade publication (Chemical Week – it is still around) and after a few rounds of interviews and a writing test they wanted me to come in and work for a while. “Don’t do it unless you can stay at least four hours,” the editor told me. I came in and worked a full day, writing some stories, re-writing news briefs and the like. I never heard back from them. A year or two later I discovered that they had published some of my work and never paid me for it. When I contacted the editor all he did was send me a photo copy of the pages of the magazine in which my work appeared. As rotten as that is, it’s kids’ stuff. I know freelancers who struggle to get paid by name-brand companies and mainstream publications.
There are instances where low-paid or even unpaid internships are acceptable and permissible. When I was in college and able to live with parents, I had an internship on a gubernatorial campaign. I worked some incredibly long hours driving our candidate around the state of Georgia in the summer heat for a month, at one point not sleeping for more than two or three hours. It was an incredibly fun time and I was paid only $100 per week. But that was when I could afford to do that and it was only a temporary assignment. Colleges and parents can often subsidize interns. Once people graduate college, they usually have to start paying the rent and start trying to pay down their student loans.
Using an internship as an unpaid apprenticeship for large, for-profit institutions is unacceptable. You shouldn’t’ have to be a sucker to pursue your dreams. And in the end it’s the publications that suffer. If the only people able to work in the arts or media are wealthy scions or sociopaths who still live in their parents’ basement past the age of 30, then you’re not going to get the best minds of your generation.
I wouldn’t be surprised to find that a lot of companies give raises to overworked employees to $47,477 per year just to skirt these rules. But maybe that may be a kind of back-handed victory in and of itself if enough people get raises. They’ll still be overworked and underpaid, but underpaid by a little less. In these times, we’ll take what we can get.
Matthew Sheahan 
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