[Rod_Cloutier]

I worked at a temp labour job today. (I've been out of work for 10 months). The job was loading empty chemical bins into trucks, then unloading them at a factory where they would be opened and repainted before being shiped out again somewhere else.

The empty containers of chemicals all had chemical residue in them which was evidenced by the hissing sound of escaping air (if you could call it that) when they were opened. The company had an order for 1500 chemical drums, and besides the hard work involved in moving them around the only thought that continued to race thru my mind was 'My god, what are we doing to the planet!, this is just one small company in the chemical business, can anyone even comprehend the ecological damage all these drums of chemicals are doing to the enviroment?'

After 6 hours of work I was overcome by the fumes from the residue chemicals and the industial paints and I had to give the job up. The company didn't seem to mind that I left, most of their employee's looked like ex-cons with tattoos from head to foot (I suppose they have to work somewhere). One of the other temps, over lunch, asked what they got paid to work there. They said $12/ an hour. $12 an hour to expose themselves daily to all kinds of chemical residues, with no idea what this stuff might be doing to their health, and no workplace benefits. The era of the disposable worker is definitly apon us..

[Outcast_Searcher]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cloud9', '
') Obama is a failed promise. The Republicans don’t offer us anything different.

We need a political plan. Two trillion dollars to the world banks is not a plan. Putting everyone on the dole is not a plan either. The people need a dream. We need a clear image of the future and a plan on how we are going to get there.

Until we get that dream, we are doomed to the slow rot of a failed empire.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Outcast_Searcher', ' ')In fact, IMO, their main profit growth engine is now wage arbitrage via cheap outsourcing. This HAS to trail off within 5 years -- they'll run out of old line skilled employees.

[the48thronin]

Speaking of temps.

I hire a lot of temps.

I load and unload in various cities.. Historically we would bond with ( lease to or even drive for) a moving company. I am independent, but I haul a lot of loads booked by different moving van agencies.. In the past they would if I desired let me hire packers and loaders from their agency pool of packers. The going rate today for packers from say UNITED VAN LINES is $12.00 an hour.

If I am doing the labor, the cost to my customer for each $12.00 an hour person is $24.00 an hour because I have to pay them cash up front, insure them while on the job against workers comp, and cash flow the operation as much as 90 days. The going federal standard rate for 1 man and a truck ( me and my truck with me supervising the loading or unloading) is $150.00 an hour. If I have to hire a small truck and a guy to 'shuttle" stuff into a building I cannot get close enough to to deliver directly, I pay this same amount to that 1 man and a truck.


The latest thing is for the booking agent to furnish the labor or shuttle themselves and pay me a small amount to "supervise" the labor, or more commonly only pay me detention time for sitting in my truck waiting while they load it. ( this detention only starts after they hold me in place 4 hours.)

To the point, I just finished a load that had 3 different locations involving temp labor. I posted about it on my blog. I included 4 photo albums.

The first pick up was easy, I had 6 temps, and they worked well. They got 5 hours of work.

12 hours later I was 10 miles away and had 4 workers who struggled to get the work done in 8.5 hours. ( I put 10 hours on their sheets for pay because it was raining, difficult work because I am picky, and because they had not had any breaks.)
Last Friday evening at 830 pm I had my third stop. One worker showed up drunk and confrontational, I had to deal with it instantly when he started cursing in the store while it was open for business, he ended up in jail due to outstanding warrants and a threat that was specious because he didn't have a gun in his possession anyway. ( never threaten to shoot a cop when you are unarmed..LOL) The temporary agency was able to replace him at 9 pm on a Friday night. My crew worked through the snow, and were done in 5 hours, I tipped them $20 each in cash.

Is the result really cheaper than $12.00 an hour professional packers from a good agency like United or Atlas? No.. the results are poorer, the packing takes twice as long. ( professional packers would have done the job in all three cases in less than 4 hours each place.) The fixtures would not have gotten as wet, nor would my blankets.

There would have been no drunk, swearing, or threatening, nor would the police department of the city been involved with a "man with gun" incident.

The customer who tried the same movements when he closed some stores last year using freight carriers with no blankets or restraints did at least get back into his warehouse fixtures that were as undamaged as they were in the store they were removed from instead of kindling wood and a claim headache. So I guess they did learn a little last year.

The temps.. I always talk to any temp who does a good job about applying at the local moving and storage companies so they can earn decent wages for loading and packing.. How many of them ever go to apply I do not know.
In the Moving and storage business packing is the entry level job.. the drivers, warehouseman, and even the dispatchers and office help usually started as packers. You tend to weed out those who are not interested in working in the moving industry quickly.

I work at helping the temps learn how to pack and move using the less work techniques every packer learns.. there is an easy way and several harder ways to do anything. My experience is that temps don't listen to advice because they don't have any desire to learn how to do the job, they are simply enduring it.

I realize this doesn't go in with the we're all loosing our good jobs to temps seamlessly, but if you consider it, it does fit. It is also real world experience not someones thoughts on what it must be like...

[Jotapay]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Outcast_Searcher', 'W')ithin 5 years things had COMPLETELY changed. From the education budget to raises to employee careers and retention. Kind of sad, as IBM has predictably hollowed out its core assets and employee loyalty since.

In fact, IMO, their main profit growth engine is now wage arbitrage via cheap outsourcing. This HAS to trail off within 5 years -- they'll run out of old line skilled employees.

And, from what I've read, this is fairly typical of large white collar companies in general. Even IF we have sustained strong economic growth, I suspect employment numbers and wages in the U.S. will be rather dismal.

[OutOfGas]

The American worker has been hosed by corporate greed.
Most corporations are being ran as family companies , with the CEOs packing the boards with their lackies.

Even if the company loses money, the corporate big shots and the board prospers and continues to vote themselves more
goodies. Peak oil will be the last nail in the coffin for the average American worker. My advice is to pay off all debt and become as self sufficient as possible.

[americandream]

I presume you mean the handouts to Wall Street, the ones that keep the Pavlovian system of brainwashing operational?

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cloud9', 'T')he poor won't revolt as long as the hand outs continue. The revolt won't happen until the bread and circuses end.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/181869- ... n-strategy

[PrestonSturges]

Regards the use of temps for moving crews - it seems to be accepted that these guys supplement their income by stealing peoples belongings. People who have not moved recently are shocked to find every box has been looted of valuables. And when it was put in storage by the moving company, they are SOL.

We also see managers that seem to be completely insane. There's the pressures of a shrinking workplace. And no they are under pressure to systematically mistreat employees to make them more "efficient" but mostly to get people to resign. So the managers resort to acting like complete basket cases. This also gives permission for their favorite people to run amok or simply not show up for work.

Then too there are the people that are apparently hired to do as much damage as humanly possible. Seems hard to grasp until we think of DOJ and FEMA under Bush.

But I think we are heading towards a bribery society. Nobody is going to get paid, and there won't be taxes and services, so an increasing amount of the economy will go underground. Bribery will be necessary to get the essentials of life (water) while basic consumer goods (a water heater) become unavailable because nobody has money to buy them, our factories only make weapons, and nobody cares to get trained to do installations for no money.

[shortonsense]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mcgowanjm', '
')And still 54 million Americans are starving.

[MarkJ]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mcgowanjm', '
')And still 54 million Americans are starving.

[mcgowanjm]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')Nobody is starving locally unless it's voluntary, due to ignorance, laziness, mental illness, drug/alcohol abuse or numerous poor decisions. .

The waistlines of local low income population continue to grow larger since many of them overeat, they eat junk, don't exercise and live very sedentary lifestyles.

[mcgowanjm]

Last month, single women who are heads of households saw their unemployment ranks rise by a massive 127,000. The number of employed men fell by 214,000. The total number of unemployed in the survey rose by an enormous 589,000. Those classified as not in the work force (due to the fact that they did not look for jobs) rose by 843,000! That now means that in 2009 3.5 million people were dropped from the potential labor force count because they were discouraged.

And it takes a lot of energy to look for a job that's not there
and then come home and discover/work on that busted water
pipe and put supper on for the kids.

http://www.businessinsider.com/henry-bl ... ver-2010-1

Employment to Population Ratio All Time

http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/ ... 20Time.jpg

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'E')ven in a Recovery, Some Jobs Won't Return

Even when the U.S. labor market finally starts adding more workers than it loses, many of the unemployed will find that the types of jobs they once had simply don't exist anymore.

Many of the jobs created by the booms in the housing and credit markets, for example, have likely been permanently erased by the subsequent bust.

"The tremendous amount of economic activity associated with housing, I can't see that coming back," says Harvard University economist Lawrence Katz. "That was a very unhealthy part of the economy."

Unhealthy but a boon for men without a college education. One in three jobs, or six million total, have been lost in the manufacturing sector since 1997, the last year the sector posted job gains. The upsurge in construction jobs accompanying the housing boom provided these workers in manufacturing with an opportunity to earn decent wages.

Now that door, too, has shut.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126325594634725459.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', '
')That's another aspect to all this.. the systematic destruction of "men's work." Not every man is cut out to be an executive, and not every man is cut out to be a secretary. There used to be a middle ground where rough and tumble men could earn their living. Think of all the construction workers out there, and former manufacturing workers -- can you imagine these guys working in a cube, or as a bank teller, or flight attendant?

[rangerone314]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cloud9', 'L')udi, I do not have an ego large enough to let me run this country. There are at least 100,000 younger, smarter Americans out there who are better suited for the job than I am. I do not see the solution to our problems as being catastrophic collapse and anarchy. .

[rangerone314]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PrestonSturges', 'R')egards the use of temps for moving crews - it seems to be accepted that these guys supplement their income by stealing peoples belongings. People who have not moved recently are shocked to find every box has been looted of valuables. And when it was put in storage by the moving company, they are SOL.

We also see managers that seem to be completely insane. There's the pressures of a shrinking workplace. And no they are under pressure to systematically mistreat employees to make them more "efficient" but mostly to get people to resign. So the managers resort to acting like complete basket cases. This also gives permission for their favorite people to run amok or simply not show up for work.

Then too there are the people that are apparently hired to do as much damage as humanly possible. Seems hard to grasp until we think of DOJ and FEMA under Bush.

But I think we are heading towards a bribery society. Nobody is going to get paid, and there won't be taxes and services, so an increasing amount of the economy will go underground. Bribery will be necessary to get the essentials of life (water) while basic consumer goods (a water heater) become unavailable because nobody has money to buy them, our factories only make weapons, and nobody cares to get trained to do installations for no money.

[PrestonSturges]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rangerone314', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PrestonSturges', '.')......But I think we are heading towards a bribery society. Nobody is going to get paid, and there won't be taxes and services, so an increasing amount of the economy will go underground. Bribery will be necessary to get the essentials of life (water) while basic consumer goods (a water heater) become unavailable because nobody has money to buy them, our factories only make weapons, and nobody cares to get trained to do installations for no money.

[Jotapay]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PrestonSturges', 'I') think the movie Brazil nailed it when "terrorism" was redefined to include people that make, build, or fix things.

[MarkJ]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', 'T')hat's another aspect to all this.. the systematic destruction of "men's work." Not every man is cut out to be an executive, and not every man is cut out to be a secretary. There used to be a middle ground where rough and tumble men could earn their living. Think of all the construction workers out there, and former manufacturing workers -- can you imagine these guys working in a cube, or as a bank teller, or flight attendant?

[mcgowanjm]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MarkJ', '
')It doesn't make financial sense to have a $25 per hour employee hanging ductwork when they could be doing burner, cooling, refrigeration, service, sales, design, troubleshooting etc. $8 to $10 per hour workers are used for much of the low skilled grunt work, plus many are younger, so they're better suited for these jobs.

One of our competitors uses $8 per hour workers with 3 to 4 week crash course training to perform much of the low-skilled service and installation work. After a month or two on the job, they perform much of the unskilled service work as solo acts without supervision. Their work isn't good, but it's good enough to satisfy many of their low income and cheap customers.