Working Hard and Hardly Paid: Interviews with Hourly Staff at a Catholic College

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Working Hard and Hardly Paid Interviews with
Hourly Staff at a Catholic College

• By Chelsea Gulling

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Introduction

• Minimum Wage
• American minimum wage laws were implemented in
  1938
• Since 1997 the minimum wage has remained
  stationary at 5.15
• National Poverty line 16,600 for family of
  three
• Living Wage
• The South Bend Living Wage for one adult and one
  child is 13.30 per hour
• Typical South Bend wages Maintenance
  15.97
• 
  Cleaning/Grounds 9.05
• 
  Office Support 11.67

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Thesis

• Through in-depth interviews of hourly staff at a
  Catholic College, this research will show how
  capitalistic idealism infiltrates all sects of
  society, in essence explaining the failure of
  Saint Marys College to implement a Living Wage
  policy.

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Marx and Modern Labor

• Karl Marx The Communist Manifesto Estranged
  Labour
• Capitalism has brought about two classes who are
  in constant conflict the proletariat workers and
  the bourgeoisie land owners.

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Literature Review The Living Wage A Review of
Catholic Social Doctrine

• Karl Marx dies 1883
• Pope Leo XIII Rerum Novarum (1891)

Let the working man and the employer make free
arrangements, and, in particular let them agree
freely to the wages nevertheless there
underlines a dictate of natural justice more
imperious and ancient than any bargain between
man and man, namely that wages ought not to be
insufficient to support a frugal and well-behaved
wage-earner. If through necessity or fear of a
worse evil the workman accept harder conditions
because an employer or contractor will afford him
no better, he is made the victim of force and
injustice.
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Literature Review The Sociology of the Working
Poor

• Effect of childhood and education on low wage
  earnings
• Rubin (1976)
• Johnson (1997)
• Community/Family support
• Edin and Lein (1997)
• (Not) Making it
• Erenreich (2001)
• Mellow (1981)

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Methods for Data Collection

• Research based on 12 in-depth interviews taken
  from Late October to Early November, 2006. All
  interviews were conducted at Saint Marys
  College.
• A Snowball Sampling Method was employed where
  two individuals acted as gatekeepers.

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Methods for Data Collection Distribution of
Saint Marys Hourly Workers
Table 2 Gender and Job Distribution among Hourly
wage workers interviewed
Table 1 Gender and Job Distribution Among Total
Hourly Wage Workers

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Findings A Drama Life

• 11/12 informants reported growing up in the
  Michiana area
• 9/12 informants grew up in a low income families
• 3 informants did not graduate high school, of the
  remaining 9, only 2 attending a two-year college

I grew up fast. I was the oldest and had to
start cooking and cleaning and doing the laundry.
When I got older, 1314, I was doing
everything cause she mom was in and out of the
hospital in the early spring. She would go in
for about a week and then in the fall she would
go in for another week. My dad was the only one
who had any money.
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Findings Overworked and Under Paid

• Nine informants were referred to college by
  friend or family member
• All twelve informants appreciate Saint Marys
  College benefits but agree that they should be
  getting paid more
• Heavy work load

I dont want to make forty dollars more a month
if when the new building comes we have to run on
two people and pull people from where? Where?
Its gotta be balanced out.
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Findings Overworked and Under Paid

• Motives for remaining employed at Saint Marys
  College
• Stability Benefits
• Saint Marys College wouldnt go nowhere. Its
  gonna be here all the timeyou know what Im
  saying, theyre not gonna close doors or anything
  like that.
• The pay is crap, but theyre the best benefits
  Ive ever had
• Appreciation for College, Students and Hourly
  Colleagues
• Were proud of you seniors when you graduate. I
  know the we are not faculty members but we do
  care cause when you go, we miss you

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Findings Intra-Community Support

• 7 informants revealed a circumstance where
  another Saint Marys colleague showed selfless
  loyalty

• One of the security guardsshe heard me say
  that informant's colleagues been giving me a
  ride back and forth and she went to the security
  shack and she found two gas cards in her purse
  for 25 a piece and she gave them to us and said,
  I know you guys can use these more than me

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Findings Inter-Community Support

• The hourly staff members hold several large
  annual social functions to build community
• Value of charity and service
• We have a potluck three times a year. We have
  Thanksgiving and Mardi Gras. You bring a dish
  and then you go and we have a prayer, we give
  canned goods to the poor and then we go to
  Rainbow lounge and eat. Then we have like a
  50/50 raffle where 50 goes to the winner and 50
  goes to charity

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Findings Barely Making It

• 8/12 informants are in a financially unstable
  position.
• Lack of Government support
• The government trying to tell me that I made
  enough to support three people. Oh! I didnt
  even qualify for food stamps. They told me I
  made too much. I didnt know whether to laugh or
  cry.
• Donation acceptance
• I have some neighbors that were really cool
  about letting me go to their churchbread shower
  supplies, whateveronce in awhile I will do that.

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Discussion

• Despite working at Saint Marys for many years,
  the hourly staff are living paycheck to paycheck
  and therefore, never have the opportunity to
  accumulate wealth, thus their impoverished
  position becomes a permanent state.
• In this society which is driven by capitalistic
  idealism, the American dream is dead to low-wage
  workers. If a minimal standard of living is not
  able to be maintained in the present, thinking of
  future economic advancement is not a viable
  option and generational poverty is allowed to
  flourish.
• Capitalism forces all American sects of society
  to dismiss a livable wage for its employees.
  However, given the Catholic Churchs role in the
  living wage movement, Saint Marys College should
  serve as a model for other American Institutions.
  

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Questions??
QUESTIONS?