Within the land of killer commutes, Salud Garcia’s trek is such a slog, she ought to get a gold medal on the end line every day.
She leaves her dwelling in Reseda earlier than daybreak, takes a bus to a prepare, then one other bus, adopted by one other. When she arrives at her job website close to LAX — greater than two hours later — it’s nearly 7 a.m.
“I run to the lavatory after which get to work,” mentioned Garcia, a dishwasher for a meals catering firm that serves airways.
After work, Garcia will typically get fortunate and catch a journey dwelling from a co-worker. However normally, she reverses her commute, which implies eight or 9 hours on the job and, then, a number of hours in transit.
What makes this all of the extra exceptional, or heartbreaking, when you desire, is her age.
“I’ll be 81 in August,” mentioned Garcia, who is thought to steer colleagues in Inglewood out to a picket line on her lunch break of their combat for a greater contract. She instructed me she received’t profit a lot, given her age, however she needs youthful workers to have the ability to “retire with dignity.”
I heard about Garcia from a Unite Right here Native 11 spokeswoman whereas researching a column on employees who can’t retire. I’ve recognized heaps of people that maintain working as a result of they need to, however I wished to satisfy individuals who maintain working as a result of they need to.
The hire is just too excessive. The retirement fund has dried up or by no means existed. Social Safety doesn’t cowl the payments, and the youngsters and grandkids need assistance. Folks maintain working, typically in bodily demanding jobs, for all these causes and extra.
Final summer season I visited an early-morning picket line, one other United Right here website, outdoors the Viceroy Lodge in Santa Monica, and among the many 23 housekeepers, dishwashers and different workers asking for a greater contract, six of them have been of their 60s and two have been of their 70s.
“My knee hurts,” mentioned 67-year-old dishwasher Jose Ayala, who instructed me he was working two jobs, for a complete of 13 hours every day, to help a household of 4 in a Culver Metropolis residence.
Just a few years in the past, I used to be researching my e-book on retirement, and I’ll always remember the sight of a person in his 70s working at a giant field retailer close to Knott’s Berry Farm. He was considerably disfigured from surgical procedure for most cancers, and he instructed me his foot ached as a result of he was standing for therefore many hours every single day maintaining a tally of the self-checkout counters.
He’d retired as soon as, however needed to return to work as funds dwindled and prices rose, and he didn’t know when he could be in ok monetary form to retire once more. After I checked in together with his spouse a 12 months or so later, she instructed me her husband had lastly retired, after which died a short while later.
Salud Garcia, 80, proper, takes a break from strolling the picket line. Consultants say there’s been a rise within the variety of folks working over the age of 65 and into their 70s.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Instances)
“There’s been a rise within the variety of folks working over the age of 65 and even into their 70s,” mentioned Nari Rhee, director of the Retirement Safety Program on the UC Berkeley Labor Middle.
However discovering work is not any cinch, she mentioned, thanks partially to age discrimination — particularly in tech.
With pensions all however gone within the personal sector, Rhee mentioned, half of working People don’t have any retirement advantages aside from Social Safety. Even when 401(okay)s are provided by an employer, “most lower-wage employees don’t choose in as a result of they’ll’t afford to. … The system has actually let American employees down, particularly on the decrease finish of the labor market.”
Garcia, who has been at her present job for greater than 30 years, makes a bit greater than $21 an hour with a healthcare plan and a 401(okay), amongst different advantages underneath the phrases of a contract. Nevertheless it expired almost two years in the past, and negotiations are lagging.
Her employer, an airline caterer, despatched me the pay scale and advantages package deal for its greater than 500 workers, together with a quick assertion. It mentioned, partially, that the Flying Meals Group “has created a whole bunch of jobs within the L.A. space providing nice pay and advantages whereas offering a contemporary and secure working surroundings for all.”
The union begs to vary, pointing to a number of findings in the previous few years by metropolis, county and state businesses that security requirements and compensation necessities haven’t been met. Final August, the state labor commissioner fined Flying Meals Group $1.2 million, alleging the corporate had lagged in rehiring 21 California workers (18 of them in Inglewood) who have been laid off in the course of the pandemic.
To be honest, the Flying Meals pay and advantages aren’t dangerous. It’s simply that given housing prices and different bills, loads of workers find yourself commuting lengthy distances and dealing via previous age and advancing illnesses. At Garcia’s job website, 34 of her colleagues are 65 and older, and 14 of these are 70 and older, in response to the union.
One of many union objectives, along with $25 an hour, is a pension plan. My first thought was certain, everyone would love pensions, however they’re a factor of the previous. And loads of companies function on skinny margins, so increased pay packages can result in fewer jobs.
However we are able to’t let worthwhile employers or the federal government off the hook for the regular march of older adults into abject poverty. After I interviewed New Faculty economics professor Teresa Ghilarducci final 12 months for the column on lodge workers, she mentioned pensions and decreasing the Medicare age would go a good distance towards easing their burden.
Salud Garcia’s day contains a number of hours in transit and eight or 9 hours on the job.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Instances)
I’m going to exit on a limb and guess that neither of these concepts will be thought of viable for the time being, however in written testimony earlier this 12 months for a U.S. Senate committee, Ghilarducci laid out a stark view of what she known as America’s “severely damaged” retirement system, which lags shamefully behind nations that haven’t let their elders down.
“By worldwide requirements,” she mentioned, “aged poverty in America is remarkably excessive: 23% of American elders are poor; in Canada the elder poverty charge is 12%; within the U.Okay. the elder poverty charge is over 15%; in France, it’s 4.4%; and within the Netherlands (whose pension system persistently ranks as one of many world’s greatest) simply 3.1% of elders are poor.”
Garcia will get by, however solely as a result of she retains working. She and her late husband separated a few years in the past, she instructed me, and for a interval, she labored two jobs to help her kids, considered one of whom died in his 30s from a coronary heart ailment.
Exterior her Reseda residence one night, after yet one more 14-hour day, I seen that Garcia was limping. She mentioned her left knee was bothering her from lengthy days emptying the meals carts that flight attendants push via the aisles of jets. Garcia mentioned she shovels the dishes into dishwashers that typically leak, leaving her standing in puddles.
Garcia shares her residence and splits the payments together with her 40-year-old son, Brigido, a bodily therapist who instructed me his mom’s recommendation has been fixed via the years.
“By no means hand over. Life is hard as we all know it. We’ve received to indicate everyone that we are able to do it,” he mentioned.
That’s the spirit his mom took to the picket line in Inglewood in the future. Garcia led her colleagues out to the road throughout their lunch break, the place they took up indicators and known as for a brand new contract.
“Sooner or later I requested her, ‘Why don’t you retire?’” mentioned Rafael Leon, a Flying Meals dishwasher-turned-union rep whom I met in 2015, when he and his household lived in a transformed storage. “She mentioned, ‘Son, if I depart this job, that’s a loss of life sentence.’”
She’s preventing for the youthful workers, she instructed him, as a result of they stand to learn probably the most.
As Garcia put it to me:
“I need to see this via. We’re going to combat till we end.”
In the event you’re working late in life out of economic necessity, or know somebody who’s, please let me know at steve.lopez@latimes.com
