Management in Businesses

14. She is making efforts at unionizing because the low-wage workers are treated with disrespect. She wants a union to try to increase the rights of her colleagues in order to gain more respect by their bosses and customers. The working conditions, deductibles and the fact that her "COBRA" was running out led her to these efforts. Barbara's reasons include that no one gets paid overtime when they are encouraged to do so. Also, the schedule causes many problems among the workers and the managers treat their employees with disrespect and rudeness. Many of her fellow workers motivate her. For example, Stan worked so he could go to school, but because of his hours Stan had to drop out. Also, Marlene, who worked full time since November still cannot afford a car, motivates her. She wants to be treated with respect.

15. The author defines "unskilled labor" as jobs that require concentration. These "unskilled labors" caused Barbara to need how to learn how to use new tools and master new skills and terms. Each job requires some kind of skill in order to accomplish one's job well. I agree with this because even jobs that pay low wages require that the employees learn the necessary techniques. Even easy jobs need some kind of skill.

16. The fact that Barbara was white and spoke English were not important to her during her entire experience as a low- wage earner. Many low- wage earners such as George did not speak English and still worked a low- wage job. Also, many of the people Barbara worked with were not white and still earned low- wages. Therefore her background as a white women and the fact that she spoke English natively was not important.

17. Management in businesses was very poor. They did not respect their employees and treated them unfairly. Also, they caused their employees to feel unhappy whenever working. Management did not care about the more important things, such as educational background of their employees and cared if they would rat out an employee. The management was very dysfunctional and not well respected.