Minimum Wage for Minimum Wage
An American labor historian and playwright was born in Brooklyn in 1941. Barbara Garson's earlier accomplishments, MacBird! and a children's play The Dinosaur Door, were in the theater. After her involvement in the theater, Garson started to write books about the blue- and white-collar workforces. "Garson says that her goal is to reinsert humanity into work processes by telling the stories of the individuals with whom she works, while sounding an alarm on larger societal issues" (800). Garson's essay, "McDonald's-we do it all for you," is an example on how she is trying to accomplish her goal. Barbara Garson interviewed four different McDonald's employees, who held various jobs, about their diverse work experiences. While speaking with each of the employees, it was stated to Garson that each of them could easily be replaced. Since I have worked at a Burger King sporadically for two years, I understand how these employees feel about their jobs in this type of corporatio! When people seek a part-time job, they often look at fast-food restaurants for employment opportunities. When I was searching for my first part-time job at the age of sixteen, I applied to three different fast-food joints
McDonald's rival, Burger King, also hires teenagers along with adults looking for some extra money. "McDonald's employs 500,000 teenagers at any one time" (252). When teenagers are hired, they are hired at minimum wage. Jason Pratt, a former McDonald's employee, was hired at the #3.35 minimum when the essay was written in 1988. When I was hired at Burger King ten years later in 1998, I was also hired at the minimum, which was $5.15 an hour. Anyone eighteen years or older who was hired at Burger King automatically started at $5.25 an hour. I do not understand why a person a couple of years older than me with no prior experience in the job field begins at a higher rate than I do performing the same work. Literacies. second edition. Brunk, Terence. W.W.Norton & Company, New York, London. 2000. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ After I was working at Burger King for a year, I was still making minimum wage. It did not seem to matter that I was working at the store for a year and longer than most of the evening crew employees, the ones who were adults still made more money than I made. These workers who were hired after me did not now the job as well,
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 814
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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