My Low-Wage Life

As a young adult born into a relatively privileged American family, I reap the benefits of countless others’ cheap labor, but have seldom taken the time to acknowledge it. A recent tragedy in Cupertino, the city of my high school and the city adjacent to my own city, caused me to appreciate the behind-the-scenes low wage efforts that happen every day, around the clock. At around 4:00 AM on October 5, Shareef Allman, a single father, showed up to his routine safety meeting at the Lehigh Permanente Quarry. On a normal day, Allman would proceed to work his trucking job at the plant for a full shift after the safety meeting before returning home to his daughter. However, on this day, Allman open-fired on his peers, killing three and wounding six. The subsequent manhunt resulted in the injury of a seventh person during an attempted carjacking. Low-wage work, compounded with the various stresses of life was unbearable for Allman, but for every plant worker turned spree killer, thousands of others bear their less-fortunate lifestyle quietly and with great honor.

The Lehigh Permanente Quarry provides the Bay Area with 50% of all of its cement, yet, to me, until the shooting occurred, the plant was just a curious clearing in the Cupertino foothills that I sometimes passed on the way to Saratoga. I had no appreciation for the work that went into manufacturing cement. Little did I know that every morning long before the sun arose, men left their families to get to work at the plant. Victims of the shooting, as it happened, commuted from San Jose and Newman. My most significant commute takes me from Sobrato to O’Connor – nothing to complain about.

Needless to say, I depend greatly on cement. Cement provides foundation for Sobrato Hall and my own home in Los Altos. It also paves the streets and sidewalks that I not only personally use for transportation, but depend on for others to use to serve me. Every time I place an amazon.com order or call in for a pizza, FedEx, USPS, UPS, or a Round Table delivery employee depends on cement roads to reach me my order. Cement links the entire civilized world together and allows for communication and cooperation. If not for low-wage workers, no one would make cement, because the quarry would shut down before opting to pay premium wages. So, whether I realize or not, low-wage life is decidedly linked to my own sheltered and expense-free life.

David Newton