Tag: Labor

Alienation – Jimmy Reid Speech

ALIENATION is the precise and correctly applied word for describing the major social problem in Britain today. People feel alienated by society. In some intellectual circles it is treated almost as a new phenomenon. It has, however, been with us for years. What I believe to be true is that today it is more widespread, more pervasive than ever before. Let me right at the outset define what I mean by alienation. It is the cry of men who feel themselves the victims of blind economic forces beyond their control. It is the frustration of ordinary people excluded from the processes of decision making. The feeling of despair and hopelessness that pervades people who feel with justification that they have no real say in shaping or determining their own destinies.

Many may not have rationalised it. May not even understand, may not be able to articulate it. But they feel it. It therefore conditions and colours their social attitudes. Alienation expresses itself in different ways by different people. It is to be found in what our courts often describe as the criminal anti-social behaviour of a section of the community. It is expressed by those young people who want to opt out of society, by drop outs, the so-called maladjusted, those who seek to escape permanently from the reality of society through intoxicants and narcotics. Of course it would be wrong to say it was the sole reason for these things. But it is a much greater factor in all of them than is generally recognised.

Society and its prevailing sense of values leads to another form of alienation. It alienates some from humanity. It partially de-humanises some people, makes them insensitive, ruthless in their handling of fellow human beings, self-centred and grasping. The irony is, they are often considered normal and well adjusted. It is my sincere contention that anyone who can be totally adjusted to our society is in greater need of psychiatric analysis and treatment than anyone else.

“Alienation” (also known as the rat race speech) was Jimmy Reid’s inaugural address as Rector of the University of Glasgow. Reid’s election in October 1971 came during his attempt to save jobs at the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders, threatened by cuts in government subsidies. The address was delivered on 28 April 1972 to students and the university court in Bute Hall. Reid’s subject was Marx’s theory of alienation and he used the example of the modernisation of the Clyde shipyards which he considered risked breaking the pride workers had in their products. In one famous passage he lamented the “scrambling for position” in modern society and stated that the “rat race is for rats. We’re not rats. We’re human beings”. The speech was reprinted in full by the New York Times and has since been referred to as one of the most outstanding speeches of the 20th century. It raised Reid’s profile and led to a number of national television appearances.

More info: Wikipedia

Forced Labor in the Seafood Industry – The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/24/style/the-ugly-and-glorious-truth-about-american-supermarkets.html

As he paused in front of a seafood freezer, with its festively labeled bags of frozen shrimp, Mr. Lorr discussed the many ethical quandaries involving seafood, which Mr. Lorr saw firsthand, reporting from docks in Thailand.

Mr. Lorr interviewed immigrants from Burma, some of them former prisoners forced to toil unpaid on fishing boats. One worker, identified in the book as Tun-Lin, recalled watching his best friend beaten and tossed overboard when he became delirious from exhaustion. Others were whipped with stingray tails.

But there is not much that Americans can do as consumers to improve working conditions abroad, Mr. Lorr said.

“A boycott sounds compelling, but because of the volume and complexity of the supply chain, it’s overly simplistic,” he said. “There are so many good actors caught up with bad actors. Also, you boycott Thailand, or any country, and market pressures lead to the same problems cropping up somewhere else.”

Alex Williams The Ugly (and Glorious) Truth About American Supermarkets NYTIMES

Covid Layoffs – Half Still Unemployed

Roughly six months after the coronavirus began to wreak havoc on the US economy, about half of those who lost their job say they are still without one.

That’s one of the most notable findings of a new Pew Research Center survey, which paints a picture of a nation still reeling economically even as it recovers from the labor market free fall earlier this year that intensified as Covid-19 cases increased, and state lockdowns froze businesses across the country.

The study, which surveyed 13,200 US adults in the first two weeks of August, found some limited recovery with respect to employment: Of all those who said they had lost a job, a third have returned to their old job, and 15 percent say they have a new job

Zeeshan Aleem, Vox
Poll: Half of Americans who lost their job during the pandemic still don’t have one

The Cost of Inequality: $42,000 per Median US Worker – Non Profit News | Nonprofit Quarterly

https://nonprofitquarterly.org/the-cost-of-inequality-42000-per-median-us-worker/

… the question that Eric Levitz poses in New York Magazine is provocative. And the data, certainly, illustrate the severity of the income shift that has taken place over the past 45 years.

Specifically, Levitz examines a study by Carter Price and Kathryn Edwards from the Rand Corporation. And, yes, that is the same Rand Corporation of Pentagon Papers fame, so it’s fair to call it an establishment-based source. Anyhow, Price and Edwards in their study, which was conducted in partnership with the Fair Work Center, ask the following question: If the share of worker income to total income were the same in 2018 as in 1975, and growth was the same, how much would the median worker earn in 2018?

The answer: $92,000. That’s a full $42,000 greater than the actual 2018 median worker income, which was $50,000.

Steve Dubb
The Cost of Inequality: $42,000 per Median US Worker
NONPROFIT QUARTERLY

What People are Paying for Health Insurance

In California, one person told me that the cheapest insurance they could find — for one person, with very little coverage and a high deductible — goes for $330 a month.

I talked to a dog walker in Seattle who pays $675 — without dental coverage.

Another person reported that their bargain basement plan in Minnesota costs $250 a month.

In Dallas, $378 a month for a catastrophic plan with a $10,000 deductible.

And that’s if there’s just one of you: A freelance writer told me she’d had breast cancer, and her husband, a freelance photographer and photo editor, is an insulin- dependent Type 2 diabetic. They live in suburban New York, and currently pay $1,484 a month for coverage.

Anne Helen Petersen, BuzzFeed
How The Gig Economy Screwed Over Millennials

Cenikor, Rehab, and Forced Labor

A nationally renowned drug rehab program in Texas and Louisiana has sent patients struggling with addiction to work for free for some of the biggest companies in America, likely in violation of federal labor law.

The Cenikor Foundation has dispatched tens of thousands of patients to work without pay at more than 300 for-profit companies over the years. In the name of rehabilitation, patients have moved boxes in a sweltering warehouse for Walmart, built an oil platform for Shell and worked at an Exxon refinery along the Mississippi River.

“It’s like the closest thing to slavery,” said Logan Tullier, a former Cenikor participant who worked 10 hours per day at oil refineries, laying steel rebar in 115-degree heat. “We were making them all the money.”

They worked in sweltering heat for Exxon, Shell and Walmart. They didn’t get paid a dime
Constant work leaves little time for counseling or treatment, transforming rehab patients into a cheap, expendable labor pool for private companies.
Amy Julia Harris and Shoshana Walter,
Reveal

See also: Debtors Prisons, Return of in Mississippi

When Essential Workers Earn Less Than The Jobless – NPR

When the government shut down the U.S. economy in a bid to tame the spread of the coronavirus, Congress scrambled to help tens of millions of people who lost jobs. The government rushed one-time relief checks to all families that qualified and tacked an extra $600 onto weekly unemployment benefits, which are usually less than regular pay and vary by state.

But so far, lawmakers have not passed any measure to increase pay for workers who were asked to keep going to work during a highly contagious health crisis. Some companies did create hazard, or “hero,” pay — typically around $2 extra an hour or a one-time bonus. Most have since ended it.

ALINA SELYUKH
NPR

American Workers – Lost Ground

Long before the pandemic, U.S. workers’ productivity and their median pay, which once rose in tandem, went through an acrimonious divorce. Compensation, especially in some of the country’s fastest-growing industries, has stagnated, while the costs of housing, health care, and education decidedly have not. The federal minimum wage, stuck at $7.25 since 2009, is worth 70% of what it was in 1968, and about a third of what it would be had it kept pace with productivity.

How the American Worker Got Fleeced
Over the years, bosses have held down wages, cut benefits, and stomped on employees’ rights. Covid-19 may change that.
Story by Josh Eidelson
Data analysis and graphics by Christopher Cannon
bloomberg.com

Tyler Pipe – At a Texas Foundry, An Indifference to Life. NY Times 2003

It is said that only the desperate seek work at Tyler Pipe, a sprawling, rusting pipe foundry out on Route 69, just past the flea market. Behind a high metal fence lies a workplace that is part Dickens and part Darwin, a dim, dirty, hellishly hot place where men are regularly disfigured by amputations and burns, where turnover is so high that convicts are recruited from local prisons, where some workers urinate in their pants because their bosses refuse to let them step away from the manufacturing line for even a few moments.

…
On June 29, 2000, in his second month on the job, Mr. Hoskin descended into a deep pit under a huge molding machine and set to work on an aging, balky conveyor belt that carried sand. Federal rules require safety guards on conveyor belts to prevent workers from getting caught and crushed. They also require belts to be shut down when maintenance is done on them.

But this belt was not shut down, federal records show. Nor was it protected by metal safety guards. That very night, Mr. Hoskin had been trained to adjust the belt while it was still running. Less downtime that way, the men said. Now it was about 4 a.m., and Mr. Hoskin was alone in the cramped, dark pit. The din was deafening, the footing treacherous under heavy drifts of black sand.

He was found on his knees. His left arm had been crushed first, the skin torn off. His head had been pulled between belt and rollers. His skull had split.

At a Texas Foundry, An Indifference to Life
David Barstow and Lowell Bergman
NYTIMES

Two Janitors – Their Prospects and Compensation, 35 Years Ago Vs. Now

The $16.60 per hour Ms. Ramos earns as a janitor at Apple works out to about the same in inflation-adjusted terms as what Ms. Evans earned 35 years ago. But that’s where the similarities end.

Ms. Evans was a full-time employee of Kodak. She received more than four weeks of paid vacation per year, reimbursement of some tuition costs to go to college part time, and a bonus payment every March. When the facility she cleaned was shut down, the company found another job for her: cutting film.

Ms. Ramos is an employee of a contractor that Apple uses to keep its facilities clean. She hasn’t taken a vacation in years, because she can’t afford the lost wages. Going back to school is similarly out of reach. There are certainly no bonuses, nor even a remote possibility of being transferred to some other role at Apple.

Yet the biggest difference between their two experiences is in the opportunities they created. A manager learned that Ms. Evans was taking computer classes while she was working as a janitor and asked her to teach some other employees how to use spreadsheet software to track inventory. When she eventually finished her college degree in 1987, she was promoted to a professional-track job in information technology.

To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider the Janitors at Two Top Companies, Then and Now
Neil Irwin
NYTIMES

Which job is a LOT less fun than most people expect? – AskReddit


Which job is a LOT less fun than most people expect? from AskReddit

Mr_frumpish
Video game tester.

You aren’t spending your time playing completed fully realized games. You are playing the same level of a game over and over seeing if there are bugs.

xenedra0
Archaeologist. Did it during my twenties and that was more than enough. Long, hot days… living out of cheap motels on shit pay, and you typically find nothing more than some pieces of glass and broken pottery. Every once in a blue moon you find something cool, but those items generally end up getting stored away in a box full of other artifacts never to be seen again.

stuckonpost
I went to George Washington’s boyhood home near Fredericksburg, VA, where they were sifting through dirt. I was a tourist by myself, and watched them dig from a distance, nothing amazing. What DID amaze me though was the amount of people that asked “What’chya diggin’ for?” I ended up asking the intern how many people ask that, and she said “too many to count sir…” I felt so bad!

Heir233
After reading through this thread for 20 minutes I’ve concluded that every job sucks

Zep_Rocko
I think doing anything for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week would probably get tiresome.

jo-z
After working in 2-3 hour blocks interspersed with home cooking, walks, naps, and little tasks around the house these last few months, I’m having a hard time accepting that I’ll probably have to endure 5 consecutive 8-hour days again.

Dextrofunk
Seriously though I’m not ready to go back to switching between work and exhaustion with no time to focus on anything else. Even my weekends are just errands and chores. I’ve been taking classes, working out, cooking and I haven’t been this stress free since I was a kid.

PM_Me_Cool_Cars_
Accounting isn’t the adrenaline rush that most people think it is

Pellegrino22
But the glamour! The perks! The respect!

Opinion | Tyson Foods Worker Urges Company To Slow Down So They Can Social Distance – The New York Times

Meat plant workers rarely speak out for fear of reprisal. But in the video above, Jerald and Lakesha Bailey, a former worker at a Tyson plant, urge the company to slow down the processing lines. Chicken carcasses zoom along the lines at breakneck speeds, and workers are often packed shoulder to shoulder to keep up — making it impossible to social distance.

Tyson Foods claims one of its core values is “Workplace Safety,” yet 570 workers tested positive for the coronavirus in a single poultry plant in Wilkes, N.C. And at Tyson plants around the country, over 7,000 employees have tested positive for the virus. Workers continue to die from Covid-19. Despite this, the company recently reverted to its pre-coronavirus absentee policy; workers who fear getting infected will now be penalized for staying home.

NYTIMES

Los Angeles County Unemployment, Coronavirus effect on

Because of the colossal impact that the coronavirus outbreak has had on the U.S. economy, less than half of Los Angeles County residents — 45% compared with 61% in mid-March — still hold a job, a decline of 16 percentage points, or an estimated 1.3 million jobs, according to findings from a national survey released Friday.

Jaclyn Cosgrove
Los Angeles Times, April 17, 2020
Less than half of L.A. County residents still have jobs amid coronavirus crisis