24 Years At The Colorado Employment Service Shaped My Views

[TheMastersNemesis]

My views on labor were shaped by my 24 years as a labor specialist. I worked with welfare to work, the homeless, the unemployed, in the unemployment division, ex felons, veterans and the general population. What I saw was that most people I interviewed about 20,000+ during my career wanted only one thing. THEY WANTED LONG TERM JOB WITH ADVANCEMENT POTENTIAL WITH BENEFITS AND JOB SECURITY. Most of them did not want to get insanely rich. They just wanted to be able to live a decent life and be secure in old age. On the whole they were not slackers and they were not lazy.

Ronald Reagan, the GOP, big business and its allies took all that away from American workers. Watching the carnage day in and day out for all those years was just disgusting. And each and every year our job got harder. By the time I retired there was little that I could do to help. The job banks got worse and worse, the number of good jobs declined and the outsourcing and the insourcing became epidemic. Employer demands got more ridiculous all the time. And eventually what employers demanded got unreasonable. And our funding just kept going down. We were told to do more with less until there was nothing to do less with.

Credit ratings, drug testing, outlandish experience demands, invasion of privacy etc are all things that do not have anything to do with the job. Now things are completely out of control. And the reason employers are not connecting is THEIR FAULT.

Anyone working in my field would understand immediately how employers with the help of the GOP have pretty much destroyed the labor structure of our nation. Unless we find a way to get that back it will only get worse. Continuing to be anti union, anti labor and anti regulation in the labor arena will relegate workers into almost "no pay" peasants.

Based on what I have seen older workers are going to be finished by 45 if they already aren't. There was a time when a person's highest earnings were just before retirement.

Voters can blame Obama for this catastrophe, but the game was already set up by Bush long before Obama ever came on the scene. Ronald Reagan told everyone what he planned and as a nation we let him set his plan in motion.

[Egalitarian Thug]

1. So true. K&R

[Skittles]

2. K&R

yes INDEED

[ProfessionalLeftist]

3. "will relegate workers into almost "no pay" peasants"

And that is EXACTLY what they want. Slaves and slave labor. Slavery was allegedly abolished in the U.S. years ago. The GOP/Koch/ALEC/Tea Party and even some Democrats what to bring it back. That's EXACTLY what they want.

[Hubert Flottz]

15. It's "The New World Order"

When our standard of living is the same as the poorest countries in the world the ruling class will be happy. No it won't get any better until the working class fights for it again, like they did between the Civil War and 1940.

One World Government = Worldwide slavery.

[Sirveri]

16. They don't want slaves. You have to feed and house your slaves.

They want disposable cogs. Consumables that can be used and discarded easily.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

4. I just want to say how much I appreciate your posts here.

Yours is a clear, intelligent voice and you speak the truth beautifully.

Please continue to tell us what you know.

Your post here is most excellent. It's heartbreaking to read but I still read it.

Thank you!

[freshwest]

6. +1. What she said!

[freshwest]

5. Thanks for the inside information. Never been in an employment office.

[JDPriestly]

7. Thanks. Well said.

[saras]

8. So true - "as a nation we let him set his plan in motion."

THEY didn't do it - there wasn't that many of THEM.

All the Americans who knew better but voted for Reagan anyways - they're as much at fault as Cheney and Rumsfeld.

[lunatica]

17. Actually they did do it

When 'they' own the media and can write the laws at will, they do it. When they pay for political campaigns they get to decide which candidates win and they can tell those candidates what they want done and it gets done.

[FirstLight]

9. frightening, ain't it...?

I've spent my adult life trying for that 'good job'...I thought it was me, thought it was because my kids would get sick and there's no daycare, thought it was because I couldn't finish my BA... then spent the time and gas to travel to the nearest University on weekdays for a certificate in HR mgmt...right after the bottom fell out of the job market and then the real fun started...my extra education meant zilch! I was supposed to already have 2=5 yrs experience and couldn't even qualify fo0r data entry because I didn't know the computer system (that part wasn't covered in the classes...it was more of a 'big picture' kind of class i guess)...and I refuse to do a credit check when the job doesn't require me to do banking...and the whole theory pf Human resources actually condoning these invasions to privacy...I just couldn't fight it.
So I am back to freelancing, trying to get better gigs, doing web work for the local chamber, that could blossom, taking temp jobs, and still grateful we have some assistance as well...

the uphill battle is there and persistent, for sure...and there have been days where I wanted to just hide under the bed than deal with another rejection...
...and all I can do is keep getting up and functioning as best I can, taking the kids to school and helping with homework and doing laundry in between contracts, right?
I decided this year that I was going to stop listening to reports about how bad it all is out there...I know it is, but In MY little corner, I refuse to let it darken my efforts, I want this year to be better than last, and that's all I can do...

[coalition_unwilling]

10. When Reagan busted PATCO, the AFL-CIO and Teamsters should have

immediately called a nationwide general strike (Taft Hartley be damned) and forced the Walpurgisnacht of class warfare right then and there.

Now we are witnessing the apotheosis of Reaganism and it's not a pretty sight.

But I hold organized labor partially responsible for failing to throw down the gauntlet when Reagan, using the military and national guard as his scabs, busted PATCO.

[Sherman A1]

11. Agreed

I am not sure of what the outcome would have been, but they should have tried to do something.

[happyslug]

43. My Father said Geroge Meany (Head of the AFL-CIO Then) should have at the time

I remember my father saying George Meany should call a national Strike over the PATCO firing. He would have "Hit the Bricks" if one would have been called. My comment it was NOT something he said afterward, but at the time of the PATCO Firing.

As to the PATCO Strike being illegal, all Strikes at one time or another have been illegal, when my father went on Strike for the letter Carriers in 1970, he knew what he was doing was illegal, but it was needed and he did it.

[coalition_unwilling]

46. A national general strike at the time -- when unions represented some 30% of the

American workforce -- would have nullified Taft Hartley and rendered it unenforceable. But it had to be a national general strike to defeat Reagan and his corporo-fascist cronies. IIRC, there were some wildcat sympathy strikes by isolated Teamsters' locals in support of PATCO but nothing at all like a full-blown work stoppage.

I don't remember Meany fondly and sort of think of him as being in the pockets of big business. But my memories of the time have grown hazy now.

[XemaSab]

12. Today I went to Lowe's to get some tile

and half of the people working there were 60 year old men.

This was very depressing to me.

[Flatulo]

39. Most likely former professionals who were laid off, outsourced or otherwise kicked to the curb.

Last year I earned my lowest salary in 25 years, culminating a steady 4 year saga of layoffs and outsourcing and wage erosion.

Let the floggings continue.

[NNN0LHI]

13. I sure am glad that everyone hasn't forgotten this

Shows me there is hope.

Don

[DLevine]

14. K&R. n/t

[DiverDave]

18. Get a CDL, it aint a great job, but it pays my bills.

Single folks do the best, if your married with kids, well... Just hope to get a local job.
I dont get the rules change.
We used to be able to drive for 10 hours now its 11.
I was told that my company wants 11 hours, no excuses.
I would work at LEAST 12 hours EVERY day (a combination of 11 driving and the rest "working" on duty)
On duty time is any waiting to get loaded/unloaded, dropping/hooking to trailers, doing paperwork/inspections of equipment.
They wanted the most out of you that was legal. (and sometimes pressure you to go over hours, I have- to save my job)
I dont anymore, I've got enough years in that I can get a job in hours if fired.
New rules are coming down the pike, I've heard less hours, but the trucking company's are screaming bloody murder.
Do what I tell my wife to do- JUST STAY AWAY FROM EVERY BIG TRUCK, most likely, the driver is tired.

[Magoo48]

19. Because the current system is dug in,

we must find ways of building a people's system around the decaying one that will render the diseased one irrelevant...co-op it all while it's still legal.

[kaiden]

20. I feel so sorry for and so angry for the 20- and 30-somethings of today.

The only place they can get jobs is at restaurants -- college degree be damned. I work in the legal field in Denver and there are some law firms (the bad ones that advertise on television), who have terminated all legal secretary and paralegal positions and have hired attorneys to work those jobs for even less pay than what the paralegals and legal secretaries were making. It's disgusting.

[FraDon]

21. bingo! • SO beautifully said, especially …

We were told to do more with less until there was nothing to do less with.

I heard that very comment from my brother after a career in public service (that phrase has sounded better) as a psychiatric social worker, during the years they closed all the public mental hospitals, and dumped tractor trailer loads of troubled humanity onto the ill-prepared cities and towns of America.

We have become the current flotsam & jetsam of the assassination – perhaps guided suicide might be closer to it – of yet another empire.

[freshwest]

32. +1

[Jkid]

35. Not it's not guided suicide. A Societal Suicide Pact.

When the actual suicide comes (the transformation of the US into a third-world pre-Chavez Venezuela), the people who plan the pat (the 1%) will escape out of it at the last minute. The 1% will still have their riches, the property, their social and economic lives. The rest (99%) will not unless you are personally connected to the 1% clique.

[Voice for Peace]

22. you mean it's not my fault?????????????????

thanks for your perspective, much appreciated.

[ML.tp.MD]

23. marsha sweetheart

GOP ruined the mental health industry also. When Reagan was prez and I was much younger and working in the mental health field then, their (GOP, Reagan) belief was that the families of mentally ill people should take care of them at home instead of in mental health hospitals and began stripping the monies from the hospitals, clinics, and set up unbelievable rules for mental health doctors to work under. The mental health care in our country has never been able to recover yet. The care in this country for the mentally ill is appalling. I am not comparing it to other countries but to what this country used to do for the mentally ill.

Many patients who were psychotic were violent even when taking their drugs, many would not be taking their drugs if they had not been in a care facility. Many families could not take care of these patients at home because they were frail, elderly, or had other family members or neighbors who would be hurt because of their psychotic child, brother, father, etc. The GOP actually put these psychotic people out in the streets and many are today in jail.

Here in Kansas we have a jail officer being sued by a son whose mentally ill dad was beaten to death in jail because he wouldn't be quiet (not the first time he had beaten a mentally ill person in jail either). And his dad would not be quiet because he wasn't getting his meds on time or at all. The jailer was not equipped to be handling psychotic patients let alone regular jailed ones.

It looks like he is going to get off . He still has his jailer's job but is suspended. The jail is full of mentally ill people who should be living in a psychiatric home but we don't have those anymore thanks to Reagan and the GOP. I remember Reagan saying the the families should be responsible for their own. One thing about the GOP, they never learn. They never admit they make a mistake and they will keep on making the same mistake over and over again even though it is proven over and over again that it doesn't work. Sounds like a mental illness doesn't it!

[proud2BlibKansan]

31. Welcome to DU!

[freshwest]

34. +1. There are many terrible stories out there that are never told.

[LuckyLib]

41. You are so right. In California, when the mental institutions

were closed down, the resulting homelessness began to appear over the next decade and mental health workers were witness to the tragedy of releasing folks to "community homes" (few were available) or "their families" (many of whom were not able to care for them). You are so right. Reagan began this nightmare and it has STILL not been corrected.

[pasto76]

24. hey when it all crashed in 2008, was it intentionally hard to file a claim?

seemed like it!!

website was a joke; almost impossible to get through on the phone. Literally spent days just trying to connect.

Keep up the good work. Get out there and educate some of the whackos in our state!

[Kablooie]

25. The GOP is the pro-crime party.

They increase unemployment and decrease opportunity which forces people into committing crime that otherwise they would not have done.

Then the GOP wants more prisons to lock them up and give citizens the freedom to kill them.

They like creating more criminals so they have more people to destroy.

[hunter]

26. Yes.

Where are the LONG TERM JOBS WITH ADVANCEMENT POTENTIAL WITH BENEFITS AND JOB SECURITY???

We could make benefits less important by implementing a single payer health care system and building a more robust and generous social safety net, but what we really need right now are better jobs, a doubling (at least) of the minimum wage, and public works if the market can't provide these, even if it means taxing the wealthiest 1% at rates approaching 90%.

If the leaders of industry and commerce with multi-million dollar incomes are not creating good jobs, why should they be rewarded? The government ought to maintain a monetary system for the benefit of all, not just a small ruling class...

And yes, Ronald Reagan was a major symptom of the fatal illness that is killing the U.S.A.

[MarianJack]

27. I've been out of work for 10+ months.

2 things really amaze me about this job hunt. First, it amazes me just how blatent and brazen the discrinination due to my age has been. Second, and probably related to the first, it also amazes me how cynical potential employers have been this time around.

PEACE!

[just1voice]

28. For regulations to be valid, they need to be enforced

Kind of like war crimes that are not prosecuted and big banks that aren't held accountable, the accountability has to start somewhere at some time and the people who don't hold them accountable are just as responsible.

That said, human resource studies all show that what you are saying is true, workers want security and job satisfaction much more than to get rich.

[drm604]

29. Excellent Post

K&R

[TahitiNut]

30. The time is long past ripe to have a major upgrade to the FLSA.

The abuses of "exempt" job classifications, the imposition of personal intrusions unrelated to the job, the abuses of the visa system, the appalling plague of 'wrongful discharges' for opposing illicit business behavior, the hostile treatment of GLBT in the workplace, the widespread abuse of 'casual overtime,' the oppressive mandates of availability during non-working hours, and the anti-union sociopathy that pervades virtually every company.

The average S&P500 employee receives total "compensation" of less that 30% of the value of his or her labors, and others receive even less than that. It's plantation economics run amok.

[malaise]

33. Excellent post

Rec

[Hotler]

36. Nothing is going to change until people...

take to the streets in protest by the tens of thousands in every state and stay in the streets for months, so many in the streets that the cops won't have anything better to do than join us. The reason we don't have mass protest is because not enough people feeling the pain. Still too many have the attitude "I have mine, fuck everyone else". We can fill a football stadium and pack a NASCAR race, but we can't field a mass protest. Because of that a little part of me says let the repugs have 2012 and then the real pain will set in. Just a little part of me, not a big part of me.

[Rowdyboy]

37. I worked for the Mississippi Employment Service for 24 years also as an interviewer/manager....

I agree with your post 100% and am proud to have given it its 100th rec!

[Omaha Steve]

38. Why blame Obama?

He has had to deal with a House that wants him to fail for over a year.

K&R though.

OS

[LuckyLib]

40. Your historical perspective and your views are invaluable.

Decision makers, and certainly corporate America, do not value the amazing perspective folks such as yourself offer. Huge numbers of Boomers are very informed about the trajectory of this downward spiral in labor. You speak for many of us. Thanks.

[DonCoquixote]

42. If they had an award for best up and comer

You, TMN would get it hands down. When the trolls here get on you, do NOT let them drive you out the way they did nancegriggs and others.

[BOHICA12]

44. 22 year here ---

JTPA, WtW, WP, WIA, WTP ..... love them acronyms

But here we have a small business environment with 12% unemployment. Union? forget it. There is an animosity between employers and the workforce. It is ugly. They think that $10/hr is magnanimous. They don't have to pay - too many need the work. Oh, and don't try to have "the conversation" about better pay will get you better results - that lands on deaf ears.

Now sometimes we don't seem all that sympathetic - we know what the reality is, and customers thinking it is something else are frustrated and frustrating.

So folks - repeat after me - for Florida, it is skilled medical that finds the job. There are some other occupations in demand, but none I can categorically recommend.

[RKP5637]

45. It's become in my lifetime a nation that is unhealthy for a huge number of citizens. n/t

[Mimosa]

47. Thanks for the TRUTH, TheMastersNemisis

It is nearly impossible for a skilled person of good health over age 55 to obtain a full time job.

[Quantess]

48. It's been decades in the making.

K & R