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Federal Contractors Are $600 Screwdrivers
ideonexus writes "Last month an article appeared on Slashdot about how the government pays IT contractors twice what it pays its own workers. Missing from the article was how much the IT contractor pays its own workers. After working for a federal contractor for 10 years, a document accidentally leaked to employees by the contractor illustrated the incredible disparity between what the contractor was paying us and what they were charging the government. Like most contracts according to the GAO, the government provided our offices, utilities, computers, and training, leaving our salaries as the only overhead to the IT contractor, giving them an incredible incentive to keep them as low as possible to maximize profits. When the top 100 defense contractors cost taxpayers $306 billion, eliminating the federal contractor middle-man seems like an obvious place to start the austerity measures."
In what world are outsourced IT workers in unions? Talk about putting the blinders on and diverting the issue. This was supposed to be that privatized haven the fiscal right is asking for, turns out the reality is just as crappy as what they complain about.
And yet, there has to be a middle ground. If you give the employer too much power, they take complete advantage of it. If you give the Unions too much power, you can't keep people accountable even for basic tasks and efficiency.
We have to stop saying that any limits on union power mean a return to sweatshops, because that's just as wrong as saying that returning to no unions will fix all of our economic problems.
Unless you're a rockstar, compensation is usually a "take it or leave it" proposition. Especially so in an economy where people are desperate for jobs and will take anything to put food on the table.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
So the answer is outlawing unions and having all workers negotiate their own contract terms?
No, but there should be a middle ground.
Unions are good, but this whole "protect every employee at any cost" thing has to go. Outlawing the union is going way too far in the other direction, but there has to be a better solution.
Personally, I think that these claims that people are impossible to fire are largely made up. Maybe people are difficult to fire, but impossible? As for punching his boss in the face, I certainly don't have all the details (or any of them, really), but I'll bet there's more to that story. Certainly, if the guy punched his boss for no reason, he'd be arrested for assault and battery and I'm guessing he'd be easy to fire, union or not.
The way contracts work in the government is that usually they have a specific contractor they want to use anyway. So they'll word the contract in such a way that only that specific contractor can meet all the requirements. Same goes when they want to hire a specific person. Because of government regulations, they have to have an open competition for contracts and positions, but many times they already know who they want to work with. On one hand it's unfair to the others who want the contract or job. On the other hand, it's a lot less risky for them to pick somebody they know will get the job done (regardless of the cost) over someone they have never worked with before.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
All I read in your post was this:
I come from a middle-class family, there was always food in my table and growing up was easy, then I started working and was always happy with my paycheck, and I even found ways to avoid overpaying taxes. I don't see why people say they can't find jobs... you just go somewhere and say "hi, here's my qualifications, i want a job" and you get it. It's not so difficult.
Which is fine, except that in real life there are other factors, like genetically stupid people, or people who didn't have proper nutrition as children, or whose mothers drank, smoked, or did drugs during pregnancy. Or teenage mothers, or many other factors that automatically get you out of the American Dream elegibility.
If you stop for a minute and think that, gee, not everyone is like you. Not everyone can negotiate, can afford to "meet people", or HEY! they don't even have the kind of job you are doing (I doubt a walmart cashier can benefit of "getting in touch with people", since she's probably there because she can't do anything else.)
(BTW, i'm from a middle-class family, I have a decent living, I got my "gigs" by meeting people, etc. But I also have empathy for other people and I can see why things are the way they are. It's either that, or we kill all idiots, "they're useless anyway")
"You don't actually think they spend $20,000.00 on a hammer, $30,000.00 on a toilet seat do you?" - Independence Day, 1996
See, this is the thing. Golden Fleeces were being handed out, fingers pointed, voices of indignation were hollering at every microphone and camera they could find - it was like a scene out of Bloom County - so preposterous and yet happening.
Forward a few years and instead of buying a special model of hammer or seat meeting a particular specification, we now have contracted out an enormous amount of work - and from what I've seen, a lot of the result is garbage - it's far worse now than $600 toilet seats. The contractors who flooded Iraq were taking home tons of money, while much of the work was done by sub-standard hires - and we saw some of the results in the news, but Cheney's old company made a sickening haul and nobody seemed to do more than bat an eye at this seeming corruption - Just how was it that Halliburton was awarded a giant no-bid contract, because they were the only company seen to be prepared to handle it? Talk of inside information .. there must have been a conversation including something like this from Cheney, "Get oil, security, contruction, everything ready now, because we're going to invade Iraq in a year and if you are ready, we give you a fat no-bid contract, OK?"
Old advice, too, from someone in my past - if you want to make money, get contracts for government - education, too. You can sell rubbish which you could never get away with in the private sector markets.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar