the new america - everyone is a temp. worker

[donsu]

http://www.onlinejournal.com/Commentary/072105Sandronsky/072105sandronsky.html

Temp Workers R US: New frontiers in labor flexibility


The U.S. employment services sector is projected to have a 4.4 percent average annual rate of growth through 2012, states the Bureau of Labor Statistics. People who toil in that sector are usually called temporary workers.

-snip-

You see temporary workers stay on a payroll for a limited time—three weeks or three months—then they are gone like a fist when you open your palm. This is a wet dream come true for employers whose hiring is subject to the ebbs and flows of their short-term needs.

And the modern business enterprise is all about the short term, thanks to the dog-eat-dog competition of the market. Long-term business planning is for social malcontents; they put people's daily needs before business profits.

Such a perspective is positively anti-American. We know how patriotic employers are by the sizes of the flags that some of them have at their establishments.

-snip-

Here, then, is a daily situation of increased workplace exploitation that occurs place day and night across the U.S., limiting hours and pay to workers, who also lack health care, retirement pensions and vacations.
-snip-
--------------------------------

the article also says the current temp workers are SILENT about the situation.

they are probably too tired of having an elephant on their back to protest anything.

[redqueen]

1. They're silent because it's what they expect.

We need national healthcare and mandatory amounts of leave time... NOW.

[raccoon]

2. Also, they're silent because the employers can and will

tell them if they don't like it, don't let the door hit them on the way out. There'll be others who'll be glad to take their place.

[Mnemosyne]

3. This is a recruiting tool almost, certainly gives incentive to join up.

I know several kids that joined up due to the fact that only temp work is available here.

Shame to all who benefit by the desperation in this job market.

[whistle]

4. Just like at the end of the 19th century through to the late 1940's

....when American industry felt it could treat workers like capital. Throw in non-compete and exclusivity contracts and America's workers are becoming corporate slaves.

[Booster]

5. I just retired from a major TV network and hiring "dailies" has

become the norm. They receive no benefits, but are paid a certain percentage point higher so, supposedly, they will get their own health benefits and invest what they can for retirement, as they will have no pension. 5 years before I retired I talked until I was blue in the face to these kids about putting their money (5%) into a stock fund and buying health insurance. Some listened, some didn't. It's the ones who won't listen that will become a major problem when they get retirement age. If Repugs have their way, Medicare will be gutted, they won't be able to get health insurance and they won't have a penny for their retirement. That's going to be a major problem for everybody.

[oscar111]

7. RECOMMEND FOR GREATEST PAGE. // AAR is the solution to this

These trends can only be stopped if unions grow. And if the general population supports unions.

both will happen faster if AAR grows.

Another trend.. day workers. Fired at sunset, hired or not, at sunrise every day.

seen long time now, with some dockworkers, farmworkers, garbage men, house maids.

post above spoke of "dailies" at a tv station. Same thing?

[barbaraann]

6. Disposable Worker Unit (DWU)

That's what I call it.

[getmeouttahere]

8. No wonder they want CAFTA so bad....

it will create more temp workers

[Hamlette]

9. even worse

temporary help companies are trying to get legislation in our state that would require people receiving unemployment benefits work for the temporary help company during the period of unemployment in exchange for benefits.

Apparently Oregon had a similar law for 10 years and recently repealed it. (Or let it lapse). Now these companies are trying to do it all over (I hear) but at least here in my state.

So...more people unemployed as even the temp jobs are taken by recipients of unemployment.

[Hidden Stillness]

10. The Whole Work World is Different Now--All for Corporations, not People

People who are poor or middle class, and who therefore are most subject to all this corporate oppression, know that the entire workplace has been so reorganized, that it is unrecognizable, and there really is no set "workday" anymore. Instead of one job, people now often have three part-time jobs; all crap pay, no benefits, no raises, no promotions. They don't promote people "up through the ranks" anymore, but instead bring in corporate-trained "management" from elsewhere (and have done this for years, of course), so there is no structure to the workplace, only two separate tiers. All corporations have union-busters and PR firms to cover up their union busting. They make money as much by cutting workers and foriegn investment as by whatever their actual commercial product or service activity is.

If you notice, driving around during the afternoon in the city/suburb, there are no ebbs and flows of traffic patters anymore--no "rush hour," then a lull, then "lunch break," then mid-afternoon "back to work" heavier traffic again, then later "drive-time rush hour" cutting off about 6:30-7PM etc. Now, there are heavy rushes of traffic all day, at odd times of the day, etc. The society itself has been lost, as people just hurry, under pressure, from one part-time job to another, with no breaks during the day, their whole lives. Something terrible has been done to the people and the society--the non-rich just run and work, and run and work, no time to read or think, all so the rich pimp can make even bigger profits on this un-Godly exploitation of humanity. If you have ever been around employees of this "modern" type, you know that they never complain as they feel everyone is a corporate spy and they are being set up and listened to all the time.

God, I hate Republicans. To think that we used to have more rights as workers than we do now, or may ever again.

[electron_blue]

11. Eye-opening - thanks - I see this at my university, too

Even at my university, full-time tenured professors have been replaced with temporary adjuncts & fixed terms. Cheaper and no commitment from them to the university. My department (physics) has gone from 12 full-time faculty to 4 full-time and 4 temps.

The dean is so proud of how far they've come, fiscally. And he has plans to replace us with grad students. Even cheaper and less pesky than professors.

[raccoon]

16. I work at a community college and I heard from an H.R.

employee that 50%---50% of the employees are temporary, part-time, no benefits.

I have a relative who's worked about 15 years as full-time faculty in another community college not far away. She said when she started working there, 75% of the faculty were full-time. Now, 50% is full-time.

[SoCalDem]

12. They are silent because if they speak out,

the phone will stop ringing, and they will have NO income..They are little more than better dressed "day-laborers".. They don't sit on retaining walls at Home Depot & Lowes, but they are more like them than they think.

[Lannes]

13. Nicely put

[Hidden Stillness]

14. Now Cities Themselves are Corporate Environments

Just one more little point about this situation: corporate interests have taken over City Planning too, and destroyed the response to the needs and expressed opinions of citizens. If you notice, they do not build new individual small markets/grocery stores, freestanding in neighborhoods, easy to walk to and right in your own neighborhood, as had always been the case before. Now, everything is geared toward the huge, congested, expanding "business district" where you are cut off from your neighborhood, have to drive to get there, and are shoved together with many other stores, to try to get you to go from place to place and buy. It is all to their advantage, never ours anymore. This also increases the frustration of having to drive many miles to and from each job--a situation never worse than now--as everything is inconvenient to the individual person--citizen neighbor, worker, shopper--and set up as corporations want. Drive times for workers are at an all-time high, the business district is now the center of city planning, not the neighborhood, and corporate interests control (and ruin) everything.

[earth mom]

15. Oh yes, and NAFTA and CAFTA and Outsourcing are SO good for the country

NOT!!!


The workers of this country are being screwed every which way and are too tired and worn down to do anything about it!


This issue should be front and center and discussed by everyone but it's not. I don't understand why. It seems that only when it happens to someone personally do they get it.


Do we REALLY want to wait for this to happen to the majority of the population?!


Welcome to the Third World America!