Slashdot Mirror
Sociologist: Job Insecurity Is the New Normal
Mr.Intel writes: Allison Pugh, professor of Sociology at University of Virginia, and author of The Tumbleweed Society: Working and Caring in an Age of Insecurity, says workers in the U.S. are caught up in a "one-way honor system," in which workers are beholden to employers. She says that the golden era when Americans could get a job, keep it, and expect to retire with an adequate pension are over. JP Morgan Chase has cut 20,000 from its workforce in the past 5 years, last year HP cut 34,000 jobs, and many others have announced layoffs. In this interview Pugh talks about the social effects of this "insecurity culture."
I'm not quite sure why you're lambasting him for suggestion unions by listing the times where unions were indeed a hindrance... because he made this very point himself:
Can unions abuse their power? Absolutely, so stay involved, vote in your union elections, make sure your union reps are doing their jobs.
Or did you only read what you wanted to read? In fact, I think you stopped thinking the moment you read the word "unions".
Remember all those fairy tales about the jinn that grants you three wishes, and how they never quite work out the way people think they do? It's the same with economic policy.
Well, you can't get American made stuff at Chinese prices because Americans (like you) are not willing to work for Chinese wages and under Chinese conditions. Americans even voted to prohibit their fellow Americans to work for "too little" money.
Nor is that a bad thing. The fact that the Chinese are toiling in factories assembling iPhones means that many Americans now can work in jobs like software development and web design, jobs that are both nicer and more lucrative.
Nothing ever is guaranteed in life. You should have thought about that before you took out a loan to pay for your CS degree.
There is an old commie saying: "You keep doing what you been doing and you're going to keep getting what you got."
And what you got is the "new normal". P.T. Barnum had a name for people who believe in "free market capitalism".
You are welcome on my lawn.
It's much worse if you're not financially literate.
I work retail, at Home Depot. And some of my coworkers who actually have very good brains (one is a plumber), have made the interesting mistake of quitting their previous jobs, taking the cash from their 401k, and then not rolling it over to a new 401k within the 60 day period, which led to them a) paying full income tax on it, and b) paying a 10% penalty. One found out from his tax guy before he spent it, so he ended up with enough to pay off his house note and not much else; the plumber is still paying off the IRS.
This is a whole lot more complicated then operating a pension, and there's nobody you can call from your Union (who a) knows you personally because you worked together, and b) probably has a long history of dealing with the issues of people like you and your pension system) to talk to when you get confused.
"within the capitalist system all methods for raising the social productiveness of labour are brought about at the cost of the individual labourer; all means for the development of production transform themselves into means of domination over, and exploitation of, the producers; they mutilate the labourer into a fragment of a man, degrade him to the level of an appendage of a machine, destroy every remnant of charm in his work and turn it into a hated toil; they estrange from him the intellectual potentialities of the labour process in the same proportion as science is incorporated in it as an independent power; they distort the conditions under which he works, subject him during the labour process to a despotism the more hateful for its meanness; they transform his life-time into working-time, and drag his wife and child beneath the wheels of the Juggernaut of capital."
The obvious rebuttal is that the premises are false. For example, labor unions are a typical social construct in capitalism that doesn't result in the claimed consequences. Or consider job search engines. Are workers worse off because the hiring process has been improved a bit? Are we, workers worse off due to technological improvements to worker productivity like computers or air conditioning?
Why should we trust this spew of verbiage when the initial assumptions are patently false?
And let us not forget that so many people, the middle class (or "bourgeoisie"), just aren't living with this sort of drudgery. Marx tried to ignore this group and categorize thema as being more or less enemies of the working class ("proletariat").
A couple jobs ago I was chatting with another employee, we were discussing some "ominous signs" such as HR shredding documents like she was preparing for a parade. The topic of "giving notice" came up. The other guy said that if he found a good job somewhere else he'd walk with zero notice.
The manager overheard this and stepped in on the conversation, trying to berate us with "that's not how it's done in business, I expect you to give me at least two weeks' notice if you're going to quit!" I turned to him and said "so, how much notice will you give ME if you're going to lay me off or fire me?" (huff) (huff) (snort) is about all I got back, he couldn't even form words let alone a coherant sentence to respond to that. So I added, "I'll give you as much notice as I believe you'll give me." So rather than answer me, he just stomped away.
I don't think they consider just how much more inconvenient being unemployed is, compared to having to hire someone to replace a single employee that departs unexpectedly. For the boss, it's inconvenient. For the employee, suddenly losing their income, possibly the only income for an entire family, can be devastating. And yet they expect to be provided with notice, while providing none themselves. Sselfish, arrogant, and inconsiderate!
So everyone with a clue began job hunting. I had found new work, it wasn't nearly what I had now, but the writing was on the wall in pretty bold print at this point, so I accepted it. I showed up on a Thursday evening to start my (3rd) shift, and the gal from HR was in the parking lot with her hatch open, handing out unemployment packets. The entire center had been closed, everyone there got laid off that day, no one even was offered a transfer. I found out later that our manager had known this was going to happen for months.
My new job started on Monday. (total time unemployed - two days) Unfortunately, that's how they play the game, so that's how I have to play it too. If they don't like that, they have no one to blame but themselves, I'm just playing by their rules.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Because that is not what they do. They represent workers. That is their function. In Germany Unions are pretty strong and yet they are reasonably well off.
So the union should ot be seen as the enimy, it should be seen as a counterweight to the power of the companies.
What I understand from the US situation is that they are not so much unions as they are a Guild. And that is very restrictive in many ways.
I live in Belgium and I can sign up for at least 3 different Unions if I so desire. Nobody even cares if I am a member of a Union or not (I am). Nobody asks and nobody cares.
When I change professions, I can change Unions or stay with the same one. Nobody cares.
So they are not there to run the company, they are there to represent the people. And they are apparently needed, because the people are not really reprisented by the politicians anymore.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.