[lbo-talk] service coops (was Servant culture)

[Liza Featherstone]

All very true. Still the maid probably doesn't care that her $25/hour wages,
vacation pay, etc. boost her employers' false consciousness - the situation
is still preferable to making $6 with the maid service. I'd much rather be
Joanna's maid than work for the Merry Maids! In some ways, the Merry Maid
situation is just as detrimental to solidarity as the one on one worker-boss
relation -- if that's possible -- because it is even more alienating to both
parties: the worker cannot negotiate directly with the consumer, indeed she
may never even see the consumer face-to-face, explaining that she has 5
children in the DR to feed, etc. Of course, many consumers do use that
personal relationship to justify unfair treatment (she doesn't mind, she's
part of the family).

That said, agree it is important to think about what situations do create
consumer solidarity with workers. This discussion reminds me of the nursing
home labor struggles. In a number of situations, Connecticut and elsewhere,
patients and their families have sided with workers against the corporations
who are screwing everybody involved (providing shitty wages, shitty care) to
boost profits. Exactly the logic Kelley's describing. If the families were
contracting directly with aides -- as they do sometimes in homecare
situations -- their interests would be quite different.

Liza 


> From: Kelley <the-squeeze at pulpculture.org>
> Reply-To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2003 19:40:46 -0400
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org, <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] service coops (was Servant culture)
> 
> At 02:27 PM 8/13/03 -0400, Liza Featherstone scribbled:
> 
>> Though as the explanation in Nickle and Dimed makes pretty clear, the
>> services are potentially more exploitative  because the clients' money
>> is
> not going directly to the worker - the service takes a big fat cut, and
>> workers get peanuts.
> 
> yeah, but when you're the employer hiring a maid you think, "damn, i'm
> hiring her for good money. I could be like Kelley's boss and pay shit
> wages to a poor immigrant at five clams an hour." and you get to pat
> yourself on the back, as many feminists who hire maids do.
> 
> and what happens when, as one author in Global Woman acknowledges, you
> find out you're a pretty shitty employer in the eyes of your Jamaican
> nanny?
> 
> The point is not about which is more exploitative--they're equally
> so--the point is, which situation is worse for feminist solidarity?
> Taking the position of employer directly hiring, you end up thinking
> that you ought to be thanked for your generosity or that you couldn't
> possibly be thought of as a bad employer because those other guys out
> there are much worse. You are _bound_ to be in a relationship of
> antagonism. You can't help it. The march, march, march of capital beats
> on and you have to try mighty hard not to take on an antagonistic
> stance toward the uppity domestics who are demanding more and more and
> more, like high enough wages to pay for their _own domestics_. 'Coz, as
> a contractor making $20/hr, I'm not clearing $20, I'm clearing more
> like $12 x 40 hr work week/52 weeks a year.
> 
> Taking the position of consumer of services is different. When you find
> out that you're paying $25/hr and the maid is only making $5.15, who
> are ya gonna be pissed at? Which position in the social relations of
> production is going to--march, march, march--encourage you to feel
> _solidarity_ with the maid, rather than antagonism? What is going to
> make you angry and pissed off at the real enemy?
> 
> Bye all! I just had to post this one before signing off.
> 
> Thanks for the moving tips, too!
> 
> 
> kelley
> 
> 
> 
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