The Expendables: How the Temps Who Power Corporate Giants Are Getting Crushed

[marmar]

The Expendables: How the Temps Who Power Corporate Giants Are Getting Crushed
Hundreds of thousands of blue-collar workers are stuck in low-wage temp jobs, despite working for America’s largest companies.

BY Michael Grabell, ProPublica


It’s 4:18 a.m. and the strip mall is deserted. But tucked in back, next to a closed-down video store, an employment agency is already filling up. Rosa Ramirez walks in, as she has done nearly every morning for the past six months. She signs in and sits down in one of the 100 or so blue plastic chairs that fill the office. Over the next three hours, dispatchers will bark out the names of who will work today. Rosa waits, wondering if she will make her rent.

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. They unload clothing and toys made overseas and pack them to fill our store shelves. They are as important to the global economy as shipping containers and Asian garment workers. ....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://inthesetimes.com/article/15204/the_expendables_how_the_temps_who_power_corporate_giants_are_getting_crushe/

[xchrom]

1. du rec.

[wercal]

2. My stepson is a temp

Its a strange situation, because the project he is working on will last around a year, 40 hours per week...

But he's still considered a 'temp'.

Since he works 40 hours, a variety of 'benefits' are offered; but, if one were to get the health plan, vison plan, etc, that would consume all his pay.

He does feel somewhat expendable. The temp agency always has a few people lined up, to replace somebody if they get fired or quit.

The pay isn't great; but, its all he could find - he's just out of high school, and the alternative is a job in the service industry, with lousy hours...he did that for a while, and all the last minute 3 hour shifts didn't hardly justify his gas.

Now his temp position is actually at the company I work at. And there is this huge dichotomy. We are going to have a 'celebration' today, to mark our success so far this year...and the fact that we are 100% employee owned. Its a great company. But, then there's the temps. They get paid around 40% of what they would get, if employed by the company directly...and they aren't part of the 'celebrations'.

I know exactly why the company is using temps - our competition uses off-shore labor (India), and our only way of competing is to use temps. However, I can see very clearly how the company's entire labor model could change to a very unhealthy caste system, using temps as second class employees.

[They_Live]

3. I'm glad that you mentioned "caste system"

I was thinking of that term the other day when thinking about the United States, the people in power, and the rest of us. It is becoming more evident to me that we have a caste system here based on class and even lineage. Sad.

[Brigid]

4. "Labor Sharks."

What a perfect moniker. And just who is responsible if a temporary worker is, say, injured on the job? I think I'll go take my blood pressure meds now.