#factory work

Working in plastics

midnights, extra summer heat

molds three hundred fifty

the sky near a third as much

a rain storm mid shift relief.

.

Work experience

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I hope this job is a low point for me because I don’t want something worse, which is a risky thing to wish for while still in my early twenties.

"One of the biggest takeaways from the experience was that some of the most consequential battles in the fight for social justice took place on factory floors, not college campuses. For many Americans without college degrees, who make up two-thirds of adults in the country, the labor movement, the civil rights movement and the women’s liberation movement largely boiled down to one thing: access to well-paying factory jobs."

"In many ways, the decline in American manufacturing hit Black people the hardest. According to a 2018 study of the impact of manufacturing employment on Black and white Americans from 1960 through 2010, the decline in manufacturing contributed to a 12 percent overall increase in the racial wage gap for men. When you follow a dying factory up close, it’s easy to see how globalization left a growing group of people competing for a shrinking pool of good factory jobs. Affirmative action becomes more fraught as good jobs get scarce and disappear."

"...The fate of our democracy does not depend on them the way it hinges on voters like Shannon, Wally and John. The American experiment is unraveling. The only way to knit it back together is for decision makers in this country, nearly all of whom have college degrees, to reconnect with those of the working class, who make up a majority of voters."

The New York Times, October 7, 2021: "What Killed the Blue-Collar Struggle for Social Justice," by Farah Stockman

The New York Times, October 12, 2021: "When a Factory Relocates to Mexico, What Happens to Its American Workers?" by Richard Davies