OutsourceOutrage.com: Where American workers take a stand against corporate greed These stories never end. I’m actually more amused by the disconnectedness of the high-tech community over these things. “Hey, it’s not about me, so I don’t care.” Fascinating.
Natasha
Santa Clara, CANatasha, 31, was earning $90,000 a year with handheld computer maker Palm. After being flown to India to train people whom she later realized were her replacements, and despite promises made by Palm, Natasha was laid off. Natasha has been unemployed for six months, splitting her time between raising her six-year-old son, who suffers from sickle-cell anemia, and tech labor activism.
Marty, sorry, dude; but, sounds like you’re unaccustomed to being around folks who get pissed off and try to do something about it. The single most important political aphorism I discovered to be misdirection was “you can’t fight City Hall”.
Wrong. You just can’t do it alone.
I have always believed that the unions in this nation have helped the worker get better working conditions.
Ronald Reagan broke the unions back in 1981. Since that time the unions have lost all their power; except for this years threat by the teachers in Kentucky over the cost of their health care. In 1981 the unions did not need much help in losing their stronghold because of their personal abuses.
Since that time unions do not have much clout when congress decides to change the laws.
A few years back I was working for the federal government. I was working a forty hour week with overtime pay for anything over 8 hours in a day. I was traveling 1 ˝ hours one way to work. So my working day was 11 hours until I got back home. I did this for ten years. Two years before I retired the government asked each job site to work a compressed work schedule. The government could not enforce it without the permission of the employees. The propaganda rolled and I saw the writing on the wall. These young men saw the days off but could not see the danger of giving up the 8 hour day and the overtime. They voted and I lost. I worked the 12 hour day plus the 3 hour travel time each day. Maybe because I am not as young as I used to be I fell asleep at the wheel about a mile from home. I was lucky to awake before driving off the road and quickly turned back into the proper lane before hitting the oncoming car that I was looking at. I had enough time to retire though I wanted to work three more years as I had planned. I lost some benefits by leaving early. The social pressure had worked and I lost my job because I could not conform to the new work schedule.
I recently heard that the law had changed for salaried employee overtime pay schedules.
My wife lost her hospital management job last year because the hospital had to cut back so they fired sixteen employees in one swift move. Because of her age she was not getting around two swiftly so she was able to get early benefits from Social Security though she wanted to work five more years. We were both very good employees but the state of the union could not afford to keep us working.
We went from making $75,000 to $30,000 in 2 years plus my wife had lost a lot her retirement because of the doward turn in the stock market.
We have lost 2 companies in our small community one by it moving to Mexico and the other by being bought and moved away by consolidation.
The trickle down economy is really working. It reminds me of the little boy at the top of fountains who is wetting the world by his high arcing display of water.
I learned a long time ago that salaried employment is the spawn of Satan. It is an open door to abuse by the employer. Being paid salaried provides no disincentive to the employer for pushing for more hours of work. I am an independent consultant, but have, on occasion taken a salaried job and every time I did, I swore I’d never do it again. In every case, I ended up putting in very long hours that just sapped the life out of me. I don’t care about overtime or triple time or vacation pay. I just want to be paid for every hour I work. I think that salaried employment should be eliminated completely and replaced instead with hourly pay. They could simply stipulate an average number of hours per week like 35. Paid vacations would be based on eight hour days and there would be no need to calculate half days. There would be no need to calculate overtime. Furthermore, it provides an incentive for employees to work more (or at least be at work more). Each employee is able to balance the value of additional work against additional home life.