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Tracking a New Kind of Civil Disobedience
NEWTON, Mass. - As Newton resident Lisa Dodson, a Boston College sociology professor in the thick of a research project, was interviewing a grocery story manager in the Midwest about the difficulties of the low-income workers he supervised, he asked her a curious question: "Don't you want to know what this does to me too?''
“What is the worst wrong here?’’ asks BC professor Lisa Dodson: managers aiding workers or an unjust economy. (Joanne Rathe/Globe Staff) She did. And so the manager talked about the sense of unfairness he felt as a supervisor, making enough to live comfortably while overseeing workers who couldn't feed their families on the money they earned. That inequality, he told her, tainted his job, making him feel complicit in an unfair system that paid hard workers too little to cover basic needs.
The interview changed the way Dodson talked with other supervisors and managers of low-income workers, and she began to find that many of them felt the same discomfort as the grocery store manager. And many went a step further, finding ways to undermine the system and slip their workers extra money, food, or time needed to care for sick children. She was surprised how widespread these acts were. In her new book, "The Moral Underground: How Ordinary Americans Subvert an Unfair Economy,'' she called such behavior "economic disobedience.''
As Dodson's questions grew more pointed, she began to hear fascinating stories. Andrew, a manager in a large Midwest food business, said he put extra money in the paychecks of those earning a "poverty wage,'' punched out their time cards at the usual quitting time when they had to leave early for a doctor's appointment, and gave them food.
Andrew had decided that by supervising workers who were treated unfairly - paid too little and subjected to inflexible schedules that prevented them from taking care of their families - he was playing a direct role in the unfair system, and so he was morally obligated to act.
Dodson concluded that Andrew and many like him were following the American tradition of civil disobedience - this time, against the economy - and creating a "moral underground.''
But her book, which came out late last year, has provoked debate about the morality of such acts.
After Dodson talked about her book on a radio program, American Public Media's "Marketplace,'' some listeners posted comments on the show's website arguing that supervisors like Andrew are cheating their employers.
Referring to the show's host, a listener from Leesburg, Va., wrote, "I was surprised that throughout the entire interview, neither Tess Vigeland nor Ms. Dodson touched on what would seem to me a rather crucial point - that these ‘Ordinary Americans' are stealing from the companies who employ them.
"The examples Ms. Dodson gave . . . are acts of theft from the companies, yet they are described as if somehow moral and virtuous. It's one thing for me to see someone in need and open my wallet; its quite another to address that need by giving something I've stolen from my neighbor.''
Although Dodson makes clear where she stands - the subtitle of her book includes the phrase "unfair economy'' - she said she believes the debate is important.
"I think that this is a really important conversation that we should have in this country,'' Dodson said. "What is the worst wrong here? Is it to break a rule or to pass some food over, or is it that we have tens of millions of children and people in families that are working as hard as they can and they can't take care of their families?''
Not all supervisors felt troubled by the plight of those who worked under them. Dodson interviewed supervisors who said they had no obligation beyond the bottom line of their company; some complained bitterly about the work ethic of those who filled low-wage jobs.
Dodson has had an unusual career trajectory for an academic. She was a union activist and an obstetrical nurse in Dorchester before she began teaching, first at Harvard and now at Boston College. In her first book, "Don't Call Us Out of Name: The Untold Lives of Women and Girls in Poor America,'' Dodson studied how women and their families coped in the face of welfare reform as their safety net vanished.
This time, though, she was drawn largely to the stories of those Americans who worked with the working poor, suggesting that the difficulties of that group also affect the lives of those who intersect with them.
"I feel as though there's this tendency is this society to kind of think about low-income people as those people over there,'' she said, "as though it's an experience that's sort of marginal and distant from those of us who are not poor.''
In her new book, some of the most wrenching stories are about women who cannot afford child care and leave their children unattended at home, asking older children to watch the younger ones. They feared social service agencies would investigate them for neglect, but they felt they had no choice if they were going to keep their jobs.
"It was very common for parents to tell me that their kids spent a lot of time all by themselves at home,'' Dodson said. "That puts the parent into just an untenable position: You're a bad worker or you're a bad parent.''
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186 Comments so far
Show AllCD is doing well today, Dallas Darling's piece and now this.
I would say ethically one could not steal from the company
unless the company was linked to a greater crime such as war, then you are obligated to hinder the company.
A company taking economic advantage of workers is a gray area because the exact line where abuse begins may at times be difficult to define.
A company taking economic advantage of workers is a gray area because the exact line where abuse begins may at times be difficult to define.
---------------------------------
I don't think that's quite true, Glenn. What principle justifies *anyone* taking advantage of someone else?
Sorry if I am ambiguous, the murkiness is in deciding exactly where is the line that becomes abuse.
Or simply at what wage for what job for whom does abuse begin..?
I did not mean to imply that that definite abuse should be tolerated.
I think everyone should receive a living wage for simply living.
The question would be should a consrtuction worker with a family of four making $15 /hr feel justified to steal from a small contractor, the question is where does abuse begin.
We've somehow become convinced that we, as individuals are not capable of deciding what is right and what is wrong. Its always someone else, somewhere else, who gets to decide what's right, moral, etc.
We need to discard this type of unhealthy thinking.
Humans are generally endowed with a sense or right and wrong. In fact, studies have shown that even animals have an innate sense of fairness.
Humans without a sense of right and wrong are so rare that they're considered sick and suffering from the disease of Psychopathy.
We need to start using our own sense of right and wrong.
Exercise it.
Develop it.
We will all clash with other people who have different ideas about what is right or wrong, but that's ok. One of the primary goals of society is to resolve those conflicts.
Ceding personal moral authority, especially in the "gray areas", is to give up power to exactly the wrong sort of people.
Zenc wrote:
".....We've somehow become convinced that we, as individuals are not capable of deciding what is right and what is wrong. Its always someone else, somewhere else, who gets to decide what's right, moral, etc.
We need to discard this type of unhealthy thinking....."
Thank you!!
Unless we all have become completely and irrevocably detached from our innate sense of what is right and what is just plain wrong (and I personally doubt this very much) I still believe that most of us recognize an injustice when we encounter it and we KNOW when our actions (or failure to act) are hurting a fellow human being. We KNOW it because we FEEL it.
".....Humans without a sense of right and wrong are so rare that they're considered sick and suffering from the disease of Psychopathy....."
Exactly.
It is when we cut ourselves off from our feelings (deliberately or unconsciously) that we run into trouble.
When we are confronted with a chronically unjust situation about which we could, if we choose to, DO a little something to help, it is my personal opinion that we ought to feel free to act upon our own best judgment. There are plenty of things we can quietly do to help when an injustice is being observed.
It sounds more like economic enabling. Isn't enabling a kind of problematic behavior, a dysfunctional approach that is intended to help but in fact may perpetuate a problem?
Subversive behavior is a form of fighting back. I don't see the examples cited in this research as fighting back. I see them as common examples of enabling that can be observed in the relationship between the alcoholic and a codependent spouse.
You've got it backwards. The only enabling is being done by those who *don't* act subversively.
That's if you accept the premise of the sociologist, that the behavior of her subjects can be defined as subversive.
The kind of behavior that is directed at a problem in order to undermine it's source is subversive. (i.e. Dr. Flowers holding a sign with the solution written on it and standing in front of the hotel where Obama tries to hide from confrontation) is subversive. She disrupts or upsets the flow of the corrupt process directly using her body and sign.
If "undermine its source" means to you what it means to me, your definition of "subversive" is too narrow. Preventing certain outcomes is also subversion. When the bosses want 110% of paid hours to be spent beavering away for their profit, arranging for them to get only 90% is quite subversive within the meaning of the Act.
Percentages? Were there any mentioned in the article? I seriously doubt the owners will feel any sense of subversion because of the difference in what the manager submitted. They write it all off in their taxes. If anything, they'll see that their employees could do as well with less.
When "the bosses" change their behavior because of an employee revolt, that's subversive behavior.
Are you an accountant or something? Those "percentages" were intended as *illustration*, not ledger.
And you evidently have an ideosyncratic definition of "subversive", which is fine by me but please be aware of how few people will agree with it.
No, I'm not an accountant, but when somebody starts using information, in fact, making things up in the middle of a discussion to support their point, I feel the need to draw attention to it. Stick to the facts. I used your "illustration" to further my point. You don't subvert a problem unless the source of the problem is confronted in a meaningful way.
Do please get a different dictionary. "Subvert" and "confront" are not only not synonyms, they're not even close in meaning. I'm confronting you right now, but I'm not subverting you!
Oh, I beg to differ. I think you are trying to subvert my argument. I have many dictionaries. Which one would you like to renew? I have this old paperback Webster's that's seen better days. Would you like me to throw it out? Or perhaps burn it?
Thanks you two I needed some good comedy!
I'm glad *you* enjoyed it, Glenn!
Blaa, blaa, blaa. How about writing a Comment that goes beyond personal ego??
I would say that while 'ethics' can be defined by a dictionary or by a law, such definitions are the result of the pooling of the thoughts of many into a relatively tiny place on paper. I'd futher say that every one of us has a differing defintion for our personal ethics. Maybe that is why and how the notion of civil
disobedience came into existence.
Well, if you're going to go all cultural studies on me, yes, you can say that any behavior in any case is subversive. I'm trying to look at what the individuals are doing to solve a problem. Will charity solve a problem? Or will it temporarily make it less noticeable? When the benevolent managers lose their jobs will the workers then get another benevolent manager? Isn't a system that justifies paying people so little for their work the problem?
r u thru.....Yes! That is the defining statement in this argument. What you mean by "enable" and what Maired means are a matter of miscommunication and difference in perspective only! You are using a more correct definition of "enabling" here. The manager, by not protesting publicly and to his superiors.... the unfair wages, enables the Corporation to get away with continuing to pay unfair wages! He is enabling abusive behaviors. It's just like the wife of an alcoholic who makes excuses for her husband's drunken behaviors to the children and to the boss (when he doesn't show up for work and she calls in for him and says he's sick). She enables his alcoholism and is a co-conspirator in his bad behavior. He doesn't have to change because she makes life easier for him! The Corporation doesn't have to increase wages or consider the unfairness of their behaviors because the manager makes it easier for them. The manager is being "nice" to his employee's but not changing their circumstances in the long run. However, I do applaud him anyway! I have always said: Rules are only a parameter put there to guage which way to work around them. I dislike rules oriented methods. It's a matter of moral development. When rules are ones' God, one cannot be a creative thinker. Lower levels of moral development translate as concrete thinkers who cannot get past the rules. Everything is imposed on them from the "outside."
Yes, it is technically "stealing" from the company.....but.....and here is that age old moral/ethical question: If a man goes into a drug store and steals a bottle of medicine.....is he a thief or a hero? When we look at the facts, he is a thief. But, when we look at the fact that yesterday the man went to the pharmacy and asked the pharmacist if he could please help him find a way to get that medicine for his sick son who needed it desperately or he would die......and the pharmacist said NO! So the next day, desperate out of his mind, the man steals the medicine for his son......well, what kind of extenuating circumstances does one need to at least "feel" like this man is a hero? Will you judge by the "rule" or will you take into consideration the extenuating circumstances? How you answer that determines where you are on the moral development scale.
In a different way, the manager is also enabling his employees to keep their jobs as well as take care of business in their lives. But this enabling is not the same as the other "pathological" enabling of the abusive Corporation. The manager is in between a rock and a hard place. This is happening more often in this broken system we live in. The tighter the Corporation "screw us" to the wall (rules), the more the walls (rules) will be broken down....by those who have to enforce them as well as those who have to abide by them.
I will draw the line for you. It is OK.
"A company taking economic advantage of workers is a gray area because the exact line where abuse begins may at times be difficult to define."
One could say that what the supervisors who give extra time and money to needy employees are doing is also a gray area.
Life is full of gray areas and it seems to me that what it all comes down to is what our intent is in each action we take.
While it may be against a specific rule or law to pad someone's paycheck who needs it, is it really immoral to do so? As the bumper sticker asks: What would Jesus do?
I work in a retail store and at times I give someone who needs it a 10 percent discount. Is that stealing? I guess I'll find out eventually, but my conscience is clear.
Paying people subhuman wages for hard, honest work is theft-- theft of their time and money that they have rightfully earned. Therefore, the actions of the managers giving the employees more money, by altering their time cards, or giving them paid hours off while they look after their kids, is ethical and justified.
As women create a language without possessives, ownership will unappear from human experience.
As more and more people agree that they are "earning" money in time instead of by labor, a mighty and positive shift will take place in the lives of the many.
Agreed, Leland. But let's define what we are trading for a paycheck. Time, yes, but what does that time represent? It represents our limited life energy.
And we all do that - women and men. So it behooves us all to come up with another way of life.
we are trading time, yes, but also a planet...a planet for a paycheck...
Lovely!
I know a lot of different kinds of women. Some would never banish the language of "Mine". I think it is too simplistic to attribute all generous qualities to women. Look at the famous examples: Madeline Albright, Madame Nhu, Condi Rice, Marie Antoinette, Imelda Marcos and countless, countless others. It varies. Sometimes shoe shopping is the top priority. And making sure "the girl" cleans the house properly.
Not everyone is Mother Jones.
Joe
Growing up poor and with a sick mother I am very aware of and grateful for people who do little things to help. One neighbor would bring us remnants of cloth from the factory in which she sewed. Another neigbor gave us food from the USDA program where she worked, although we were not eligible due to some odd technicality. The people who ignore unfair technicalities and rules when there are human considerations deserve some press. Some cloth that would have been thrown away or a bag of cornmeal kept us dressed and fed sometimes.
Of course we reciprocated whenever and however we could. Reciprocity is an important survival technique for the poor. I am sure that a manager who cuts some slack will get better results if he or she needs someone to stay past closing now and then.
I think the managers in the book (which I have not read yet) have a sense of proportion. Letting an employee go home when a child is sick may not be in the work rules, but it should be. Ideally, the workers would hava a union and would not have to depend on the kindness of managers.
"Round up the usual suspects" is such a thrilling line. It shows a person flipping from robotic adherence to an unjust regime and shows him starting down the road of impish resistance. (I hope all "the usual suspects" had alibis.)
Joe
What a beautiful post. Thank you.
You are welcome. But you may have missed my implication that it is wrong for some to have so much and others to depend on a misappropriated bag of corn meal. At the time my mother was working off the books (her TB history had not been officially cleared) and her boss was making a million dollars a year off the labor of about six grossly underpaid women. So who was stealing? They workers really needed a union, but were too frightened to organize one.
Joe
jclientelle
"But you may have missed my implication"
Not at all, quite clear.
Alinsky reckoned that he could organise the "middle class" (and was ramping up to do exactly that when his heart gave out on that street corner).
The *reason* he so reckoned was exactly this kind of subversively humane behavior running in the background of US life. People do the right thing whenever they (a) know what it is and (b) have the power to do it.
Doesn't reading about something like this excite or reassure anyone else???
This is a good article on an important topic but it is far too optimistic. Maybe it is a geographical thing. In many areas the poor are looked down upon by the 'workers' who are paid to help them. Yes, there are some acts of empathy and benevolence, but they are rare in some areas.
There is a more fundamental question. Why are mothers of young pre-school age children forced to work outside the home and leave their children. The US culture does not value parenting and it is not accepted as an honorable career.
In many areas the poor are looked down upon by the 'workers' who are paid to help them. Yes, there are some acts of empathy and benevolence, but they are rare in some areas.
--------------------------------
It's because folk are trained that way, Rosemarie.
One of the tit-bits that tells me the most about where the problems are is that stealing a load of bread from a business is considered a crime, but for the owner of the business to steal an employee's time and labor *isn't*, if they figleaf it.
If you or I consistently and remorselessly act in ways that disregard the wellbeing of other people, we get diagnosed as psychopaths. Except if we're wealthy--then it's considered normal behavior, or something minor that requires only a figleaf to be acceptable.
And of course we're trained from children to accept the self-interested dictates of the powerful as being right and good. So how can we wonder if folk who've never been taught to think critically about ethics parrot the attitudes of their "betters"?
My grandchildren, who live in France get professional child care if both parents work. If a mother (or possibly father) decides to stay home and care for the children, they get a subsidy and benefits for performing an honorable service to society.
Here we get an opportunity to figure it out on our own. We have free choice to work or starve, stay home with the kids with no money or leave them somewhere, anywhere, in order to go to work. The politicians pray for us all the time, though.
Joe
Do they really pray? to whom?
Beats me. Maybe they are just closing their eyes, folding their hands and thinking about pot roast. I don't know. Sioux Rose would say Mammon.
Joe
Hmmmm...what kind of "pot" are they roasting Joe? (lol)
rosemarie, Ah yes.....this question has haunted me in my life. I WAS one of those mothers with 3 children....living in a system where I was forced to go to work rather then take care of my children. I asked that very question of my church, my friends, my newspaper even. Never got a good answer. This system is not set up for the care and nurture of people. It is set up for the profit of Corporations! Now, if we lived in France, we would get paid to stay home with our children....for at least 2 years I think! Remember in the 60's when people were promised that we would have childcare that was affordable, pay that would shoot us up to the upper middle class, 4 day work weeks, more vacation time??? Well, that was killed by the administration of Ronal Reagan....which is when the NeoCons really started to "improve" the American way of life! Bill of goods that was.
My daughter-in-law is currently being paid for two years in Austria to care for my recently-born granddaughter. My son, though not even a citizen of Austria, receives a one-year paid leave even though he only held part-time jobs there. My granddaughter thrives on their presence and "is always smiling."
"Unfair" economy? No, DEPRAVED, PREDATORY economy. It's Profit-RAPING, now; having run out of the usual, smaller victims, the ECONO-RAPISTS are turning to large states (e.g., California) and small countries (e.g., Greece) to sate their obscene executive bonuses and boners. And DEM Obummer; he's just their halfascist dictakor.
I'm guessing the people calling in to the show screaming "theft!" were probably "capitalistic christians"; not only is that , in my mind, an oxymoron but a conflict between love and greed.
Empathy and compassion have been bludgeoned out of the American Populace by the bottom line, greed, power and politics. It is nice to see that, here and there, in isolated pockets, they still exist.
In the moral darkness that surrounds us, such acts are like small candles, burning in the darkness. Each one provides a little light, drives away a portion of the dark. Each one gives a little hope, perhaps an incentive for more candles to light.
Perhaps, someday, there will be enough candles lit to drive away the darkness, even illuminating the dark holes where it festers and sends out new, poisonous mold. Abouit the only thing the darkness fears is light.
The light analogy. You once used an MO here as Alabama John, no?
minitrue
"Empathy and compassion have been bludgeoned out of the American Populace by the bottom line, greed, power and politics. It is nice to see that, here and there, in isolated pockets, they still exist."
I don't believe that for a moment. Yes, Americans have been under exactly the assault you mention, but day by day its shown that the average citizen is not what they are claimed to be.
Think how different this article would have been if "Andrew" hadn't asked her if she wanted to know how it made him feel. Never occurred to her to ask did it? Extrapolate that.
Those who argue that workers and their families should go hungry so that owners and investors are not cheated are nuts! FLASH MESSAGE: If working people are hungry they are going to steal.
Steal from the rich and give to the poor. What a novel idea!
These people who think it immoral, the listeners of the aforementioned NPR show and all of my retarded Scott Brown-supporting suburban neighbors here in Massachusetts, all need an enema--a big whooshing cleansing of their perverted morality stored inside their heads which are located in their rectums.
Hear, hear.
1) Should not the term be "employee disobedience" or "disobedience to corporations" or "anti-corporation employee disobedience"? I suggest these appellations for 2 reasons: to merge this issue with the greater overall corporate debate; and, 2) because my guess is that the behavior Kathleen Burge is researching is almost exclusively found at large companies. The frequency of the behavior may even be inversely proportional to company size.
2) I find it amusing that some object to this behavior. Of course, that is only because I imagine a very large percentage of them would also agree with Milton Friedman that there is no room in business for ethics, and the very commonly held belief that in business if you can get away with it, it is permissible. What is good for the gooser is good for the goosed.