Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: hiring labor

[Fred H Olson (fholson]

Diana Porter <porterd [at] cinci.rr.com>
is the author of the message below. 
It was posted by Fred the Cohousing-L list manager <fholson [at] cohousing.org> 
because the message included HTML ;      PLEASE do not post HTML, see
   http://csf.colorado.edu/cohousing/2001/msg01672.html
--------------------  FORWARDED MESSAGE FOLLOWS --------------------

This issue of hiring others to do manuel labor can be complex.  Cleaning 
the common house or doing outside landscaping work could fall to those 
in society who don't have more maketable skills and thus they would get 
paid much less than most people in the community earn.  This is the 
classicism piece.  This gets magnified when they are from Guatamala or 
Haiti or job corps and hired by a service company middle person who is 
usually white, middle class who also takes some of their money.

My sister-in-law is chicano and didn't graduate from high school.  She 
has spent many years cleaning other people's houses.   When she first 
asked me to clean our house my response was exactly as the person in the 
community.  When I paid her 15 dollars an hour 10 years ago ($20.00 an 
hour now?) and paid it directly to her and encouraged her to start her 
own business it felt very different.  

You also get into the Lonnie Gwenier no social security, no health 
insurance, un-documented workers, under the table stuff.

What about teenagers in the community?  The first two hours a month are 
contribution to the community and everything there after is $12.00-15 an 
hour if at least 50% goes into long term savings?  They are still 
covered by parents health insurance etc. and need to have the experience 
of doing manuel labor as well as learning the skills from the adults in 
the community (pruning, trimming, working flower beds, etc.)

Diana Porter

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