New World Coming

Anti Wage-Slavery, Pro-Freedom Quotations Of The Week 792-794

I powered through my four years of college with the assumption that doing well and getting my bachelor’s degree would be the key to having a future. I graduated with a 3.76 G.P.A. and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. I joined the student council. I spent four summers interning for the Fresh Air Fund and volunteered for the Alzheimer’s Association. I have nothing to show for my hard work but $24,000 in student loans. I’ve lost count of the number of job applications that have been ignored, and the ones that I did receive a response to still sting. I’ve stopped carrying both the house phone and my cellphone with me to every room that I move to, and I’ve stopped checking my e-mail every 20 minutes. I’m still trying because I have no other choice.
Kristin, unemployed
Hello, Cruel World
What the Fate of One Class of 2011 Says About the Job Market
New York Times, March 23, 2012

When Robert Collins returned from a leave of absence from his job as a security guard with the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services in 2010, he was asked for his Facebook login and password during a reinstatement interview, purportedly so the agency could check for any gang affiliations. (The Associated Press)
…
Bassett refused and withdrew his application, saying he didn't want to work for a company that would seek such personal information. But as the job market steadily improves, other job candidates are confronting the same question from prospective employers, and some of them cannot afford to say no.
Employers asking for Facebook passwords
DEMOCRATIC UNDERGROUND.com

The traditional image of a bundled man asleep on a sidewalk may be what comes to mind for most Canadians when homelessness is mentioned. The reality is more varied and complex. Conservative estimates suggest anywhere from 150,000-300,000 people are homeless in Canada. Street counts show 25-30% of people living
on the streets or in shelters in large Canadian cities are women. Toronto shelters saw a 78% increase in shelter use among single women between 1992 and 1998. Young women are homeless in alarming numbers. Families experience homelessness, and single parent families, mostly led by women, make up the majority of homeless families.
When There's No Place Like Home - A snapshot of women's homelessness in Canada
(emphasis JS)

Anti Wage-Slavery Pro-Freedom Quotations Of The Week 789-791

Across America, people are dying for work. It's not because they're unemployed. It's because they work for corporations that don't care if they die.
X
...In 4,500 such instances each year, the worker's death is quick and the cause obvious. In many more cases, however, the deaths are slower, and the reason -- workplace exposure to toxic substances -- less evident. Workplace exposure causes more than 40,000 premature deaths annually from conditions like cancer and neurological disease.
Dying for Work
Leo W. Gerard
Huffpost Business
(emphasis JS)

As chief financial officer of a military clothing manufacturer, Steven W. Eisen was accustomed to winning contracts to make garments for the Defense Department. But in December, Mr. Eisen received surprising news. His company, Tennier Industries, which is in a depressed corner of Tennessee, would not receive a new $45 million contract.

Tennier lost the deal not to a private sector competitor, but to a corporation owned by the federal government, Federal Prison Industries.

Federal Prison Industries, also known as Unicor, does not have to worry much about its overhead. It uses prisoners for labor, paying them 23 cents to $1.15 an hour. Although the company is not allowed to sell to the private sector, the law generally requires federal agencies to buy its products, even if they are not the cheapest.

Mr. Eisen, who laid off about 100 workers after losing out on the new contract, said the system took sorely needed jobs from law-abiding citizens. “Our government screams, howls and yells how the rest of the world is using prisoners or slave labor to manufacture items, and here we take the items right out of the mouths of people who need it,” he said.
Private Businesses Fight Federal Prisons for Contracts
By DIANE CARDWELL
New York Times
Published: March 14, 2012

 If we look closely enough, we’ll have to conclude that poverty is not, after all, a cultural aberration or a character flaw. Poverty is a shortage of money.

Barbara Ehrenreich
How I Discovered the Truth About Poverty

Anti Wage-Slavery Pro-Freedom Quotations Of The Week 786-788

But even when I quit
the numbers of the minutes and hours from this shift
stick with me: I can look at a clock some morning
months afterwards, and see it is 20 minutes to 9
—that is, if I'm ever out of bed that early--
and the automatic computer in my head
starts to type out: 20 minutes to 9, that means
30 minutes to work after 9: you are
50 minutes from the break; 50 minutes
of work, and it is only morning, and it is only
Monday, you poor dumb bastard....

Tom Wayman
Factory Time

More Americans said they struggled to buy food in 2011 than in any year since the financial crisis, according to a recent report from the Food Research and Action Center, a nonprofit research group. About 18.6 percent of people -- almost one out of every five -- told Gallup pollsters that they couldn't always afford to feed everyone in their family in 2011.

One might assume that number got smaller wrapped up with the national unemployment rate falling for several consecutive months. In actuality, the reverse proved true: the number of people who said they couldn't afford food just kept rising and rising.
Growing Number Of Americans Can't Afford Food, Study Finds
Alexander Eichler

Huffpost Business Canada

We prefer to stay good, obedient children of the Kindergarten who rather do dare to cry without end, than to become adults who can feel the endless injustice they had to endure in their childhood and rebel against it. In my opinion, the adult must dare exactly that.
Alice Miller

Anti Wage-Slavery, Pro-Freedom Quotations Of The Week 783-785

Alarm clocks that jab into the head
each morning, like so many insane brain surgeons,
the hours that one by one transform themselves
into dollars
while they discreetly, inexorably wear us away,
the emptiness of being controlled by
landlords, mortgage companies,
supervisors,
the insolence of bureaucracies
who are paid to help us,
the abrupt horrifying moment
when after much figuring
it is evident if everything keeps on as it has
there will not be enough money.
Tom Wayman

One of the more startling statistics in the report, which analyzed prescription claims data from 2.5 million insured Americans from 2001 to 2010, is that one in four women is dispensed medication for a mental health condition, compared to just 15 percent of men.
…
…when someone has life stressors and is having difficulty coping. An example would be a marital discord, going through a separation or a divorce. A job would be a big one, particularly in the current economy.
Women And Prescription Drugs: One In Four Takes Mental Health Meds
Huffpost
Katherine Bindley
(emphasis JS)

About 13 to 14 percent of Americans work under an abusive supervisor, Yagil said. Her study on Israeli workers found that abused employees tend to cope by avoiding their bosses, seeking support from co-workers and trying to reassure themselves. As useful as those strategies might sound, however, they actually made employees feel worse.

Your bullying boss may be slowly killing you

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