There’s something dangerous happening to millions of Americans nationwide. It is happening in places where many people spend at least 40 hours a week. It is
causing severe physical and mental illness. It runs off fear and manipulation. But its victims are not talking it about.
So what is it?
Work abuse.
Look around the average American workplace and it’s not too hard to find. Twenty-seven percent of all adult Americans report experiencing work abuse and an additional 21 percent of Americans report witnessing it, meaning some
65 million Americans have been affected.
“Anything that affects 65 million Americans is an
epidemic,” said Gary Namie, co-founder of the Workplace Bullying Institute. “But it’s an un-discussable epidemic because employers don’t want this discussed.”
What To Do About Your Jerk of a Boss Before You Get PTSD
Millions of workers are suffering from anxiety, depression and even PTSD because of bully bosses.
By Alyssa Figueroa / AlterNet March 5, 2015
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The number of people with graduate degrees receiving food assistance or other forms of federal aid nearly tripled between 2007 and 2010, according to the U.S. Census. More specifically, 28 percent of food-stamp households were headed by a person with at least some college education in 2013, compared with 8 percent in 1980, according to an analysis by University of Kentucky economists.
The hypereducated poor, as I've come to think of them, are as hidden to the country at large as Bolin is at Columbia. "Nobody knows or cares that I have a PhD, living in the trailer park," says a former linguistics adjunct and mother of one child, who lives in Eugene, Oregon, and was on welfare and food stamps. A St. Paul, Minnesota, librarian, who admits that few of her friends have any clue how broke she is, puts it this way: "Every American thinks they're a temporarily embarrassed millionaire: I am no exception."
Alissa Quart / AlterNet January 9, 2015
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Uber workers aren’t alone. There are millions like just them, also outside the labor laws — and their ranks are growing. Most aren’t even part of the new Uberized “sharing” economy.
They’re franchisees, consultants, and free lancers.
They’re also construction workers, restaurant workers, truck drivers, office technicians, even workers in hair salons.
What they all have in common is they’re not considered “employees” of the companies they work for.
They’re “independent contractors” – which puts all of them outside the labor laws, too.
The rise of “independent contractors” Is the most significant legal trend in the American workforce – contributing directly to
low pay, irregular hours, and job insecurity.
...
For example, FedEx calls its drivers independent contractors.
Yet FedEx requires them to pay for the FedEx-branded trucks they drive, as well as the FedEx uniforms they wear, and FedEx scanners they use – along with insurance, fuel, tires, oil changes, meals on the road, maintenance, and workers compensation insurance. If they get sick or need a vacation, they have to hire their own replacements. They’re even required to groom themselves according to FedEx standards.
FedEx doesn’t tell its drivers what hours to work, but it tells them what packages to deliver and organizes their workloads to ensure they work between 9.5 and 11 hours every working day.
Robert Reich: Why Work Has Become a Nightmare and How to Stop It
AlterNet, February 23, 2015
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