The plight of underpaid workers is something that people love to talk about, but is typically left up to the people stuck in the bad situation to actually do anything about. This movie is a classic example of such a situation. In this case, the workers are janitors and cleaning people for various big buildings in LA. They are also primarily illegal immigrants. Their illegal status complicates the situation because their employers are able to bully them into accepting lower wags under the threat of firing them, or worse, calling ICE and threatening deportation.
The largest enemy of the employer’s will is the Janitor’s union, which in this movie is led by a character named Sam Shapiro. He is fighting to increase the wages of the workers and also to get more people into the union. The people who were in the union were payed about eight and a half dollars per hour, whereas the people who weren’t were only paid about five and a half. The more people that are in the union, the more leverage they would be able to exert on the employers.
Throughout the movie there is a tentative love story between the female protagonist, Maya, and Sam. Their relationship, however, is complicated with the sort of professional relationship that develops between tow colleagues. The director is very careful to make sure that the love story does not eclipse the point of the movie which is to bring to light the plight of janitorial workers. However, the love story does pull a little on the heartstrings and leave the viewer in want of more. It serves to show the presence of love even in difficult situations.
A rift gradually appears between Maya and the rest of her family because she gets caught up in the broad goal of social change whereas her family is more interested in living incognito and simply surviving. They say that life is not good, but at least it is not bad. They don’t want her to get them tangled up in a big mess that could jeopardize all that they had worked for in coming to the united states. As Maya moves more down the activist track, she slowly begins to drift away from her family highlighting the everlasting dichotomy in life between the comfortable and the progressive. Which is better? It is really in the eyes of the beholder.
Similarly, the story ends on an inconclusive but hopeful note. This is the way with progressive change — it is often unknown where the outcome will lie and if it will be an improvement. However, if change is not pursued, then it will never happen. The real life strike that occurred in LA inspired this movie, and thus brought awareness to yet another group of underprivileged city workers that beforehand few had given thought to.
An interesting research question is what effect did the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 have on the wages of undocumented workers.
My understanding is that before this legislation employers were not necessarily fined for hiring undocumented workers. The legislation, as part of a political compromise, gave amnesty for millions, but also required employers to hire only documented workers.
Monopsony begets monopoly, which is to say that if workers can only be hired by one firm (or a small number), then its to their economic benefit to form a union to achieve a better wage. Monopsonies are associated with wages below competitive level. If workers can’t unionize, then that is obviously a problem for them.