The "Incorporated Worker" - A New Model For The 21st century. Workers Need To Wake Up.

[TheMastersNemesis]

Workers are being evolved to accept a new model for working. That is the "incorporated worker" who must sell his or her skills and services to the lowest bidder in the job market of the future. Forget having an employer that will be replaced by "having a contract" for service provided. You will pay all your taxes, fund your retirement, buy your health care, pay all your own expenses, fund your own education and save for your vacations yourself. You will be the owner of your benefits as an "incorporated worker" or "business of one". Instead of going from employer to employer workers will go from "contract to contract". That model is the business libertarian's dream because there will be no government regulations and bargaining with business will be individual and NOT collective. Contracts will be limited term and paid in a lump sum over time during the time of service.

What I just described is what G. Bush meant by the ownership society. Remember the GOP meme about owning your own health care contract. Well their idea goes far beyond just health care. And if you look hard enough and critically enough you can see what businesses are doing with the new ownership scheme. Businesses and corporations that are employee free. The Denver Post had an editorial about "employee free" corporations in the early 1980's.

We now have "just-in-time" workers, contract workers, contingency workers, temporary workers and other categories of workers where there is no real obligation on the employers' side. 40% of the work force is now some kind of contract or temp arrangement. Probably another 30% are part time. If it were tabulated I would bet that only about 30% of the work force are full time regular jobs anymore.

American workers just seem to be blind to the idea that their future in the work force will be very tenuous at best. And most American workers will find themselves scrambling for crumbs once they are past 40. The trend is so obvious and yet there is so much denial. The problem is that workers do not fully understand the code talk. They are being slowly boiled the the proverbial frog in that the changes have been incremental.

What is most sad is that you cannot run for public office these days on a pro labor, pro union or living wage platform. You will never win. Of course if you are for the working class it is just too communistic.

I worked at DOL for 24 years and watched employer beginning to shift to this model. We are not there yet but we are well on our way thanks to Ronald Reagan, big business, and the GOP.

[RevStPatrick]

1. I am an incorporated worker, and I prefer it that way.

They are not my employers, they are my clients.
Big difference.

I can, and have, told clients to fuck off, I don't want to do business with them anymore, for whatever reason. I work when I want, I don't have to waste my time sitting around when there's nothing to do, and nobody owns my time but me. They may not have any loyalty to me, but I don't owe anyone any loyalty either. Two way street.

Granted, I do knowledge work. This model might not work for factory or service work. But it might. A bunch of incorporated service-workers might actually be a better way to deal with collective bargaining than the current union model.

If corporations are people, maybe people should incorporate. I don't really like it, but if that's the reality of the situation, why not use it to your advantage?

[TampaAnimusVortex]

3. I agree - same here. Works for me.

My skills are in demand and if I don't like my conditions or pay, I take my ball to another sandlot - and that's the trick. Education and gaining skill in areas that are in market demand.

I take responsibility for my career direction and actively monitor the market to watch the trends to see which way the winds are blowing, and start learning the technologies that I expect to be in need in the near future. It's not rocket science really.

Labor has always been a two way street. Your selling your services to other people... rather that means putting bolts on the wheels of a automobile, making hamburgers, managing databases, or performing open heart surgery.

[Egalitarian Thug]

2. One of the problems we face is in your the reply to you.

I've seen this too many times to count over the years. The average individual's inability to see where the road they're on eventually leads has always been used as a tool by the powerful to exploit the powerless.

[BelgianMadCow]

4. Tragedy of the commons

would be when all such business-of-ones compete with each other to maximise their personal income, loose any collective bargaining rights and end up worse of as a whole.

The end of loyalty. I don't like it.