"We come to work there. They says it’s gonna be fi’ cents. They was a hell of a lot of us. We got there an’ they says they’re payin’ two an’ a half cents. A fella can’t even eat on that, an’ if he got kids – So we says we won’t take it. So they druv us off. An’ all the cops in the worl’ come down on us. Now they’re payin’ you five. When they bust this here strike – ya think they’ll pay five?"
– John Steinbeck
The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 26. Jim Casy, who has become a labor activist, tells Tom Joad that he is part of a group of striking workers refusing to work until wages are raised. He reveals the deceit of the Hooper Ranch owners. Workers were promised they would be paid five cents for each box of peaches collected. But when they arrived they were paid two and a half cents. The Joads are getting five cents because they are strikebreakers, but Casy foreshadows that this will soon be cut. His comments also highlight the corruption of the police, who serve the interests of ranch owners by coming down hard on striking workers.