The American Dream is rapidly fading -- and the infamous GOP 'Job Creators' are leading us down the new yellow brick road.
Leading us working Americans to the promised-land of 'just barely surviving' ...
Temporary jobs becoming a permanent fixture
by Christopher S. Rugaber, AP Business Writer, usatoday.com -- July 7, 2013
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The number of temps has jumped more than 50% since the recession ended four years ago to nearly 2.7 million -- the most on government records dating to 1990. In no other sector has hiring come close.
Driving the trend are lingering uncertainty about the economy and employers' desire for more flexibility in matching their payrolls to their revenue. Some employers have also sought to sidestep the new health care law's rule that they provide medical coverage for permanent workers. Last week, though, the Obama administration delayed that provision of the law for a year.
The use of temps has extended into sectors that seldom used them in the past -- professional services, for example, which include lawyers, doctors and information technology specialists.
[...]
RedBlueAmerica: Has 'temp' economy become permanent?
by Ben Boychuk, redding.com -- July 6, 2013
Jobs are much less permanent than they used to be. A recent investigation by the nonprofit journalism group ProPublica finds that for millions of Americans, “temporary work has become a mainstay of the economy.”
The U.S. Department of Labor last month reported that 2.7 million Americans did temp work, and nearly one-fifth of the job growth since the recession ended officially in 2009 has been in the temporary sector, the ProPublica story notes.
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The ProPublica story also points out how the burgeoning world of temporary work “insulates the host companies from workers’ compensation claims, unemployment taxes, union drives and the duty to ensure that their workers are citizens or legal immigrants.” And don’t forget health insurance! Companies such as Applebee’s, Denny’s, Papa John’s Pizza and Darden Restaurants (which owns Olive Garden and Red Lobster) have all announced they would cut hours to avoid the employer-mandates under the woefully misnamed Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare. (In a move made public in an abrupt announcement last week, the Obama administration said it would suspend the employer mandate for one year.)
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This is what happens when Corporate Lobbyists and Corporate interests like ALEC, get to
write our laws to help out
our Reps: The CEOs get the elevator to top floor, while the working people of America, we keep getting the shaft.
Say Hello to the New American Dream -- If only I can land that right "permatemp" job ... man, will I'd have made it, then ...
Transcript: Inside the Rise of America’s Temp Towns
by Christie Thompson, ProPublica, Jul. 1, 2013 -- Discussion page
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Many workers get stuck as "permatemps." "Many enter with the promise of full time work after a 3 month or a 6 month probationary period - only to find their times extended to the point where they can be at the same worksite for years, but as an employee of the temp agency with no benefits, vacation or raises," Grabell said. According to Industrial Staffing Analysts, only 30 percent of industrial temp jobs become full-time positions.
[...]
The Expendables: How the Temps Who Power Corporate Giants Are Getting Crushed
by Michael Grabell, ProPublica, June 27, 2013
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In cities all across the country, workers stand on street corners, line up in alleys or wait in a neon-lit beauty salon for rickety vans to whisk them off to warehouses miles away. Some vans are so packed that to get to work, people must squat on milk crates, sit on the laps of passengers they do not know or sometimes lie on the floor, the other workers’ feet on top of them.
This is not Mexico. It is not Guatemala or Honduras. This is Chicago, New Jersey, Boston.
The people here are not day laborers looking for an odd job from a passing contractor. They are regular employees of temp agencies working in the supply chain of many of America’s largest companies -- Walmart, Macy’s, Nike, Frito-Lay. They make our frozen pizzas, sort the recycling from our trash, cut our vegetables and clean our imported fish. [...]
Many get by on minimum wage, renting rooms in rundown houses, eating dinners of beans and potatoes, and surviving on food banks and taxpayer-funded health care. They almost never get benefits and have little opportunity for advancement.
[...]
Say Hello to the New American Dream -- the land of the "expendable" opportunities, for all our
citizens cheapest laborers!
If this the new normal doesn't frighten you -- well, just wait. Sooner or later the corporate powers that be, will get around to downsizing your job too.
Just give them time, and the greedy ears of Congress. And they'll find a way to cut your "cost" from the equation too.
Congress willing, of course. To quietly sell our futures, down the river.