Here's The Brutal Truth On The Labor (Job) Market And Why It Is So Messed Up.

[TheMastersNemesis]

My credentials and experience - 24 years with Dept of Labor - Employment Service - Labor Specialist. Vietnam vet. Programs Work Incentive Program (WIN II) 6 years. Vets Rep, unemployment insurance rep - specialist, employment programs, day labor programs (at homeless shelter) 4 years operational, 6 years supervising a day labor specialist, job search programs, interviewing, assessment, counseling, job development, federal OJT contracting, employer relations, etc.

Reagan said he would create a "service economy". Now we have such an economy for a large portion of the working class. We also have what was even common for such an economy even back in 1981. That means low wages, limited benefits, no health care, part time, temp, seasonal and contracted employment for many jobs. Going to a service economy meant the end of job longevity, seniority, job security and all the unions fought for since 1900. That is why wages have fallen. And they have fallen for other reasons as well.

Reasons - outsourcing to low wage countries. Insourcing of low wage immigration workers who are also exploited where there ARE qualified Americans. And includes most occupations not just low wage jobs. It also means professional jobs and trade jobs. Insourced jobs pay a lot less. Contracted and subcontracted jobs where job site is not employer of record. Subtract up to 20% in wages for each contractor plus NO benefits. Business strategy - wage parity with the global economy.

Biggest reason - continued anti union sentiment and loss of unions, anti government regulation, anti living wage sentiment as being too socialistic or anti employer. Buying into the pro big business mantra.

Since 1981 good jobs disappearing in larger numbers replaced by low wage "food stamp jobs". The ratio of good jobs vs bad jobs now reversed. There are not enough life supporting jobs compared to living wage jobs. The economic value of all jobs now created are worth about 50% less than in 1981. Largest erosion under Bush. In the 21st century the service economy means that top jobs a good many workers now between $10 and $12 an hour with few or no benefits.

Welcome to the completion of the Reagan/GOP Revolution. What will be the R$R legacy be? The end of unions, the end of the safety net (turned over to churches), the end of the Fair Labor Standards Act (covering wages, hours, overtimes, worker classification, etc), the end of child labor laws, and the end of all restrictions on business, unemployment insurance, workman's compensation either privatized or made voluntary to the states. The end of the US labor market as we have known it.

What will replace our labor market under a Romney administration. If you remove all constraints on business with regards to labor you end up with what I wrote in 2004 - THE NO JOB JOBS OF THE 21ST CENTURY. What that means under the "ownership society banner" is that most jobs will be on "contract basis" only. You pay for your own health care, unemployment, retirement, benefits etc and are paid on a "fixed price" contract on a "fixed time". That means you look for a new contract once that contract is up. The employer sets the terms.

Now that means you are essentially and independent contractor. You will have to interview/audition for your contract like an actor or a professional sports player. You will compete on a "low bid" basis against others. There will be no guarantees and there will be no government oversight of the system without federal laws.

This work world is the kind of work world you will get with R$R. If you think I am wrong that is ok. All I ask is that you look around and take a look at what is happening with jobs. Look at how many jobs are now contracted. Look at the BIG picture. LISTEN TO THE ROMNEY 'OVER REGULATION' CODE AND MANTRA THE GOP IS TALKING.

LOOK AT THE SPIEL ON MEDICARE AND MEDICAID. LOOK AT THEIR SPIEL ON UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE AND THEIR ATTACK ON IT AND OTHER PROGRAMS THAT HELP WORKERS. They are even cutting job training. LOOK AT WHERE RYAN WANTS TO CUT.

Look at the LIES. They are even cutting veterans' care. So why would Romney/Ryan and the GOP even care about working stiff Republicans or even you as an independent or Democrat?

I am giving everyone the brutal truth about what has happened and what will happen. Check it out for yourself and think about it. I have been following this SCHEME for 32 years. I am AMAZED that the public has allowed the GOP to go this far with their crimes. NOW THEY WANT YOUR PENSION, YOUR 401k, MEDICARE, MEDICAIDE, and just about everything else.

THEY ARE THROWING MAMA AND PAPA AND YOUR CHILDREN UNDER THE TRAIN.

My final question - Why is not everyone in a rage? And why are the victims being so nice? Why are we NOT confronting every GOP candidate on the stump?

One final word. I realize that I come off as being very militant and unmerciful. And I have caught a lot of heat for what I have written. And some of it is justified. But I will take the heat even when I blast the irresponsible assholes who will vote for R$R and not only trash their future, but take yours as well. Remember that economic rape includes your family, your children, your wife, your parents, your grandparents, and just about everyone you love and care for. THINK! THINK! What will your future and your loved ones' future be if you allow R$R to destroy this country. Do you eventually want to live like Somalians in a Libertarian winner take all society? That is what most Americans will have with the GOP in power. They are natural born pathological liars.

Now you know why I am do GD'med pissed off at these GOP bastards. They need to be CRUSHED in this election cycle if not OUT OF EXISTENCE as a political party. And when you think about all savagery and butchery they have done I hope you will understand my position. AND AS A VIETNAM VETERAN I AM REALLY ANGRY BECAUSE THEY WON'T EVEN TAKE CARE OF THE VETS WHO GAVE THEIR TIME AND THEIR BODIES IN TWO UNNECESSARY WARS. AND THEY CALL THEMSELVES PATRIOTS.
R$R would deny your veteran son or daughter to give that money to their buddies.


Thanks for your time The Masters Nemesis.

[Scuba]

1. K and Effing R baby.

[freshwest]

40. Welcome to the Libertarian paradise.

[Hydra]

2. I agree with everything you've said

But 12 of those 32 years belonged to Dems who quietly sold us further down the river, the current President even talking about how Reagan was such a great bringer of change.

Looks like the Great Depression all over again to me.

President Obama had the opportunity, nay the MANDATE to reverse course on all of this. He knew what to do, and how to do it, and he had all of our support.

...But somehow it didn't happen. Just like how NAFTA was supposed to be a good idea, and repealing Glass-Steagal pure genius.

But there's just one problem: Our Gov't is for sale. Do you have the money to buy it? Do I?

[TheMastersNemesis]

10. The Most Puzzling Thing Of All About Clinton

When Clinton won the election against Bush I was relieved because I knew that NAFTA was in the pipeline for Congressional approval. Clinton ran against it during the election. Once elected Rubin and Greenspan took him aside and somehow convinced him that NAFTA was a good idea. They also convinced him that GATT and "favored" nation status for China was a good idea.

I was amazed and angry when Clinton allied himself with Newt and beat up on his own party and wheeled and dealed to get the Democrats to agree to vote for NAFTA. Many Democrats did not support it and did not vote for it, but enough did with GOP support to pass it. And Clinton became a useful idiot and signed it. That stupid decision did a couple of things.

One thing it did was cost the Democrats control of the House and eventually the Congress and legitimized Newt. The other thing it did was brand the Democrats as the ones who passed NAFTA. And it opened up the passage of GATT, "favored" nation status for China, the repeal of Glass Steagle and Telecom 1996 which helped turn the media over to the RW and give it supremacy over our airwaves. By the time Glass Steagle repeal happened it would not have mattered because I believe it passed by veto proof majorities. That legislation was made possible by Democratic losses and the Democrats being on the defensive.

Clinton was eventually impeached over his stupid misdeeds that had nothing to do with an impeachable offense. We lost two years of doing nothing over it all. Bin Laden was able to plan and plot because of the distraction. And I believe it all cost Gore the election because he could not use Clinton and the Demos were tainted by the passage of NAFTA. Sure Bush was appointed by SCOTUS but the Clinton miscalculations is what helped make the election close enough to steal in the first place. Nader would have been inconsequential.

The problem now is that "free trade" has embedded itself in the body politic. The Demos have never recovered from what Clinton did. It allowed the GOP to further weaken the unions and drive a wedge between the Democrats and unions.
That is why we are where we are today.

[limpyhobbler]

28. Well it seems we are about to repeat the NAFTA times 100 when Obama signs the TPP

in his next term.

NAFTA, GATT, PNTR for China, those were not abberations.

"Free trade" is now the mainstream position of the Democratic Party.

It's the junior business party.

Organized labor, environmentalists, human rights groups and others are literally on the outside looking in with almost no influence over trade policy compared to the multinational corporations.

[tedbear]

31. tedbearly

Also - I have always thought ill of Clinton because of NAFTA and thus didn't vote for Hillary although I would have loved to get a woman in the White house being a woman myself!! I just couldn't take a chance for another Clinton to sell us out.

[HiPointDem]

44. free trade is bipartisan policy. look at what they do, not what they say.

[6502]

13. Obama did not have your full support...

... proof: 2010 midterm election.

A whole throng of you that voted for Obama in 2008 went and voted for the GOP in 2010.

To make it clear: the GOP said crashing the world economy was not the fault of the GOP or Bush, but Obama's and you folks bought it and voted the GOP into power in 2010.

Your excuses for doing it are all whiney and childish -- and all well documented throughout DU.

If Obama gave you single-payer you I am sure you would not have stood up to fight for it. Heck, in 2 years after the economy was crashed by the GOP you folks voted them back into power.

And, oh, BTW: don't talk stupid by replying to this thread saying "it wasn't me". It was either you or someone you know. How else did the GOP win so big in 2010?

[JDPriestly]

20. Sorry, 6502, but you won't find very many voters on DU who voted Republican

or who did not vote in 2010. There may be a few, but it will be a tiny, tiny minority.

[Hydra]

22. LMAO

"Don't talk stupid"

"Obama didn't have your full support"

"If Obama gave you single payer..."

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/01/29-4

I was a single payer advocate. I advocated for a real stimulus package. I protested against the expansion of oil drilling. I protested against nuclear energy. I protested against torture and GITMO. Constitutional violations. Drones. Bailouts. Letting Wall Street off the Hook. Letting Bushco walk away Scott Free.

I didn't vote the GOP into power...the President I voted for decided that somehow, in some strange fashion...that we voted for a Republican Platform when we voted for him.

So, I have an easy choice. I can not vote GOP, because the Grand Ol' Perverts make me sick...so I vote "New Dem" and get the same package with a slightly kinder face on it.

Such great choices we get in the leader of the "Free World."

[tedbear]

29. tedbearly

I phone banked in 2010 and there were some mixed up people who had no idea what was happening- however, I think alot of Dems didn't vote at all and Republicans all voted.

[nc4bo]

32. LMAO. What bullshit.

2010 elections was about low turnout from the young, blacks and Latinos; the very same voting block the turds are working hard to suppress right now, are the very ones who did not get up off their asses and vote.

Definitely the Dems fault for not having a strong GOTV but certainly not because any significant # of Dems suddenly decided to vote for anti-American shitheads.

This will change in the GE, sorry to have to break it to you like that.

[DonCoquixote]

33. be careful

while many here did not fit your slam, many here did. Speaking truth to the power here will get you branded a troll. Obama was given a leaky raft from the get go.

[Hydra]

35. The President said he knew how leaky the raft was

And he was ready and willing to do what he needed to do to get us back on course. He even outlined sensible policies to do so.

...And then he let Bush and Cheney walk out of the WH as free and honored men.

What an auspicious beginning.

[6502]

43. thanks... I don't think we have to worry too much....

Last edited Mon Aug 20, 2012, 03:41 AM - Edit history (2)

Like you, I definitely know Obama was given a leaky raft.

The problem I see for all of these people's complaints (and you'll find them scattered all throughout DU), they never once admit their own failing. That they allowed the GOP to win 2010.

What I find more important here is the reaction of some of the DUers here.

For example, the one poster who blames the losses in 2010 on minorities.

I want to believe that real progressives don't talk like that.
In fact, I will continue to believe that real progressives never talk like that.

[Teamster Jeff]

3. Great post... Absolutely True

and almost unbelievable at the same time. How they were able to get this far I don't understand.

[sarcasmo]

4. Get out the bullhorn, kick!

[Loudestlib]

6. In the near future...

we are going to have to change from a labor based economy.

[jtuck004]

21. Assuming I agree, to what am I agreeing to? What will that change look like?

Just curious what your thoughts are. Many people can already describe the problems, but I am on the lookout for solutions, even brainstorming.


thanks

[TheMastersNemesis]

27. What The Change Will Be Is This

We start demanding that the social contract between workers and employer be restored. That people should come over obscene and excessive profits. Demand a cut I pay to CEO's and the end of stock options by making it illegal as compensation. Insist on pay for performance. Push for employees and women on corporate boards.

Next go back to Teddy Roosevelt in his 1912 Speech On Economic Justice and FDR's Second Economic Bill Of Rights. You will find both on Youtuve. Make that a basis for a new compact. Socialistic. So what. Workers have a right to a fair share of the wealth they create.

Push for stronger and enforced labor laws. Push for collective bargaining for private and public employees. No compromise. No backing down.

And push the Democrats back to the left by getting progressives in office. Get in the face of GOPPERS who resist.

[BOG PERSON]

37. it will sort of be like Blade Runner

robot slaves with quasi-emotions, false memories, and communist instincts

[Loudestlib]

39. I don't know

We used labor because it has a measurable value. With our current rate of mechanization, fewer people are needed and the jobs take less effort. Even intellectual jobs are being done by software.

Ted Kaczynski's solution was to hide in the woods. The Luddite lifestyle has no appeal for me.

Maybe a base line credit system with bonuses based on meritorious acts?

[SunSeeker]

7. Thank you for calling the Republicans on their savagery. nt

[Zalatix]

8. +1,000,000. We need more Militant and Unmerciful.

[lastlib]

9. K & a HUGE **R**!!!

A most righteous rant! Well said, you make it abundantly clear what is at stake this year!!

[TheMastersNemesis]

14. What I Have Said Needs To Go Outside DU As Well

I have been gnashing my teeth and spitting nails for 32 years over this issue. Why? Because I was alway in the center of it and was in a place where I could witness the carnage first hand through the interviews of thousands of unemployed workers who crossed my desk from 1981 until I retired in 1998. Reagan was sending jobs overseas under the radar long before NAFTA by allowing financiers to "junk bond" companies and sell off assets. It was not reported in the media but it was happening en masse.

By the late 1980's I was seen hoards of 45+ somethings coming across our desks with buyouts they would not be able to live on and it was accelerating and continued through the 1990's. The 2008 recession was the last slaughter of the 50+ somethings. It was a long term plan of the GOP and big business all along. They did not want these boomers and they essentially tricked them into putting and keeping the GOP in power at crucial times. Now the boomers are wondering what the H happened to them and why they are no longer able to get a decent job. They have been betayed.

So what are R$R up to with 10,000 boomer a day qualifying for SSA and eventually Medicare, they plan to actually dissolve both programs abruptly if they get power. And I am NOT kidding. The voucher thing is just a decoy to "stop all the checks. Now really think about what I just said very carefully. Look at their rhetoric and their lies. THEY ARE LYING ABOUT EVERYTHING.
SO ARE ALL THEIR GOP ACCOMPLICES RUNNING FOR OFFICE.

If they succeed in this massive shell game what will this country do with virtually every senior facing the street. And to add insult to injury R$R will outsource even the jobs of your children as well.

AFTER ALL IT IS JUST DOING BUSINESS. AND WE KNOW WHERE THE GOP WILL PUT THE BUSINESS. JUST BEND OVER AND LOOK.

THIS ELECTION NEEDS TO BE A FIRESTORM OF PROTEST AGAINST ALL GOP CANDIDATES BECAUSE THEY WANT A COUP AND NOT AN ELECTION. Voter ID is their weapon of choice.

[riverbendviewgal]

11. It seems this is a slow boil

like frogs slowly boiled to death and not being aware...


you were wondering why? Maybe too much misinformation and reality shows, video games and sports.

I thought of this when I read your words.

pened and what will happen. Check it out for yourself and think about it. I have been following this SCHEME for 32 years. I am AMAZED that the public has allowed the GOP to go this far with their crimes. NOW THEY WANT YOUR PENSION, YOUR 401k, MEDICARE, MEDICAIDE, and just about everything else.

[TheMastersNemesis]

16. I Have Spent 32 Years Watching, Waiting And Anguishing Over The Trajectory I See

At first when Obama won that we would change direction. Obama made the mistake of thinking he could negotiate and put out an olive branch and all he has gotten was a bunch of bloody stumps. We cannot entirely blame him for not producing as much as we thought because the voters did not deliver enough congressional fire power to him in 2008. We needed at least 3 or 4 more Democrats in the Senate. Some key states stayed red in that area.

Too many Democrats stayed home in 2010 and too many seniors allowed themselves to be fished over "fake" news about Social Security cuts that were not cuts at all in actuality. The things Obama supported on Social Security adjustments and Medicare in particular were just framed as cuts by the GOP and media. Now the GOP is playing the same tune again.

Believe me I lose sleep over this election because I fully understand who R$R really are. They are the country's worse nightmare. They are KOCH and billionaire puppets ready to deliver our economy to countries like the Communist Chinese. They will destroy this country long before the terrorists ever could.

Remember this when you see a GOP traitor on the stump. It is about "wage parity" for your children with the lowest wages in the world. The flag they are waving is just a prop. While they are yelling love of country it is a dagger in the heart.

AND YOU ALL KNOW IN YOUR HEART OF HEARTS THAT I AM RIGHT IF YOU REALLY THINK ABOUT WHAT I AM SAYING REALLY HARD.

[JDPriestly]

24. Obama continues to negotiate trade agreements that will wipe out our jobs

even more. Watch wages go down. Just watch.

The only thing we can do is to elect Obama and then work together to end the trade agreements that are destroying our country.

[TheMastersNemesis]

36. I Do Not Understand The Continuation Of These FT Agreements.

We assume that Obama has a free hand, but I am not sure he does. The free trade agreements were in the works for a long time. Why he is not stopping I am not sure of.

The fact that he chose so many Bush holdovers makes me think that when you are in that office you are captive in some ways. There is an economic advisory council made up of CEO's. There are decisions that do not add up and the FT agreements is one of them. They seem to have the life of a vampire.

And there is one thing that really bothers me from the past. Virtually all the people or organizations that have pushed for social and economic justice are marginalized or dead. John and Bobby Kennedy assassinated. Martin Luther King assassinated. Hoffa probably murdered. Eldridge Cleaver murdered - no suspects even to day. The fact that the assassinations of John and Bobby still unclear and records locked for 50 more years. Martin Luther King's murder still unexplained really. Still doubts about James Earl Ray. Oswald, Ray, Sirhan Sirhan and Ruby all acted alone. Right.

This RW wing treason has been around for a long time. And there is one other thing. A conspiracy too outrageous to imagine is the easiest to carry out. What I am saying is that Obama may be less free to decide than we realize. There are decisions that he has made that are just NOT consistent with what and who he is.

We have to assume he may not have had a choice on the public option on health care. The same may be true for free trade.
All I know is that there may be something rotten in the US.

[Peter1x9]

42. It's simple:

The current system of government is to be the best government that money can buy. A government of the rich, by the rich, for the rich.

Also, today's puppets know better than to try and cut their puppet strings. The last one that tried ended up shot to death from three different directions by one crazy person with a low-quality rifle.

[tilsammans]

48. What you said has been on my mind for awhile

This:

And there is one other thing. A conspiracy too outrageous to imagine is the easiest to carry out. What I am saying is that Obama may be less free to decide than we realize. There are decisions that he has made that are just NOT consistent with what and who he is.

During the 2008 election cycle, I viewed Obama as slightly left of center, more of a moderate and certainly not the flaming socialist the RWers would have us believe. He didn't seem to have the close ties to corporations that the Clintons had. So I expected him not to have a particularly corporate-friendly agenda.

Fast forward to post-inauguration: My reaction was "uh-oh" to the appointments of corporatists Geithner, Holder, etc. And on and on. Now there's a certain amount of horse trading that goes on, I know. But . . . just sayin'.

How many decisions are really his and not dictated/demanded by outside forces? I think what you suspect may be spot on.

[JDPriestly]

50. I wish I could say that I disagree, but I honestly can't.

I can say that I don't know for sure, I don't know much of anything for sure, but I do agree that we have a national security bureaucracy that is self-sustaining that continues and controls regardless of who is the president.

The president is the spokesperson, but I doubt that anyone can get elected unless they are viewed by this bureaucracy as someone who will play the game.

I think Obama is doing about as good a job as any president can at keeping the peace while leaving this obnoxious, self-sustaining bureaucracy at bay but happy. I don't like a lot of what "he" does, but I have come to this conclusion and made my peace with it.

We just have to keep talking and enlightening people as well as we can.

[DonCoquixote]

34. sad fact is

this is far from an American problem. Canada, Germany, Japan, are all finding themselves doing things they never would have thought possible. The pirats are global, flying no flag but the Jolly Roger.

[HiPointDem]

45. i think the fact that basically *all* governments and parties (like the french 'socialists'

acting like neoliberals) are doing the same things is pretty good evidence that something is wrong with the OPs narrative.

[L0oniX]

12. K & R

[Bonobo]

15. Two roads to the same goal.

One is slow, one is fast.

One will claim they need to take away your SS, Medicaid, Medicare and pensions AS they send your jobs to the globalized world of indentured servitude, looking always to the next broken country whose people are willing to work for less peanuts than the last.

The other will claim to want to protect your SS, Medicaid, Medicare and pensions AS they send away your jobs...then they will have no money left for the SS, Medicare and pensions and allow themselves to be convinced that they are unsustainable.

A radical shift is needed. The bleeding must stop. Free trade is not fair trade. Countries need to protect their citizens. For those who claim it is impossible to regulate trade in this world of the internet and global communications, I remind you: They seem to have no trouble busting kids who download mp3's or people who try to grow a fucking plant in their back yard (cannabis), so to pretend that it is impossible to regulate is disingenuous. They don't WANT to, that's all.

[Brigid]

25. Nope, they don't want to.

They could jail those responsible for the Meltdown of 2008 and re-regulate the banks too -- but they don't WANT to.

[HiPointDem]

46. huh. romney is claiming *he* wants to "save" social security/medicare too.

They have no trouble regulating their contracts and rentier 100-year patent and "intellectual property" protections either.

I distinctly remember reading something a long time ago where bill gates or someone like that in IT was describing the new business model -- how no one would own anything anymore, they would more or less lease it from corporations. there was more money in that model. i couldn't conceive of it at the time but the idea stuck in my head.

[Bonobo]

51. He has shown over and over that he will say anything to win.

Positions, values and compasses are things of the past on their side and increasingly on our side as well.

Lying is a matter of course.

[geckosfeet]

17. Liars, traitors and theives - LTT - aka the GOP

[catrose]

18. Bravo

from a former member of Local 94.

[BlueinOhio]

19. Programed

Around time Reagan got in office the churches started teaching that people should not ask employers for anything because it was wrong. To accept that they should just be happy where they were because that was what god wanted. Started being told be happy that you just have a job. The education in schools was changed so that critical thinking was no longer taught. The young people entering the work force just accept this since history is not taught and they have been programed to just accept.
I will say that Obama did make a big mistake. The democrats should have never bailed out the banks and companies without extending help to Main Street. They should have forgave debt for the middle class and all workers. The bankruptcy bill passed by the Bush Administration should have been abolished since that was the very nail in the coffin of our economy. Bankruptcy laws need to be loosened. Companies (who by the GOP claim are people) can file and no harm done to them and the people in charge are not held accountable but let some average Joe try to file and they lose their job, house and everything and get punished for years. They no longer can get a job or a place to live.

[HiPointDem]

47. so why do you think they made that "big mistake"? are they stupid?

[Initech]

23. Creating a society that values profit over people - that's the GOP in a nutshell.

[MichiganVote]

26. Damn straight. GOP=DOA for labor in the US

[limpyhobbler]

30. Seem about right.

[Larkspur]

38. I'm actually already in the contract business...

I was laid off from my full time IT position in Nov. 2008 after serving 12+ years. They gave my tasks to an H1B Indian contractor.
Couldn't find a job for 6 months, but then I got a call back from the business group that used the environment I managed. The Indian IT contractors screwed up the environment, but the systems managers wouldn't hire me back. It was the business users of that environment who were able to hire me back, but only as a contractor.

If the systems group offers me a full-time position, I may have to move to NC or TX, and I don't want to do that. I live in CT and work in RI.

[Amonester]

41. The GOP's ultimate goal (picture):

[tilsammans]

49. Very well said!

Bookmarked.

[B Calm]

52. A country of distribution centers

is what we have. No longer factories with machines that manufacture products. All we have today is pole barns to store the foreign junk, and a small group of non union lowly paid workers to load and unload trucks. Threaten to form a union and we'll just close down the pole barn and open a new one somewhere else.

Ronald Reagan's dream for America is here!

[warrprayer]

53. Loud K&R

It's time for the American working class to wake up and snap out of the slave mentality