Low Wage Life Hypertext Proposal - Allison

Housekeeping

For my low wage life hypertext I would like to research housekeeping. Although “a self - cleaned house was the hallmark of womanly virtue,”(Enrenreich, 91) this is no longer true today. Many people hire cleaners and housekeepers to help with the burden. I think it would be interesting to find the differences between working for a housekeeping company and being an individual cleaning lady who doesn’t work for an agency. My cleaning lady works based on referrals and is able to make much more money that way, but she has to clean the whole house by herself. On the Contrary, in Nickel and Dimed, Enrenreich works for a housekeeping company, The Maids, and has to worry about working within a group, but get paid much less (Enrenreich, 80). Along with comparing housekeeping I also want to research the obstacles that housekeepers have to deal with. For example, language barriers, trust issues between employees and employers, and injuries. Enrenreich had to deal with house owners “leaving tape recorders going while we work” (Enrenreich, 93) because the had a lack of trust in the cleaners. Not only do housekeepers have to deal with emotional obstacles, such as trust, but also physical obstacles such as injuries. Low wage workers are “under a tremendous pressure not to report injuries” (Schlosser, 175). This is because from
an “economic point of view, injured workers are a drag on profits. They are less productive. Getting rid of them makes a good deal of financial sense, especially when new workers are readily available and inexpensive to train” (Schlosser, 175). This was also evident in Ehrenreich’s life as a housekeeper. She was very bothered by her coworkers fear of injuries and disabilities (110). After researching all these aspects of housekeeping I think I will be able to create a knowledgeable hypertext on the low wage life of a cleaning lady.