Nickel and Dimed

I just finished reading this book by Barabara Ehrenreich. I really enjoyed the book. Here's the ironic part. Last week I was talking to a co-worker who told me an HR file was almost started on one of his inferiors for discussing her salary to another employee. What I learned in this book is that "The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 makes it illegal to punish people for revelaing their wages to one another"(pg 207). Now I have not yet taken the initiative to see if this Act is still the persiding law of the land, but it makes sense. At the company I'm at now its discouraged, almost taboo to talk about wages. Hmmm, I wonder why? Another quote I like from the book is "When you enter the low-wage workplace-and many of the medium-wage workplaces as well-you check your civil liberties at the door, leave America and all it supposedly stands for behing, and learn to zip your lips for the duration of the shift...We can hardly pride ourselves on being the world's preeminent democracy, after all, if large numbers of citizens spend half their waking hours in what amounts, in plain terms, to a dictatorship"(pg 210). Just some food for thought. Also, is it any wonder I think the majority of American corporations are evil?

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