Heartbreaking.....I am Patient Zero in our New Economy

[dixiegrrrrl]

Excellent writer goes undercover as employee at "big box" store.
Beautifully written.

The New World

At age 53 I expected to be quizzed about why I was looking for minimum wage work in a big box retail store. No one cared; instead, the application process included a background and credit check, along with a drug test. Any of those anonymous agencies could have vetoed my employment and I’d never even know about it. Most places that don’t pay much seem really concerned that their workers are drug-free. I’m not sure why this is, because you can be a banker or lawyer and get through the day higher than angels on a cloud. Regardless, I did what I had to in front of another person, handing him the cup. He gave me one of those universal signs of the underemployed I now recognize, a “we’re all in it, what’re ya gonna do” look, just a little upward flick of his eyes.

After hiring I watched a video on theft. The interesting thing was that in addition to warning us about stealing candy for breaks, we were not to steal time. The store paid us for our time and so even if we snuck out for a breath of air or flipped through a magazine, we were stealing time. Would we have liked someone from the store to come to our home (or, I guess, day-rate motel room, car back seat, shelter bunk or cardboard box under a bridge) and have them do whatever the heck the store would want from us there?

New break policy: zero to five and a half hour shift, no break. New schedule policy: all shifts reduced to five and a half hours or less. Somebody said it was illegal not to give us breaks, but what can you do, call the cops like it was a real crime? It turns out in fact that in my state employers are not required to grant breaks to anyone over age 16; in some places minimum wage workers do eight and nine hours shifts without a meal or a chance to get off their feet for a few minutes. No one gets sick leave, holidays or accrues vacation time. No health benefits.

so much more...(pls rec if you think other DU folks would want to see this.)
also, I really really like this guy's writing and the blog

http://wemeantwell.com/blog/

[UnrepentantLiberal]

1. Sounds like RW paradice.

[antigop]

5. and corporate Dem paradise. nt

[juajen]

27. That's just wrong. I know a lot of dem corporations that treat their

employees a lot better than this, i.e., Trader Joe's, Costco, Starbucks, just to name a few. They would be pilloried on here if they were dems and treated their employees like this. Please name some names and we will commence to give them a piece of our mind.

[antigop]

33. the corporate Dems in Congress --DLC/Third Wayers. nt

[go west young man]

36. Some serious irony considering your avatar

and Hillary previously sitting on Walmarts Board Of Directors. http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0207-34.htm

No one ever wants to go there on these boards but in my mind ( which is more Wellstone, Kucinich, Grayson) Bill and Hillary are corporatists with some liberal views. They are Mid West Blue Dogs not much different to Ben Nelson. Under Clinton came globalization, media consolidation, deregulation of cable and news reporting, and stock market manipulation coupled with regulators in bed with the banks. That's when the things spoken about in this "heartbreaking" post really started to come to fruition.
I think we at DU are in denial about the roots of the problems we face. Sure Republicans have destroyed the 'American Dream" but they were helped along the way.

[CrispyQ]

40. I wish I could rec your post, too.

I think the dems really lost it when they became afraid of Ronald Reagan & the media poking fun at the word liberal. They distanced themselves from the word & soon after, liberal policies as well. And here we are, 30 years later, still letting the repubs & the media frame the message. They should have stood proud & said, "Fuckin' A we're liberal & here's why!"

Now, way too many of our dems suffer from love of money. Oh sure, they are (mostly) pro-choice, pro-civil rights, pro-LGBT, but they are first & foremost, pro-1%.

[go west young man]

43. Totally with ya.

Great post yourself!

[antigop]

51. they are pro-corporate, anti-labor. nt

[raouldukelives]

71. Indeed. I hear the new "liberals" saying they are socially liberal but economically conservative.

As if the two weren't totally intertwined. Just about every problem we face and get angry about is caused by corporate intervention in our system and yet they still don't see it.
They know it is far better to be in the lap of fat cat, nuzzling against its warm flesh than to be the mouse. Preyed on by them all.

[antigop]

50. yep...nt

[grammiepammie]

2. heartbreaking

See what happens when companies no longer have to worry about unions. Whether you like unions or not, the possibility of a union always kept companies on their toes when it came to employee's rights. Now, they just don't care. Shame on us.

[lastlib]

3. Welcome to Kochtopia

We've become a really f*cked-up country in the last thirty years. In a really f*cked-up world. And we're one of the "developed" countries..........Hah.

[dixiegrrrrl]

4. "Kochtopia"....

Perfect.
Says it all.

[lastlib]

6. (If you're familiar with Kansas) it shares a border with "Brownbackistan"

[kcass1954]

7. And the next problem becomes that when you try to cobble together a couple of jobs

so that you almost kinda sorta have full-time-ish employment but without those pesky full-time-ish benefits, the employers don't care about overlapping schedules.

[Jim__]

8. When I was young, this country was going in the opposite direction.

We were working toward a 32 hour work week at full pay, a break every 2 hours. And we thought this would keep getting better.

I didn't vote for Ross Perot in '92; but I remember what he said about NAFTA - something like the people in Mexico that we would be competing with for jobs lived in cardboard boxes and to be competitive, we'd have to live in cardboard boxes too. He was right. We still have enough power to turn this country around; but that power is fading fast.

[dixiegrrrrl]

13. This also:

“We thought that factory in Reeve was written in ink but it was watercolor,” remembers Earl.
“There were pieces of pieces of machinery from the factory left on the ground, too unimportant to sell off,
too heavy to move, too bulky to bury, left scattered like clues from a lost civilization, the left droppings of our failure.
Might as well been the bones of the men who worked there left.
We were once the American Dream and now we just were what happened to it.”

Excerpt from a new book coming out soon, a modern day Grapes of Wrath, by same author as above.

The People on the Bus: A Story of the #99Percent

[airplaneman]

35. You must be around 60 like me.

I also as a child remember that science was promising more leisure time and a 32 hour week with great pay. 1970 surely seems like the turning point + Jack Welsh. Up to 1970 companies were willing to share the profit with the employees and were happy with a overall 6-12% profit. Then along came outsourcing and enriching the shareholders. 30-50% profit became the new norm but only occurred with the mindset that workers were worthless fodder to be fucked over in the name of profit. Time is running out for a peaceful solutions and I surely believe a violent one will the the end game if things don't start changing soon.
-Airplane

[CrispyQ]

41. I worked for a company that moved assembly of cell phones to Mexico.

It was one of the most costly decisions they made. They never saved the money they thought they would with low wages & no benefits. Often times shipments of parts from China were delayed & there was no work to be done at the Mexico factory, but since the employees were guaranteed a certain number of hours, they would have them clean or paint the place. I remember one of the VPs said that our facility in Mexico must surely be the cleanest place on the planet. One end of quarter, at end of year, no less, a truck carrying finished phones was hijacked before crossing the border. Product wasn't shipped, the sales department didn't make their numbers, the CEO had to explain to the board why sales didn't make their numbers. Sure the shipment was insured, but it didn't cover a lot of the hidden costs. I remember the CFO telling me "I look at $12-$15 an hour a lot different now."

[Smilo]

9. K&R

The new America people, I didn't know that there were states out there that denied breaks - that is so, so very wrong.

I am lucky I have a job, but I know my boss would love for people to not have breaks, etc. I am luckier than a lot of people though, he does provide healthcare, sadly unless you are in management no one can afford. Yep, we have vacation time - somehow never gets used and yes we are given sick time - if you are off for more than one day they are asking you why are you taking excessive sick time. (I was also asked that in a hospital when I had a series of bad colds and didn't want to get the patients' sicker).

Of course, can't remember my last pay raise - for a couple of years they have been on a "we have to save/cut, while we rescue the company" meanwhile top management flies all over the country for meetings that could be done via skype, but then they wouldn't get to stay in the nicer hotels and live it up.

[LiberalEsto]

18. We're expected to have bladders of steel

and I don't think that's possible for everyone.

[Smilo]

24. But if Rand Paul can do

it why can we?!?!?!?!?!

[mwooldri]

57. Does this mean...

we have to go to the doctors, get diagnosed with overactive bladder disorder, and request for an ADA accommodation for bathroom breaks every 2 hours? If you cannot "hold your pee" for 3 hours, you are technically incontinent, and this is a disability. I'm lucky I don't work there. That's absolutely crazy! I would think that if a workplace was THAT draconian then I'd be a) looking for other opportunities and b) using other workplace protection procedures to make life more palatable.

[CrispyQ]

46. This:

meanwhile top management flies all over the country for meetings that could be done via skype, but then they wouldn't get to stay in the nicer hotels and live it up.

The expense reports are disgusting. After many years of completing expense reports for bosses & staff that left me fuming, I was finally fortunate enough to support a very rich man who didn't think the company should pay for his high end taste. Every time I booked a flight & suite for him, I had to inquire what the rate was for a 'regular' seat/room & that was the amount I used on his expense reports.

[Swede Atlanta]

10. This is precisely the economy the Republicans want....

Mind you they don't want this for themselves but for everyone else.

Businesses in this country are richly rewarded. The public benefits and awards are huge. They are allowed to compete in a mature consumer-driven economy. Business organizations allow individual investors to limit their risk/liability to the extent of their investment. Businesses are advantaged by having access to a relatively-educated workforce (I write this with a grimace), access to roads, waterways, railways, etc. that are paid for by public and/or private funds.

And in return they offer employees minimum wage and that's it. They want to hoard all the profits for themselves or the shareholders. No more sense that we are a "community" or a "nation".

I suggest that we, the people, can strip these owners of their limited liability through simple state law changes. This would expose each and every scumbag for the harms they cause employers and consumers including access to their PERSONAL fortunes. That would be sweet. See the Koch Brothers squirm as their mansions are emptied and they are shuffled off to low-income housing!!!!

[dixiegrrrrl]

11. "simple state law changes"

depend on republicans not having the majority in state/Federal chambers.

[antigop]

17. not just the Republicans...corporate Dems as well. nt

[antigop]

15. it's also the economy corporate Dems want...don't kid yourself. nt

[juajen]

30. Please give some examples of dem corporations that act like republicans.

[antigop]

34. Congressional corporate dems...not "dem corporations" nt

At the local, state, and federal level.

[duffyduff]

72. Absolutely.

The "D" after somebody's name means little these days.

[xtraxritical]

16. What state do you live in? Are you for real?

[Iris]

25. Yeah. The ones who take risks are the ones who deserve to go the bathroom when they need to.

And we call ourselves "free"

[jollyreaper2112]

78. That's really the thing of it

This wealth comes from us all working together! Now we will keep the wealth and you will shut your whore mouth! "But we're starving!" Class warfare!

[MrMickeysMom]

12. I'm recommending this, even though...

I'm sure some here would feel personally insulted HRC and company haven't been wishing the world to have a nice day.

We have to be willing to be quite critical of who "we, the people" really are... Who exactly is "The United States of America", anyway, huh?

Koch-roach infestation needs serious pest control. I am not proud of who the USA is and there's some seriously good food for thought on this website, dixiegrrrl.

[dixiegrrrrl]

21. I can't stop reading his posts.

Last time I gobbled up a website, it was Joe Bageant's ( RIP) marvelous writing of reality in America.

[baldguy]

14. The "New Poor" is the old Middle-class.

[kairos12]

19. It is a J.O.B.

Just Over Broke

[just1voice]

20. Let's appoint a Wal-Mart exec as budget chief of the U.S. government, that'll help

Oh never mind, it already happened.

[No Vested Interest]

28. That's Walmart Foundation-

not Walmart Corporation.

[just1voice]

69. Duh

Go ahead and talk yourself into believing whatever you want to.

[WillyT]

22. HUGE K & R !!!

[RVN VET]

23. And media hero Rand Paul said

that he got weally weally tired standin' on his wittle footsies during his goddam filibuster. He stands for 12 hours and winks at you, saying how he hadda pee and his legs were tired. Then he collects his $175,000 pay check and goes back to work fighting against an increase in the minimum wage.


"...in some places minimum wage workers do eight and nine hours shifts without a meal or a chance to get off their feet for a few minutes." THAT, friends, is an outrage.

Work minimum wage and get fired -- jailed even! -- for eating a cookie or taking a pee break, or just (goddammit) sitting down for a second.

Be a wealthy US Senator and stand on your feet talking blather for a few hours and the world stands back and gasps in admiration.

Paul is just a hypocritical, heartless ass-clown.

(Sorry dixiegrrrl if my comment is a bit off topic.)

[chervilant]

26. Add to this

eloquently described ignomy, the censure from a "liberal" friend admonishing you that you're "not hungry enough to find work"!

Just think how difficult it becomes, searching relentlessly for ANY job, with homelessness waiting in the dark shadows, like the grim reaper.

(No worries, mates: I have a solution if I can't get the pitifully small, yet astronomically large amount of money I need to stave off homelessness.)

[juajen]

32. Not to mention that the homeless have no place to shower or lay their

heads, and have no idea where their next meal is coming from. Add to that, decent clothes to wear. Without this kind of help, they will never become employed again. I wish people would put their money where their mouth is. I watch poor people winning the lottery, and sincere liberal politicians, actors, etc., and wish they could be homeless with no resources for just one week. The greatest country in the world? Bullshit. Of course, there are exceptions to this. I have watched a lot of prominent people help out New Orleans after Katrina. Unfortunately, Chris Cristy is truly seeing how deficient this country is in simple decency.

My heart breaks for the homeless. This is a direct result of greedy employers, and indifferent people for the most part. There is no sympathy from the right at all. I have friends and relatives who think these people are on easy street, and begrudge them their free phones, as if anyone can live these days without a cheap cellphone at least; and God forbid they have a pet with them that they love and cuddle up with.

God, I can't believe I lived to see the shape this country is in today. The fifties and sixties were utopia.

[beveeheart]

29. Yes, heartbreaking

on so many levels.

[me b zola]

31. K&R

[CrispyQ]

37. Wish I could multiple rec this.

~kick.

This is so damned sad:

I did work in retail for minimum wage, both at age 16 and again at age 53. While I lived a life from teenager stocking shelves to older adult stocking shelves, the minimum wage only rose by a few bucks. The minimum wage today is $7.25—is a big latte really what an hour of my labor is worth? While the money has not changed, what has changed is who is now working these minimum wage jobs. Once upon a time they were filled with high school kids earning pocket money. In 2013, the jobs are encumbered by adults struggling to get by. Something is wrong.

So to the president I say, yes, please, do raise the minimum wage. But how far is the proposed nine bucks an hour going to go? Are we going to do eight hours of labor for the cell phone bill? Another twelve for the groceries each week? Another twenty or thirty for a car payment? How many hours are we going to work? How many can we work? Nobody can make a real living doing these jobs. You can’t raise a family on minimum wage. And you can’t build a nation on the working poor. Maybe what we need is to spend more on education and less on war, even out the tax laws and rules just a bit, require a standard living wage instead of a minimum one. That’s not all the answer, but it is a start. The president is right that it is time for a change, but what is needed is much more than a nudge up on the minimum wage.

[Lifelong Protester]

38. A big K & R

thanks for posting...now off to read.

[dixiegrrrrl]

45. The guy's writing is so compelling.

I have been stuck on his site all morning.

[rhett o rick]

39. k&r

[snagglepuss]

42. .

[Octafish]

44. Ingrate! She should be thankful she found work, over 50 and all...

The future of work is now, from Chantal Montellier's post-nuclear war "1996" ( or "Social Fiction" in the original French):



THREE MINUTES PAUSE - ATTENTION: KEEP YOU
MASK ON - THREE MINUTES PAUSE... ATTENTION...

SHEEYIT!

THADZ ID!



AA

AAARRGG!

I'M BOININ.

WADZ AMADA? WUDZ GODINDA IM? DUNNO. GOP SIGGA IZ OUDFID. AINDA FIRZ... AND ID WOWNBEYA LAZZ...WUDA MEZZ! YUCK! HEREZA BOZ!

WUZ HABENIN? WUDA FUG?

...GUY TOOGOVIZ MAZG. WONUVA TEEM...

OH. SOWUDUYA UGGIN AD? GOWAN! GED BAGA WORG STEDA STAIRINAD THIZ AZHOL!



KMIN KONTROL: TEEM 101 CHEEF HERE. GODA NEGZIBIJUNISD INEER. GUY TOOGOV IZ MASG...IYL GED RIDOV IM... RIDE... THANGZ.

GODA NOBENIN ZLOD 5 TEEM 101...

[loudsue]

47. We're very quickly moving back to the days before labor unions: The Robber Baron

days. Ya know. At some point, it's going to be war between the people and their governments. Either we rule, or we are ruled.

[antigop]

52. so true, loudsue. We are quickly moving back to the days before unions. nt

[dixiegrrrrl]

75. It feels llike the war has started but only one side doing all the shooting.

[Ron Obvious]

48. Stealing Time...

That phrase "Stealing Time" really embodies the whole mindset of the modern employer/employee relationship to me. It really leaped out at me when I read Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickle & Dimed as well.

I see the locale office supply store is hiring again, advertising the exact same hourly wage as a friend of mine got working there in 1999.

It's a good thing the cost of living hasn't gone up since that time.

[loudsue]

76. That book should be required reading in every school.

It really showed the dark underbelly of our capitalist society.

[patrice]

49. I'd swap "smoke" breaks, only, for flex time that I manage for longer & shorter days of my choice

in a couple or more weeks @ month . . . . ,

because I'm busy doing other stuff, in my community, in the city in which I had my first apartment of my own.

......................................................

Kansas City Arts' Renaissance!

- Blackhouse Jazz Collective (big basey complex sound) at the Paragraph Gallery, NW of Power & Light, KC, MO.

- near the Library District downtown and part of the city's gallery community around KC's new Performing Arts Center,
and downtown,

..........................

March 2013 Composers Showcase

- many instruments, base trombones and many saxaphones, and other instruments, and a great drummer, and keyboards and clarinets and trombones and brass of all kinds.

- in collaboration with The Nelson Atkins collection of ancient things as the composers' themes.

- proud of my town and its many communities!

- and its support of artists'.

- I heart my city.

[glinda]

53. All the while meaning to "depress and suppress" the population.

This is really awful.

[Doremus]

54. K&W Many decades of hard-fought workers' rights down the toilet. nt

[limpyhobbler]

55. That's capitalism for ya. End this crap now.

[Sekhmets Daughter]

56. As the middle class grows in Third World nations,

consuming the middle and working classes here. It is cannibalism at its worst.

[Phentex]

58. Not having a bathroom break seems inhumane...

I mean, the rest is awful too but is any job so critical that a person can't take a 5 minute bathroom break? Almost seems like a medical liability.

[Bigredhunk]

59. I Remember

Going in for an interview at a Family Dollar warehouse when I was in college. The interview was pretty normal. But then you had to take a written test administered by Pinkerton. It was awful. A ton of questions totally belittling you as a human:

Is it wrong to steal?
Is it okay to steal if you're poor?
Would you tell if you saw a co-worker steal?

Between the test and the subsequent humiliating video, I went a different way.

[99th_Monkey]

60. Big Boxes Bring 3rd World to America. What's new? n/t

[xchrom]

61. Du rec. Nt

[progressoid]

62. Marking this for a later read.

[midnight]

63. Great article... I posted this poem this week... Not much response to it, but it sure does

express the plight of our moms and dads...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10846914

[Wednesdays]

64. K & R

[Lydia Leftcoast]

65. I suspect that the aim is to purposely create psychological depression

or other mental disorders. Depression makes people incapable of taking initiative.

Then the 1% can make fun of them.

That's why I REALLY HATE it when people make fun of WalMart shoppers. They are the most beaten down of Americans, and yeah, if you were in their shoes, you'd wear uncool clothes, eat bad food, and fall asleep in your shopping cart, too.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

66. jezusfucking christ, this makes me cry. It's so wrong,

And told so clearly.

Right now all I can do is try to educate whenever the opportunity may arise, and vote democratic.

God this is so FUCKING WRONG.

[dixiegrrrrl]

68. It does seem that every generation needs to pay attention.

Everything we did to create chante in the 60's & 70's is being forgotten and erased.
Everything my grandparents did for worker's rights is being erased.

And the schools are not teaching "the way it used to be."

The institutional memory is going, as us boomers age and die.
And the boomer's kids are now in their 40's, will soon be desperately trying to keep their head above water,
as Soc. Sec will be trashed...eventually it WILL be trashed, we know that, Carlin warned us about that.

I find it hard to be optimistic these days.

[Solly Mack]

67. k/r

[ramapo]

73. This is tolerated as normal

Sadly, it has been a long road to get here. I have a hard time believing that this is what our country has come to but there is no denying it. What I find especially difficult is that now that our future is here (for those who grew up in the '60s and '70s), it is that this once hopeful future is in so many ways such a disappointment.


Employment, education, the environment, science, transportation. On the list goes of things that have regressed over the past 40 years.

To read this short story, knowing how true it is, knowing how hopeless the prospects for a decent job with benefits is for so many of our citizens, and knowing that the game has been so well rigged by the corporations and politicians, just fills me with sadness and a sick frustration.

There were a hundred, maybe a thousand, little turning points over the decades. There is a lot of irony. After all, it all really started with the election of Ronald Reagan, the man who was portrayed as the friend of the working man. Nothing could have been further from the truth but much of that myth lives on today.

Still, time and again, the people have elected those who pay lip service to the workers while paving the way for the corpocracy to gain total control. There will be no laws passed to change this situation until there is a sea change.

The minimum wage is a tiny component. Employers have invaded the privacy of the worker. The worker gets no respect. All is outlined so well by the author but for one point. I fear we have met the enemy and the enemy is us all who have allowed this to happen.

[Doctor_J]

74. Medicare For All would do a lot to ease the burden

A disaster that the congressional & WH Dems won't even make a push for it.

[patrice]

77. KICK