SNP’s word of the day: Workamper
Word: Workamper
Meaning: Nomadic jobseekers who cross America in mobile homes, picking up low-wage, no-guarantee work where they can get it.
Usage: “Amalgamated advertises positions on websites workampers frequent. In this warehouse alone, there are hundreds of them.” — Mac McClelland in "I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave"
You should know it because: Mac McClelland’s essay in the lefty bible Mother Jones is a must-read (and I never say that) for anyone who shops online, i.e. you. In it she relives her slave-like experiences as a temp worker in a shipping warehouse/dungeon called Amalgamated. Ever marvelled over the cheapness of Amazon.com stuff versus the same stuff at a books-and-mortar shop? Yeah, it’s not packed and shipped by storks. It’s done by workampers and temp labourers and down-and-outers in bitsy Mississippi towns, by the most precariously employed of the precariat. These Depression 2.0 drifters are living the American nightmare. Is it illegal? Not quite. Is it shocking? No, but it should give us pause before we press “add to cart.” There is always a reason things are cheap, and the reason is never “magic,” I’m sorry to say.
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