Category: Labor

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Charlie Kirk, conservative commentator, is suggesting cuts in Social Security because those no good seniors are just playing golf and watching television. They should be doing something constructive like helping people.

WTF. I thought that the whole underlying idea of the conservative movement was freedom. Freedom to do what ever the Hell you wanted to do, whenever the Hell you wanted to do it. Now Kirk wants me to give up my retirement fun in order to help people. Help people, no less, what kind of conservative is he. Oh, yes, a cheap one because he both proposes cutting social security payments and then wants these very same seniors to volunteer at schools and hospitals. That’s right less money and more work. What an asshole.

And, how exactly is that going to happen? If I get less money, I won’t have enough to retire comfortably and all of my free time will have to go to my part-time shift as a Wall Mart greeter. Of course, this is just another advantage to proposal. More cheap labor.

More grating and more dangerous is this frequent misconception that conservatives love to throw around about Social Security. They make it sound like a government handout. It isn’t. It is a government sponsored retirement plan. People pay into it until they retire, then they receive a monthly payment from the government. It is owed to you because you worked for it. You never should feel bad about taking this money. You deserve it.

So, in case Kirk has misunderstood me. Fuck you Charlie Kirk. You can pry my social security check from my cold dead hands.

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Three 16 year old boys died in the past 5 weeks while working with big machinery.

One company explained that “the child ‘should not have been hired’ and that his age and identity were misrepresented on his hiring paperwork with an outside staffing company.” You don’t say. How innocent the company is acting? We were lied to and this poor unfortunate 16 year shouldn’t have been hired, we wouldn’t have hired him if only we had known his correct age.

For some reason I don’t believe it. Every employee has to provide proper documentation in order to work. The company has a responsibility to examine this documentation for validity. This is standard practice in place for some years. I used to do it in the 1980’s. HR departments should have this down. But OK, mistakes happen, perhaps a 16 year old was able to get a hold of a convincing fake document but a quick glance at the prospective employee might have set off some alarms. Somehow these boys with peach fuzz as beards were able to pass themselves off as older. Even if you accept that they are telling the truth, there is a frightening level of incompetence within the management of the company.

But I think this more than just an accident. One of the more illuminating giveaways that this is something more nefarious, is that it happened 3 teenagers at different companies and in different parts of the company met the same fate. This also might explain why Republican governors and legislatures, those champions of the working class, are loosening child labor laws. Companies are complaining that they are having trouble filling their open positions. Something must be done, so teenage labor is the solution to their problem.

Unfortunately, teenagers are banned from hazardous labor. No problem. These companies did a risk assessment about hiring underage employees. They figured out how much potential fines would be and then compared this to the price of raising wages and decided that paying the fines was the better deal. Higher wages are a sure thing while fines need only be paid if they get caught. Now that is a risk worth taking. They would probably have gotten away with it if nothing had gone wrong. This suggests that fines are too low. Fines should discourage companies from breaking the law, not be a factor in whether they are going to break the law or not.

But, saying that they can’t attract workers is misleading. These companies are having problems filling positions at the wage they want to pay. The wage isn’t enough to attract adults to perform an obviously hazardous job. When labor is scarce and the job is hazardous, the company needs to pay wages that attract the best workers. It is basic capitalism. They can’t just expect workers to risk life and limb for nothing. But, of course, these companies do.

What I find particularly irksome here is that these so called Capitalists only like Capitalism when it is to their advantage. When it isn’t, they moan to government for help — make the laws easier so we can hire people who will take the jobs at the rate we want to pay. Let in qualified immigrants who will take the lower wage. Hire teenagers who will take the lower wage. Boo hoo. Whatever they are, they aren’t good Capitalists.

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While talking with friends the other day, I was reminded of the latest trend in corporate malfeasance. Corporations are moving to this new idea where any day is vacation day as long as you are caught up with your work. You are free to take any day off you want. It is all up to you. We will no longer be tracking vacation days because you are free to take any day off. The company doesn’t have to track, you don’t have to track. All you have to do is make sure your work is caught up. Isn’t this great?

As a matter of fact, it is not great. It is a horrible idea designed to screw employees out of paid time off. There are two mitigating factors to consider here. The first is corporations were having trouble with balancing their books at the end of the year because employees were carrying over paid time into the next year. This meant that the unused time which was budgeted for a specific year wasn’t being used in the that year. This played havoc with the bean counters. They want to balance the books at the end year. In the past, this usually resulted in a message from HR telling you to use your time off in the appropriate year. We want you to use your time off that is why we generously provided you with time off. Don’t you understand how much we care about you and your work/life balance? With this new policy, the company released from their responsibility to track time off, and more importantly their responsibility to pay for unused time, just shrugs their shoulders indifferently. It isn’t their problem any more.

Then the companies claim that they are no longer keeping track. Yeah. I can take off every day as long as I keep my work up-to-date. Don’t believe that for one minute. If you are taking too much time off — your boss will be aware. She will then say to herself either I need to give this person more work or why don’t I can cut this sucker’s job and move her tasks over to somebody else. The bottom line is someone will be aware if you are taking too much time.

On the other hand, they will be conveniently unaware of your time off if you are overloaded with work and don’t feel you can take the time off. Then they are definitely not tracking. Oh you haven’t had a day off in a year, sorry, we aren’t tracking, that’s up to you now. In the past, this was time you were owed. You may not have been able to take the time off when you should have but, at least, you got paid for your time when you left the company. No more. So they are selectively tracking or not tracking which ever is convenient for them. The point is you lose either way.

Finally, what galls me the most is the happy HR introduction of changes like these. HR makes it sound like the company has this wonderful idea that is going to make you so very happy. Nobody believes it. Most people know that when a company makes changes like this, it is acting in its own self-interest. I would rather have blunt honesty over saccharine lies.