On May 28th, The New York Times featured
two front page articles on the plight of working Americans. “Where
Jobs Vanished, 'Nobody Had Our Backs'” read one headline. And,
right next to it, was the headline “Google Relies On Underclass
of Temp Labor”. (1) The first article described the sense of
abandonment by both parties of an Ohio town devastated by the closing
of the Lordstown General Motors plant, the second about how high tech
companies, in this case Google, have made a mockery of technology's
promise by the ubiquitous use of temp agencies.
None of this is new. In the early 90's, I spent four
months working at a factory in Lowell, Michigan. Hired along with 16
others by a temp agency I found myself, at the end of my short
tenure, the only surviving member of that class still working at the
plant and the only one to leave on my own terms. I discovered that
nearly half of the workers at the factory were temporary employees,
one woman having worked as a 'temp' for three years. In America, I
learned, 'temp' is a permanent job description.
Google, it transpires, now employs more temps than
permanent full-time workers (2) . In this, they are not alone.
Somewhere between a quarter and a third of the U.S. workforce are now
'temps', with little or no benefits, no retirement, usually no health
insurance. Combine this with the passage of so-called 'right to
work' which, translated, means 'right to starve' laws enabling
employers to hire and fire at will, and the evisceration of organized
labor and the return to 'capricious and arbitrary' behavior by
capital is now rampant. In my experience in Lowell, women were let
go for taking a day off to take their children to the doctor, or
because their car wouldn't start and they failed to make it to work.
A rich response from the capitalist who pays starvation wages.
Similarly, I saw a line of more than a dozen workers
dismissed one afternoon because two of them were sleeping on the job.
Never mind, the foreman called the temp agency and told them to send
in an entire new crew.
Add to all this the rise of the 'gig' economy in which
largely middle aged men can be seen at any hour in Lowe's or Home
Depot heading back to their trucks with the magnetic signs
advertising their services plastered upon the panels and doors. Men
who once held regular jobs now working in a catch- as-catch-can
marketplace, advertising on Craigslist, living hand to mouth as
'independent contractors'. This isn't the America we were brought
into all those years ago.
Capital has been unfettered and nobody has our back. Oh
yes, the political elites, having discovered the anxiety, are sure to
make the rounds but as Rick Marsh, recently of the Lordstown plant,
told The Times, “These people really don't have a clue...They
are so out of touch with reality and real people. All of them.”
(3)
Similarly a farmer from Iowa was interviewed recently
telling the reporter that he voted for tRUMP the last time but
wouldn't do it again. Asked if he were going to vote Democratic he
said no. Neither party, in his view, has a clue promising to vote
third party.
There is a lot of truth to that. For nearly half a
century the vast middle stretch of this country has suffered
not-so-benign neglect. It isn't just infrastructure, it isn't just
education, it isn't just jobs and economic security, but the
deterioration of all of these has been accompanied by an assault upon
the safety-net that was supposed to step in and address these
problems as they emerged. They didn't and they haven't.
The freeing of capital from all civilized restraints has
also, observes New York Times columnist David Brooks, altered
the nature of poverty. “(M)ost Western systems were not designed
to confront the kind of poverty prevalent today”, writes
Brooks. “When these systems were put in place in the 1950's and
'60's, unemployment was more often a temporary thing that happened
between the time you got laid off from a big employer and the time
you got hired by a new one. Now, economic insecurity is often a
permanent state, as people patch together different jobs to make ends
meet. Health issues for people in the welfare system are often
chronic—obesity, diabetes, many forms of mental illness.
“our legacy welfare structures are ill suited to
today's poverty.” (4)
Indeed, our welfare system—or social safety net—is
ill suited to today's economy. Fewer than half of those unemployed,
for instance, qualify for unemployment insurance.
Google is justifiably singled out for tapping into the
permanent underclass as a way to drive down the cost of labor, doing
so by availing itself of temporary employment agencies. But Google
is only the latest and, perhaps, the most notorious example of what
has gone terribly wrong in this country.
Meanwhile the laboring classes live lives of increasing
quiet desperation, pogo-ing between parties in desperate attempts to
gain the attention of the political elites with very little success,
fueling the rise of frustration, alienation and cynicism. Meanwhile,
having shredded the social contract, the Koch Brothers and the
Mercers and the Adelson's and the tRUMPs dance to the bank as they
apply their hands about the throat of the republic.
An Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh
Impeach and Imprison
______________- See the Front Page of The New York Times. Tuesday, May 28, 2019. Page 1 as well as A20 and A18 respectively.
- Ibid. “Google Relies On Underclass of Temp Labor” Page 1
- Op.Cit. “Where Jobs Vanished, 'Nobody Had Our Backs'. Page 1
- Brooks, David. “The Welfare State Is Broken, Here's How to Fix It” The New York Times. Tuesday May 28, 2019. Page A26
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