Minimum Wage at the YMCA

Some of them wake up at 3:00 am to make their way to work for their 4:00 shift. They unlock the back doors, which are next to the dumpsters, and they go inside and begin to turn on the lights for the building. Each individual has his or her various tasks for the morning. And they all have to be ready for the opening of the building at 5:00 am. This time is when the businessmen and women of Tacoma, Washington come with their suits pressed in their gym bags and their Starbucks coffees in hand. This is the life of a YMCA employee.
For teenagers, working at the YMCA is a great way to gain job experience. The only issue is that very few positions at the Y are available to those under 18: lifeguarding, dance instruction, and volunteer work. The rest of the jobs – trainers, instructors, welcome desk workers, janitors, and all other positions – are reserved for adults. The problem with this? Most of these positions are minimum wage, and nearly all of the workers at the YMCA are part-time or hourly.
At the YMCA, being part time means only getting a certain amount of hours per day or per week. And because there are so many employees at the Y, hours are hard to come by, and they are always being changed or cut. One thing you’ll notice is that most of the workers do not have families to support and this is because it is impossible to support a family with the wages that the YMCA provides to its employees, not to mention, part-time employees do not receive health insurance or benefits.
The YMCA has a certain hierarchy that keeps its employees cycling through. There are only a few full-time positions available at the Y, and they are only given to current employees and the decisions are mainly based off of favoritism. For the rest of the workers, they are stuck in the same job for years and years in hopes of promotions, but without reprieve. And so when the young adults who have worked the same job since high school finally want to start a family they are forced to look for work elsewhere.
Or in many cases, they start a family unexpectedly. A huge problem with the young employees of the YMCA is teen pregnancy. In my two and a half years of working at the Y, I saw so many of my coworkers have this happen to them. One fellow lifeguard and swim instructor, Britany, got pregnant when she was 17. She came from a low-wage family to begin with, so she was already basically supporting herself. But then her parents asked her to leave their home. Britany had no other option but to drop out of the local Running Start program at her high school and take on more hours at the Y. Her boy friend then began looking for work and ended up getting a position as a lifeguard. So they both had minimum wage jobs, but then Britany had to stop working when her baby was born. The only option for two uneducated teens was to go on welfare. And that is where they are now. Unable to move up in position at the YMCA and unable to move up in life. They are stuck at the Y and probably will be for years. These are some of the examples of minimum wage work at the YMCA.