That’s what happened the time my grandfather took a day job shoveling out a railroad car during the Depression. At that time, you didn’t know when the next job might present itself, so you took a job when offered, and you were grateful for the chance to earn something, when the next guy might get nothing. So he took the job shoveling out the railroad car. He spent a hard day shoveling salt. And by the end of the day, when they dished out the day’s wage? Well, instead of feeding the family, it had to go to buying him a new pair of boots to replace the ones the salt had ruined.
That sort of deal didn’t end with the New Deal. It’s just as prevalent here at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Some call it ‘Working in Retail’. Some call it ‘The Sharing Economy.’ Others call it On-Demand Staffing or 'Flexible Staffing Practices'. Full Availability is a system where it seems the employer has all the rights to organize the employee’s time. It is not uncommon in retail – and increasingly, in other sectors – to receive your schedule shortly before the week begins, and to be notified that you are “on call” in case of an unexpected surge in customers, expected to report on as little as two hours’ notice. All of this for the extravagant wage of $7.25 to $10 an hour.
Of course, with your employer’s needs as your central organizing principle, you have precious little energy to devote to organizing anything else: child care, or a search for a better job, or your fellow employees. It goes beyond paycheck-to-paycheck and ends up being more like hand-to-mouth.