100 Slaves 100 Enemies

Glenn Greenwald explains why defending human rights and the Constitution wins hearts and minds and is the most American thing you can do.

Dean Baker explains a plan to save jobs that involves the government reimbursing employers so their employees can have more time off. Can’t be done? They already do it in Germany.

Estimated number of Al Qaeda members now operating in Afghanistan, according to the U.S. national security adviser: 100 (one hundred)
(Haper’s Index, December 2009)

General Wesley Clark thinks we should get out of Afghanistan.

“Last week, ExxonMobil became the first U.S. oil company in 35 years to sign an oil-production contract with the government of Iraq,” reports Antonia Juhasz.

from the Introduction of
Confonting the Gloves-Off Economy: America’s Broken Labor Standards and How to Fix Them
written by the Center for Economic Policy and Research:

• According to “employer compliance surveys” conducted by US Dept of Labor in the 1990s (the best evidence for labor violations) in 1999:
  • only 35% of apparel plants in New York City were in compliance with minimum wage and overtime laws;
  • in Chicago, only 42% of restaurants were in compliance;
  • in Los Angeles, only 43% of grocery stores were in compliance;
  • nationally, only 43% of residential care establishments were in compliance
• slavery is not dead
  • estimated 20,000 workers are trafficked into the country per year
  • most extreme example: 1995, more than 70 Thai garment workers were discovered inside a small El Monte apartment building — under armed guard and surrounded by barbed wire — where they were forced to work 18-hour shifts without pay
• How did the gloves come off?
  • Reagan
  • weakening unions
  • regulators hostile to the idea of regulations
  • salting the National Labor Relations Board with people opposed to unions
  • subcontracting / temps
  • employers threaten to close all or part of their business in more than half of all union organizing campaigns
  • union/non-union gap; full-time union members:
    • earn 30% more
    • 70% union workers have defined-benefit pensions; 15% of non-union members do
  • between 1975 and 2004, the number of federal workplace investigations declined by 14% and compliance-actions completed dropped by 36%
  • The Occupationsl Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) budget has been cut by $14.5 million since 2001
  • At its current staffing and inspection levels it would take OSHA 133 years to inspect each workplace under its jurisdiction just once

Students Pay Services to Obtain Internships – NYTimes.com.

As a child, who didn’t understand what having a job was about, I thought maybe people had to pay employers in order to have a job. My parents laughed at me.

Now it appears parents are paying companies, not to find unpaid internships for their children — that’s easy, apparently — but to get them in. In other words: payola. In other words, the rich get richer. In other words, it’s who you know or how much you’re willing to pay, which is determined by your amount of wealth. Just another small example of class warfare.

So, within a week I’ve seen a story where if you’re in debt, you become ineligible for jobs and you have to pay in order to get a job.

The advice used to be: We’re all whores, so you might as well be a high-priced whore. Now, apparently, we have to pay in order to receive the priviledge of whoring ourselves.

Hmmm, when will this all come to a head?

According to a New York Times article (“Another Hurdle for the Jobless“, NYT, 08/06/09), companies are now using credit checks to screen out applicants for jobs as mundane as data entry and secretarial/clerical positions. Common sense says, how else will can you attempt to get out of debt, unless you can find a job?

According to the article, some states have passed bills restricting employers to only perform credit checks if they directly pertain to the job. Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed a similar bill that came before him. Ironic, considering that his state is carrying such a huge debt load.

No human, and definitely no Human resources “professional”, have the right or acumen to judge the ability of a potential employee based on a credit check or other invasions into privacy. In my personal eaves-dropping experience I once overheard one of these “professionals” scoffing at the idea of hiring someone because “he was fired for trying to start a union!”

Without comment the article ends with statement that potential employees must “agree” to the credit check. Obviously, if one were to not “agree” to it, one would find that they are not considered for the position.

This is not something (like so many things) that we can allow companies to decide on their own. They are incapable of making humane decisions. This is something that must be regulated by the government.