manual labor

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Work and Worth: A Journey

As a college student, I’m constantly juggling classes, assignments, and part-time jobs, and I often feel like I’m being pulled in a million directions. It’s exhausting, and I sometimes find it hard to keep up with everything. Beyond my studies, I want to be there for my friends and family, but it often feels like I’m barely keeping my head above water. Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about how work and health are connected, especially as I prepare to step into the workforce. The transition to independence is daunting, and one of the biggest challenges I face is figuring out how to take care of myself amid all the chaos. Unfortunately, essential topics like nutrition, stress management, and work-life balance are rarely taught, leaving me to navigate them on my own.Reflecting on the history of labor in the United States, I realize that the fight for workers rights has been long and difficult. Over the years, labor movements have battled for fair wages, reasonable hours, and safer working conditions, paving the way for healthier workplaces today. But after reading “Made by the Work: A Century of Laboring Bodies in the United States” by Ed Slavishak, my perspective on the human cost of labor has shifted profoundly. Slavishak dives deep into the harrowing experiences of early 20th-century workers. It’s hard to fathom that laborers in steel mills and coal mines faced daily dangers and grueling conditions, with their bodies treated like mere tools for productivity. One statistic that struck me was that over 25,000 workers died every year from workplace accidents. That number is staggering and heartbreaking. It hits close to home for me because it makes me think about how easy it is to overlook the sacrifices of those who came before us, who were seen as expendable and pushed to their physical limits until they broke.

Sitting in my cozy dorm room, surrounded by textbooks and my laptop, I feel a mix of privilege and guilt. I belong to a generation that, for the most part, doesn’t have to face such dire conditions. It’s easy to take that for granted, especially when I’m so consumed with my own struggles. While my working environment is much safer, I can’t help but feel frustrated by how companies historically handled safety or neglected it entirely. They placed the burden of safety on workers, insisting that “the best safety device was a careful worker” (p. 152). That mindset is infuriating because it shifts the blame onto the very people who had little control over their situations.As Slavishak points out, corporate safety campaigns “shifted responsibility to avoid the costs of updating machinery or improving ventilation” (p. 152). This is maddening. It reminds me of the pressures I face in college. I often feel that I’m expected to power through exhaustion or even illness just to meet deadlines. I think about how many workers today might still feel that same pressure to sacrifice their well-being for the sake of productivity.Learning about unions and workers’ compensation laws has given me a profound respect for those who fought for workers’ rights. They understood that workers deserved to be valued for more than just their output, advocating for crucial things like life insurance and compensation for injuries. Slavishak notes how the insurance department of the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers directly asked its members, “What are your chances of living twenty more years? Can you afford to tempt fate?” (p. 153). That question resonates with me. It makes me think about the importance of community and looking out for one another in college. We’re not just isolated individuals scrambling to succeed; we’re part of a network that can uplift and advocate for one another. As I navigate my college journey and prepare for the future, I’m reminded that the fight for dignity in the workplace is far from over. It’s not just about securing a job; it’s about creating a work culture that values us as whole people, not just for our productivity. Reflecting on the struggles of past workers fills me with a sense of responsibility to carry their lessons into my own life. Balancing everything can feel overwhelming at times, but I know that by supporting each other, we can work toward a future where every worker is treated with respect not just for their labor, but for their humanity.

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Is it worker exploitation, or just high expectations?

Stock photo of an Aldi worker placing boxes on the shelves with a smile.

I worked at Aldi for nearly two years before disability and injury forced me to quit, and take on several non-physical part-time jobs instead. Aldi runs on an extremely robust high-efficiency model that is designed to eke out every ounce of labor every worker has for every minute they are on the clock in order to keep their costs low and the customer’s costs low. In order for Aldi to be profitable, they must be exploitative.

Many Aldi employees will refute this statement because “Aldi pays more than minimum wage!” And yes, they pay just barely enough to be competitive in the local market they are located in – but only if you are comparing them to other grocery stores. The reality of the Aldi model is the job requirements are more in line with working at a warehouse, and warehouses on average pay quite a bit more than grocery stores as the understanding is that it is a difficult physical job.

Many customers also fail to understand how difficult the Aldi job is. The most common complaint we heard as employees was how lazy we were for getting to sit. This quote from querysprout best explains my feeling on that topic, “Letting cashiers sit down – it’s actually not a comfort thing (employees have described the work at Aldi as “backbreaking”), but rather, the company found employees could scan faster if they were seated.” We as customers praise and stand in awe of the Aldi model that allows us to get basic grocery goods for so cheap because they leave the goods in boxes, how revolutionary! In the next breath we complain that there’s never an employee around to ask questions to – the reason being Aldi staffs the bare minimum of employees at any given time to, again, maximize efficiency.

One of the most interesting facets in Aldi’s worker exploitation is how thoroughly prepared they are for worker injury. The job is intensely physical, the training for the physical tasks is minimal, and the expectation for worker speed and production is through the roof. It’s a breeding ground for serious injury, and the reality I knew working there was anyone who worked as a stocker was injured at least once in a year period. If they lasted more than a year, they typically were hurt at least once a year. I knew several people who had worked there for many years and all of them had received reparative surgery, or desperately needed it.

Aldi has a robust worker’s compensation insurance system, and it’s clear that they fork over a lot of cash for it. (I’ve had worker comp claims at other employers that were much less streamlined, in comparison.) Aldi will happily plan for you to be injured, pay for your recovery and for a short time out if needed, and then expects you to be back on the workhorse as soon as possible. Restrictions are heavily discouraged, though they do, of course, abide by them reluctantly when required to.

What happens if you just can’t come back to work right away? Scalia v. Aldi (2012) is an interesting case in which one employee was booted off of worker’s comp for taking too long to heal, and then promptly fired because she hadn’t worked in 12 months. The employee claimed that her firing was retaliatory for her injury on the job. (She didn’t win, which is hardly a surprise in the U.S.) The reasoning behind the decision came down to Aldi’s extensive policies around termination, worker’s comp, and time out, that enough logic loopholes existed in their policies that had existed before this termination to make it “not retaliatory,” though apparently only in a neutral sense.

What does that mean for you as a consumer, and for Aldi? Well, Aldi has absolutely abysmal employee turnover, akin to the rates of fast food industries. They are a ship with a mild leak that has been patched over and over with mixed success, and only time will tell if their model is truly successful in the long run. For you, I recommend asking yourself when you walk into an Aldi: Do the employees actually look happy, or do they look exhausted? Can you even find an employee?