Abracadabra: You’re a Part-Timer

[marmar]

from TomDispatch:



Abracadabra: You’re a Part-Timer
How Corporate America Used the Great Recession to Turn Good Jobs Into Bad Ones

By Barbara Garson


Watch closely: I’m about to demystify the sleight-of-hand by which good jobs were transformed into bad jobs, full-time workers with benefits into freelancers with nothing, during the dark days of the Great Recession.

First, be aware of what a weird economic downturn and recovery this has been. From the end of an “average” American recession, it ordinarily takes slightly less than a year to reach or surpass the previous employment peak. But in June 2013 -- four full years after the official end of the Great Recession -- we had recovered only 6.6 million jobs, or just three-quarters of the 8.7 million jobs we lost.

Here’s the truly mysterious aspect of this “recovery”: 21% of the jobs lost during the Great Recession were low wage, meaning they paid $13.83 an hour or less. But 58% of the jobs regained fall into that category. A common explanation for that startling statistic is that the bad jobs are coming back first and the good jobs will follow.

But let me suggest another explanation: the good jobs are here among us right now -- it’s just their wages, their benefits, and the long-term security that have vanished. .......................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175738/tomgram%3A_barbara_garson%2C_how_to_become_a_part-time_worker_without_really_trying/#more

[xchrom]

1. du rec.

[TheMastersNemesis]

2. The Job Shake Up Has Been Going On Since Reagan. It Is Now On Steroids.

I wrote an article about the "No Job Jobs Of The 21st Century" years ago. It is about jobs being converted into "contract employment" which has been the corporate plan since early in the Reagan administration. This article reveals just another step in that process. It means that very few jobs will be full time in the future.

Voters have been drinking the kool aid for so long when sit comes to labor. Everyone hates unions and government regulation. So they vote for conservatives who mouth the anti union and government line.

[chervilant]

3. If anyone thinks Mr. Obama

is unaware of this, and the myriad other ways the corporate megalomaniacs are insuring their wealth and hegemony at OUR expense, then I have a lovely bridge to sell.

[AsahinaKimi]

4. I wonder how many businesss

took good full time jobs and turned them into part time jobs, just so they could make more money, leaving workers struggling?

[agent46]

5. Did I miss something?

I thought this intentional social engineering aspect of the "great recession" was stunningly obvious from the beginning. Why does the article present these facts as some kind of revelation? Is America so dumbed down that we need this explained to us by alternative media bloggers? Wow.

[starroute]

9. The emphasis has been on things like McJobs replacing factory jobs

This article is saying that it isn't just about good jobs vanishing and bad ones appearing in their place. It's that the same jobs that were formerly good ones have been downsized and no longer support a middle class lifestyle.

That hasn't been "stunningly obvious" up to now. If anything, it's been assumed that temp and part-time jobs would turn back into permanent full-time work as the economy improved. It's only now that it's possible to conclude that isn't happening and never will happen.

[agent46]

10. I guess it has been to me

I got laid off from a near six figure Silicon Valley job in 2009. I'm 56 now and making twelve bucks an hour using a subset of my skills.

It was obvious to a bunch of us when the far lower paid and part-time new hires started arriving and the layoffs of senior people followed.

[starroute]

13. Then you've had a front-row seat at the apocalypse

Maybe you could share your experiences in more detail. I'm sure a lot of people would find them eye-opening. It was widely reported at the time that older employees were being laid off, but the degree to which the jobs themselves were permanently downgraded hasn't been as apparent.

[agent46]

16. The rule of perception is simple

Study the result and you will discern the original intention.

I don't have the emotional energy to go over the details of my lay-off experience and its consequent effect on my family. The discovery that as a 53 year old worker under the Neo-liberal, Social Darwinist corporate regime - regardless of my skill set and knowledge of how the world works - I have been relegated to the legions of Wal-Mart greeters and pizza order takers just trying to get by in the New American century.

The so-called "great recession" was a well ordered re-structuring of society to establish a new normal.

This shit is real and intentional - engineered by corporate sponsored political think tanks and carried out by well compensated, unelected corporate paid law writers and the lobbyist delivery boys who drop those laws off to be rubber stamped by the idiot ideological con-artist demagogues we keep sending to Washington.

I'm sick of this shit and so are you.

[mountain grammy]

6. This has been a forty year trend that began in 1980 with our bad actor president.

It's the norm now. The Clinton boom wasn't so much of a boom as it was easy to find 2 or 3 low paying jobs to keep one's head above water. Now, even that isn't possible. Raising the minimum wage is the best start to fix this mess, and we all know it, but the teabagger Congress would impeach the President before that happens.

2014; Anyone who thinks this election can't start bringing us back isn't paying attention.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

8. Could this all work out for the best after Obama signs the TPP, Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement?

[99Forever]

11. This is what happens when political parties are for sale.

Both of America's main parties are now property of the 1%. They both do the bidding of the 1% and care fuckall about We the People.

The storm is coming.

[limpyhobbler]

12. Shouldn't that book be called "Up the Down Escalator"?

instead of Down the Up Escalator? just sayin

[George II]

14. This has been going on for decades, it isn't anything new....

....people have had their hours reduced below the level where employers have to pay for benefits since the 1970s.

During the Reagan regime, "hundreds of thousands" of jobs were "created", yet the net income nationwide dropped. For example, well-trained, experienced, capable people earning $20 an hour (around 1981) were laid off and replaced by workers earning $10 an hour. Those laid off had to go find jobs at half their original pay - BINGO! Jobs "created" in the service segment (i.e., fast food) yet combined income between two was less than the original $20, but now there were TWO jobs in place of one.

Another scheme created by management was "temporary" workers. In 1989 I worked for a company that laid off 24 production employees on a Friday afternoon. The following Monday every one of the 24 was "hired" as temporary workers with no health insurance, no vacation, no sick time.

If there is a way to get around laws, regulations, union rules, etc., management scum will find it.

[Blue Owl]

15. Koch Koch Koch, It's Magic, You Know...

n/t