Customer Reviews

Catching Out: The Secret World of Day Laborers

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As a native of the unnamed city where the Labor-4-U agency is located, I easily recognize the setting and cast of characters that Dick Reavis vividly depicts in Catching Out: The Secret World of Day Laborers. I was thrilled when I found out that Reavis (a mentor of mine for many years) had written this book.

"Catching Out" details the exploitative sector of the work force known as day labor, a particularly pernicious form of temporary employment where most workers show up at pre-dawn hours at "hiring halls" in the hopes of landing a one-day gig where they will be paid at the end of the workday. Many of these workers---mostly men---are guys most Americans would consider marginalized, discriminated against, unemployable, dysfunctional, or all of the above. However, the catalysts that push adults into this oppressive job sector are complex, multifaceted, and defy the easy explanations and stereotypes that too many Americans of privilege use to dismiss the working poor in this country. Sadly, I recognize many of the folks that people Reavis's narrative: they are my cousins, uncles, neighbors, fellow bus riders, workers I struggled alongside as an organizer, or homeless people that I've met and talked to in nearly every city I've visited.

Unlike most members of this book's intended audience, I personally experienced the socioeconomic conditions that are an everyday reality for most day laborers: childhood poverty, single parent with limited education, an upbringing in low-income communities of color. As a younger person I worked my share of low-paying, dead-end jobs, before I finally decided to use the brains the Creator gave me and attend college. However, as Reavis points out, even education and work experience isn't enough to save many Americans from temporary jobs and day laboring, especially in this period of high unemployment. Reavis also reminds us that our dismissal of the working poor and other marginalized communities will ultimately lead to our own collective economic undoing.

The author is basically on a crusade to show that the impoverished underclass is being exploited by society as a whole and the employers of day-laborers in particular. It is very evident that the author is passionate in his beliefs and is a wonderful storyteller at the same time.

It should be noted that the author is a professor at NC State in Raleigh and not a permanent day-laborer type, but went undercover for a period of time to get the proper background information for the book. The author noted that although he is not in the permanent day laboring camp, he has grown up knowing hardship and is certainly not a member of the upper or upper middle class, by his own admission.

He gives wonderful anecdotal experiences about the jobs he was ticketed to, or to use the title expression, he was able to "Catch Out" a job ticket. His description of the various personalities was also great. The only problem I saw with the writing was some confusion between some pronouns and the verbs to which they were referenced. A minor point for most, but a little more problematic for an English professor and author.

I liked the book a lot, but would disagree with the author's conclusion that our problems would be solved with more unionization and universal health care. He also mentions that he is an Obama supporter at several points in the narrative, so the conclusion is not all that surprising. I disagree with the conclusion but feel the book at only 203pp is a worthwhile purchase.

Am about halfway thru this one; (I read two or three books at any given time, switching among them), and one never thinks about how the other half lives until someone takes the time to walk the walk and tell the tale.

Day labor is not an easy route. Someone in my house took a day labor job once, and they had him up on roofs, trying not to slide off! Not fun. One day was enough of this, to say the least. Especially when the temperature is over 100 degrees!!

I appreciate that anyone has undertaken this task -- to do day labor long enough to write about it. But I guess I expected something more like Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickled and Dimed. There, I met and came to know the people she lived and worked with, their families, their homes, their day to day life in and out of work. Here, Reavis simply tells us what happened at work each day, with no real insight into who any of the people he worked with really were. He tells us only what they told him, which was very little, and he never followed any of them home, nor does he seem to have really "reported" the book the way Ehrenreich seems to have done -- in other words, there is no sign he ever really asked anyone any probing questions. Perhaps this is just a matter of gender, perhaps women talk to each other much more about everything that matters, and men just grunt at each other all day --- whatever the reason, none of the people came alive for me, not even Reavis -- his descriptions of boring rote hard labor are just that -- boring and rote -- there's not much to be gained by having a full description of how to paint rust proofing on culvert pipes or how to fold up cardboard unless the people who are doing it come alive...and here they just plain did not....As I said, I dont want to dis the book too much, because I'm glad he had the guts to write it; I just wish there was more to it.