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."

Comments

Re:Unions

[NostalgiaForInfinity]

Right now, unless you happen to live in one of the few states where companies are required to offer you more than simply at-will employment, or you're one of the few people still in a union, you pretty much have few protections against the company deciding to fire you tomorrow,

Ah, yes, because that's exactly what skilled people want: getting paid and hired/fired not based on how good they are or how much they contribute to a company, but based on criteria like seniority and other kinds of b.s. that unions come up with.

And yes, as much as people decry unions, and the abuses that comes with unions, that's your answer in terms of balancing the power. One person alone just doesn't have the power, unless they're being hired for an executive/C-level position.

Software developers, engineers, and other professionals have no problem negotiating good working conditions for themselves. Union membership is down to 11% of the workforce in the US, for the simple reason that almost nobody wants to be a member of a union. You'd get laughed out of the room if you tried to unionize the software developers where I work; and if you succeeded, probably half of them would just leave.

Re:Troll

[thinkwaitfast]

I've been to Soviet Russia (Stalingrad (now St. Petersberg)) and lived in it personally, first hand.` Have you? I agree with the poster who said he'd take free market capitalism over socialism ANY DAY.

Re:And it all comes down to greed

[NostalgiaForInfinity]

More than forty percent of all workers in the US are making less than $15/hr.

That claim is such utter bullshit that it isn't even worth for a citation. Use your head, man. I mean, how utterly ignorant can you be?

The real, effective corporate tax rate in the US is less than 13%:

What you point to gives the average corporate tax rate. Average rates are irrelevant, because they are ill defined and, in any case, simply reflect all the corporate cronyism that politicians engage in by giving tax breaks to their favorite industries. Tax exemptions for corporations due to political favoritism does not help business in general, it makes it even worse.

The effective corporate tax rate is the sum of the capital gains tax and the corporate tax rate. And it's the marginal tax rate that matters for investment decisions. In addition, when comparing internationally, you need to compare likes with likes, and the fact is that the US has one of the highest effective corporate tax rates in the world (go look it up).

Re:Troll

[khallow]

and have worked in

I see you've enjoyed the capitalism too.

Hell, I was even there long enough to have experienced their health care system after I got a wisdom tooth removed in Helsinki. Cost me $25 (which the dentist wouldn't take because he said it had been a pleasure to practice English with me).

Just because it didn't cost you a lot doesn't mean it was cheap. Capitalism paid for that bit of social welfare.

It continues to amuse me how people claim that countries like this aren't socialist hellholes because of the socialism.