Barbara's Guest Commentators

The Corporate Ghetto

By Jerold Burrell

I found it incredible how unethical the working environment can be in a corporate setting. My experience has taught me that talent and skill may get me in the door, but at the end of the day what matters is how good you make the boss feel.

After many years of working for smaller companies, I finally took a chance and went to work for Arthur Andersen where I witnessed unfair practices such as sexual harassment and age discrimination toward many coworkers. After Arthur Andersen's demise another big four accounting firm acquired our office. The environment went from bad to worse. In one case, one of the directors of our office promoted an unqualified employee into a management position while many with higher skills and seniority were overlooked. When it became obvious that they were sleeping together complaints were made to upper management. Their solution was to promote the director. The director then promoted his mistress into his old position. She became pregnant and would not disclose the name of the daddy to anyone. After the ethics department "investigated," the case was quickly closed.

The company has a yearly employee satisfaction survey to let the upper management know how things are going. These scores came back the worst ever for our facility. Talking to another manager in a different department, I found out the local management gets bonuses based on good employee satisfaction scores. To get good scores the local management scoped out and targeted employees who they thought might show up as dissatisfied on the survey. They dared not terminate the employees because that would have opened the door to lawsuits. Instead they pressured them to resign through the employee performance review process.

Management expectations and goals are usually included in any review process. But in my department, goals were written ambiguously because the management was so bad at scheduling traceable workflow to an individual employee. At the end of the review, management can state whatever they want. They control the whole process. More than half of my department resigned as a result of this review process.

Where's Human Resource in all of this? We are told that HR is like a mediator to make sure that the employee is treated fairly. HR's real purpose is to watch the backs of upper management to make sure no blood is left at the scene of the crime.

So what happens when an employee is targeted? Everyone goes into street mode, and it becomes a corporate ghetto. Management manipulates the weakest players and empowers them to do the dirty spying on their fellow coworkers. Office gangs are formed with some looking out for each other and others becoming loners. Those with a conscience usually want to help but back off for fear of being the next target. Management can no longer look the once valued employee in the eye. Verbal communication is replaced with emails and instant messages. Younger employees usually quit right away, but the older employees facing age discrimination usually bear it for years. One of this company's goals was to be the "employer of choice". Well, I had enough and chose to move back to a small company with a better position.

How can they do these things and not risk lawsuits? It's my opinion that more time is spent preparing for that possibility than doing a good job of managing in the first place. I have to give it to them, that’s the one thing they do very well.

I got out, but I know others who are still in this corporate ghetto and are now being targeted. It is a real-life soap opera, with too much drama and not enough work getting done. The top leadership gets the blame for this because they are constantly asking the wrong people the wrong questions. They might start with the right question like "Who's your daddy?"

What It Feels Like To Be Poor

by Holly Redmond

After a couple months of having hardly any food for the last week of the month, I learned to budget. I can stretch two hundred and seventeen dollars out over a month for a family of three. My baby doesn’t eat solids, yet -- he’s exclusively breast fed, at six months, but when he does, I’ll likely go to Salvation Army or a garage sale and pick up a food processor, to make all of his food. Every night, one of us throws a load of cloth diapers -- prefolds -- into the washer on cold with about a tablespoon of dish soap. We own our home, a pre 1950's fixer upper and our payments are roughly four hundred dollars a month. For a while, there, our utilities were anywhere from seventy five to one hundred fifty a month. We have window units, but we hardly ever run them. Ceiling fans and open windows don’t do a particularly great job of cooling a home, but, with energy prices the way they are, it’s the only way to go. At night, if it gets too hot, we’ll run the unit in the bedroom.

I learned to budget our food money so effectively from being on food stamps. When you only get a certain amount, you learn quickly. Two adults can scrape and survive on water and ramen, but a seven year old cannot. Being a breast feeding mother, my caloric intake should be a certain level. It’s not, but I do all right.

I have argued with myself over how I wanted to write this. “Write about what it feels like to be poor, but keep it short,” I keep chanting in my head. It’s a lot easier said than done, really. How do I explain to people who are convinced that if you only manage your money properly and use common sense, you’ll be all right? We both use more than a little common sense -- we have to, or we wouldn’t survive -- let alone, “be all right.” It hasn’t been “all right” since a promotion that was supposed to come didn’t; it hasn’t been “all right” since I fell while pregnant and got put on bed rest -- no, it hasn’t been “all right” in quite some time. When your income is a little over a thousand dollars and your essential bills add up to almost two thousand -- there’s not much ‘money management’ wiggle room. Common sense will tell you to “Get a better job!”

What if you don’t qualify for a better job? Those commercials about online schools make it seem like a dream come true -- just train at home while your kids play! If you’ve ever tried it, you know that’s a fat load of crap. My fiancé is 30 hours away from his teaching degree. His job is the big source of income, and he works from eight a.m. till five p.m. He needs classroom time, and he can’t get it. I dropped out of school in seventh grade. Vocational Rehabilitation is willing to send me to school, however, I need to work to pay the bills.

How does it feel to be poor? Be excited about doing something you never thought you could -- returning to school after almost thirteen years of not seeing a classroom, get enrolled, and all set -- then, find out you need to go flip burgers instead.

Hold your two week old baby and try to beg a utility technician not to shut you off in the middle of winter. Sure, it’s going to be above freezing this couple of days, but this is Missouri! Take cold showers because you cannot afford to pay the gas bill.

Lay awake at night and wonder if this will ever change, because you made the steps to change it, only to get kicked back down.

Listen to some jerk say that you’re poor because you are ‘lazy’ after you stayed up all night with a sick kid, spent the day caring for an infant, and then went in and worked a shift at a fast food place being told what to do by someone seven years younger than you -- and then, watch your fiancé collapse on the bed from watching your kids while you were at work, on top of a physically demanding job. Try not to punch that guy who called you ‘lazy’ in the face, because even if you are only making minimum wage, that money is needed.

Don’t get me started on idiots who tell me I “Should make him get a better job” or “You should have hooked up with someone with more money”. Apparently, when you aren’t poor, you can be shallow. I’m not so sure the trade off is worth it, to be honest.

Then again, one more smart remark from my manager, who happens to be nine years younger than me, and I just might decide that depth is beneath me.

That’s what it feels like.

Are There Any Good Jobs Left?

I asked my friend William Holland to write us something about his highly insightfull new book, Are There Any Good Jobs Left? Here it is, and I urge you to read the whole thing
-- Barbara

Are There Any Good Jobs Left?
Career Management in
the Age of the Disposable Worker

William Holland

I wrote Are There any Good Jobs Left? after speaking directly with will over 1,000 people who were looking for work or doing career planning. I also had access to the experiences of many thousands of others through my colleagues and other career management professionals throughout the world. I am convinced that we are in the midst of a significant employment paradigm shift with global implications. While it is most apparent in the United States, its tentacles will continue to expand throughout the industrialized world.

The beta test for this comes from you, the reader. I would predict that well over 90 percent of you have either lost your job or know of someone who has. Another test is in the conversations we have with strangers we meet. When these conversations gets around to what either of you do for a living, it is fairly common for people to acknowledge, “Right now I am between jobs.” It is surprising that so many people share this experience. That it is now the subject of polite conversation is absolutely startling.

At one time in America, terminating the employment of a white collar worker was an act of last resort. Today, it has morphed into being a socially acceptable way of controlling costs. Are There Any Good Jobs Left? is a book about why this has happened and what individuals can do to make the transition from victimization to empowerment. It is based on the belief that once someone understands what is happening, they are better prepared to deal with it. It is an understanding that helps you separate your interest as an employee from that of the organization for which you work. The messages are applicable for receptionists and CEOs; for those in the middle of their career or just starting out; and, for those currently between jobs.

Globalization is the driving force behind much of the instability in today’s job market. I leave it to others to decide whether that is good or bad. Instead, the focus is on how individuals can survive and prosper by adjusting both what they are looking for as well as how they go about looking. In reality, the good jobs we knew (the ones with adequate health care coverage, company paid pensions and security of employment) are giving way to a new day. Some of people I spoke with were into their third and fourth downsizings -- yet each time being surprised that their new company behaved much like the one they left. Worse yet, many began to blame themselves. Self-blame in the context of global forces we cannot control has a corrosive effect on the soul. The first objective in this struggle is survival. After that, it is prosperity. Are There Any Good Jobs Left? was written to help those things happen.

Feel free to contact me at www.rwilliamhollandconsulting.com

Death by 230 Cuts: Minimum Wage Bill Moves on to the U.S. Senate, Tipped Workers Get Knifed in the Back

By Kris Jacobs
(Kris is Executive Director of JOBS NOW Coalition in St. Paul MN.)

This past weekend, 230 members of Congress voted to load up a popular bill to raise the minimum wage with tax giveaways so they can say they voted for it when they have to face voters this fall.  What’s more, they sweetened the deal for employers by kicking open the door to a federal pre-emption of state wage laws.

In an unprecedented move, the House eliminated the principle that tipped employees ought to earn the minimum wage like everybody else, which is still the law in a few states, ours being one of them. The bill mandates a 100% tip penalty for all seven states that still say servers are worth the minimum wage. That’s no paycheck at all, folks.

By overriding state laws in Alaska, California, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington, a precedent is created for the federal government to pre-empt any and all minimum wages higher than its own minimum.

JOBS NOW Coalition has long been concerned about the so-called Minimum Wage Repeal Acts, which are pushed by right-wing legislative modeling groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). These groups push model legislation designed to pre-empt local governments from enacting their own “living wage” laws. At the same time, they also believe that states have no authority to require a higher minimum wage than the federal minimum.

Unfortunately, a favorable vote for this bill is unacceptable.

Vote No, Senators. (Or you’ll never eat lunch in this town again!)

No Can Do

By Kimberly Hughes. Kimberly is a columnist with the Menomonee Falls News in Wisconsin.

I've lost my can-do attitude. What was second nature to me for years--confidence, enthusiasm, and energy--has sadly dissolved and in its place is a lonely woman I scarcely recognize. It's easy to remember when the dissipation began; easier still to recall the event that scattered its remains. For the sake of family and friends, however, my ignominious career search must continue.

When the retail business I managed closed in Fall 2005, the loss I felt was tempered by a naïve optimism that I'd quickly secure another position. Who wouldn't want a well-educated, hard-working individual on their staff? With solid experience behind me and a bright future ahead, I eagerly updated my resume, started networking, developed my business card, searched job sites, applied on-line, read the weekly want ads, and registered with numerous employment agencies.

Two weeks into transition, my good spirits were bubbling when I became a weekly columnist for our local paper. (The pay is merely a stipend, but the experience is great.) In quick succession, I interviewed with a well-respected, independent financial planning firm. While flattered that a company of their caliber was interested in me, something told me it might not be a good fit, so I chose to discontinue the interview process. Little did I know that, over the course of the next seven months, that would be the closest I'd come to a job offer. It would be the last time I'd feel worthy enough to reenter the work force.

Since then, I have experienced unrelenting rejection, many times from people who are far less skilled and educated than myself. Countless resume submissions remain unacknowledged; carefully-crafted cover letters have been ignored; insouciant young recruiters treat me like an intruder; job fairs are demoralizing. Furthermore, it has become nigh impossible to fit myself into most postings. The reason? The illogical intertwining of skills sought in candidates.

For instance, the qualification an employer deemed most important in its new gift shop manager was two years' worth of accounting. While an ability to work with numbers is important, unless that manager has the expertise to bring in the right product, an artistic sense to create its displays, the finesse to sell it, and a talent to hire the right people, there will be no accounting to do.

My dark humor these days is indulged in reading ads that demand a high-level skill set found in CEOs, yet equally require just a high-school education and a driver's license. As a writer, I took special delight in a nursing home posting for a communications assistant with good proofreading skills. Embarrassingly enough, the ad had two words spelled incorrectly--one of which was "communicatoins."

With my financial resources dwindling, an uneasy fear building, and a daily job search that's grinding, I was ever so thankful for the part-time position I was offered by a major retailer. I was going to sell home appliances. Assured by my new manager that two months' training would be provided, I was eager to become part of the team. Excited, as well, to once again interact with customers.

To me, proper training means time spent on the floor shadowing seasoned colleagues, as well as the quiet study of appropriate materials. Experience has taught me that I can't sell something I know nothing about. Never did I expect that the well-known merchandiser whose name I wore around my neck would think otherwise.

After approximately 16 hours of computer training, none of it related to home appliances, I was placed front and center. Expressing concern that I couldn't field queries because I didn't have answers, I was told to simply show confidence. Wanting desperately to fit in and succeed, I was shunned because of the many questions I asked. Dismissing my doubts, supervisors almost boasted about what they didn't know in the way of appliances. After I remarked that I had little experience with their point-of-sale register, one supervisor made the patronizing remark that his six-year old could learn how to operate it. Unbelievably, within the week, I found myself shouldering a 6-hour shift alone.

Like Boo Radley suddenly thrust into the light, I just couldn't cope. My thirty-something male managers are glad I'm gone. I, too, am relieved. My dignity can take a shaking, but not my ethics.

Finding comfort in Psalm 23, I hope to be free one day of the claustrophobic depression that surrounds me. I want desperately to awake one morning with a renewed sense of purpose and an eagerness to be about my employer's business. For loved ones alone, I just want a job. Who knows, perhaps my prayer's been heard. In the course of writing this piece, I've been called for an interview. Please let this be the one.

Out-sourcing for Fun (Not Profit)

Tom Friedman and other globalization cheerleaders, are you listening? Here’s a gem of a story from veteran software writer John Welch, who works for a place he calls The Company (not to be confused with “Company,” as in the title of the Max Barry novel I wrote about a couple of weeks ago.) John calls his story “The First Time I Said ‘Tata’.”

The first time I said “Tata” I also asked, “Why and how much?”

The answers I heard were:
(a) “Change is good”, and
(b) “About twice as much as you’d think”.

Julian, from the Tech Center, had called about Version 2 of the system he and Rich had developed for Winthrop Paper Products.

Version 1 was a good system. It let all the Winthrop sales reps communicate their prospects and closes up to corporate headquarters in Connecticut. It also let the corporate big guys communicate down to the field sales reps what the reps should say next week and every next week . . . as the company line changed with the seasons and the weather and the cold fronts and thunder-storms that, in their business, originate somewhere between Wall and Broad Streets, Manhattan, and the Harvard Business School. But, then, changeable weather is another story...

Julian’s Version 1 worked pretty smoothly for Winthrop and for The Company, where we both worked. But we had a new VP of Engineering, Jerry, a guy straight from a soon-to-be-bankrupt technology firm where he had learned the benefits of treating software development as a form of manufacturing.

“We need rigor,” Jerry said, adding, “We need clear out the legacy of working so closely with the customer. It’s too expensive to go to them. We need to centralize.” His clincher: “Did Microsoft get rich by listening to everybody who bought a copy of Word?” We were exhorted to “embrace change.”

A few days later I learned from Julian that an overseas company called Tata was being hired to write the system.

“Ta-ta?” I asked. “Is that a joke? Like, ‘Say bye-bye to your customers and their business?’ Why rebuild something that already works?”

“I’m learning to embrace change”, Julian said.

I was still puzzled. “How much will it cost?” I asked. “Oh, and has Winthrop agreed to the price?”

Julian added, “Jerry says it’s cheaper to build off-shore”.

“How much cheaper?”

“Depends on how you count”, Julian answered.

“You mean like, I count hex and you count decimal?”

“No”, said Julian, and he explained. We could do the work in eight months at $720 a day, for a total of about $129,500.

‘So how much cheaper is Tata,” I asked, “ and how much faster?”

“Tata”, he replied, “has proposed one Tata project manager working in the US start to finish at $720 a day to The Company”. I raised an eyebrow, but I’d learned not to be shocked too quickly. Usually, management plans get more shocking as you hear more. “Then three developers in India at $300 a day for three months to train on the system, plus another three months to build it. Plus three QA testers in India at $200 a day for three months, and a project manager there to watch their guys, at $640 a day.” I was becoming amazed. “Oh, and I’m assigned fulltime here -- all nine months -- to manage their project manager.” Finally, I was shocked.

“So it’s not cheaper, from one point of view”.

If Tata did the project, they would use 1200 applied days and charge $252,000, which would cost the customer $316,800.

How is $316,800 less than $129,500? “Easy,” Julian explained. “It depends on how you’re being measured”. That governs your point of view. Tata would use 1200 billable days, or $210 per person per day.

Now I understood. Jerry-the-new-VP was thinking in “cost-per-head”. The Tata team would cost The Company, and Winthrop, about $210 per head per day. Our people would cost Winthrop $720 per head per day.

Therefore, concluded The Company, and concluded Jerry, our developers were more than twice as expensive as the Tata crew. Working up from that, he argued that the Company had more than twice the profit margin when they used Tata.

Why didn’t the total cost of Tata matter to anyone? They didn’t matter to Jerry because they were not on his budget. They might have shown up under someone else’s budget, buried among paper clips, cables, pencils, electric bills, and other overall “costs of doing business”, but not Jerry’s budget. And Jerry was making the decisions.

Or some of them.

• Winthrop refused to pay $316,800 to replace a working system. Jerry-the-VP wheedled and blustered, and eventually persuaded them to agree to pay $200,000 for a “modernization”. He replaced Tata with “onshore” consultants, who, like Tata, would not count against his budget.
• By the end of the project year, the consultants asked for more money because they hadn’t finished.
• Winthrop refused to pay, and eventually rebuilt the system themselves using a Microsoft e-mail server called Outlook.
• Jerry left for a dot-com startup in 1996, saying, “In the new economy, it’s not about making a profit”. He vanished from our sight when his dot-com went bankrupt.
• Tata won other contracts using their same development model. In 2005, Tom Friedman astonished the senior business world and amused the information technology world by writing a book that praised Tata. I’ve seen the future, and it works, as someone else once said. For someone, anyway.

One Woman's Story

By Kate Diamond

I am one individual, but my name could, apparently, be Legion. I hope that my “white collar outcast” peers will take some hope and useful tactics from my experience. And I hope that we can cause change so that, although the global economy is in fact shifting in ways that are painful to us now, we insist upon truly effective programs for reinventing our local economies – and our roles as business leaders within the emerging economy.

We cannot go back. We can shape the road forward.

As you consider the road I have traveled and how similar to yours it is, consider also which dissimilarities can give you new ideas. In 2000 my rise to a position of responsibility (and commensurate reward) in corporate America came to an abrupt end. Fortunately, I foresaw that possibility. I had already begun working my rolodex for freelance work when the office doors closed and the paycheck bounced. The contract work I found did not, however, fully fill the financial gap, nor lead directly to a full-time job.

What it did do was afford me the flexibility of work hours to network – touted as the panacea of job searching. Yet I used job boards, too – not to post my resume, but to find job postings that seemed like good fits. Still, for four years all I got were exploitative responses from head-hunters without real jobs to offer.

Children, can we spell “cynical”? How about “mad-as-hell”?

I did eventually find a life-coach (not career coach) who was a clinical psychologist and industrial psychologist, just the combination needed to explore exactly who I had become at this crossroad of my life. What responsibilities did I want? What passion was worth which sacrifice?

The biggest lesson I learned was targeted networking, based on the answers to those questions.

When I read Bait and Switch, I wondered how anyone could think that networking among the jobless might be productive. Then, I realized that job seekers are so disoriented, and perhaps have always been so narrowly focused on their jobs, that they remained naïve about the physics of supply and demand in the business world. Most of them will follow any advice given by someone who seems to care. When you feel like a pariah, you are vulnerable to anyone offering acceptance and deliverance.

In truth, though, the only effective job-search networking is among the employed and business owners. The most effective networking I did, beyond still-employed colleagues, was by starting my own “business communications consulting” business and joining three local chambers of commerce. I applied the principle, “Dig where the gold is.”

But did one of those network-found clients hire me full-time? Ironically, no.

I got my current job by replying to a posting by a head-hunter on a “waste-of-time, faceless meat-market” job board. How could that have found me a job perfectly matched to both my spirit and my skills?

Here's how. I spent some time with that life coach exploring exactly what "follow your bliss" meant for me at that point in my life, and relentlessly pursued types of work that would allow me to use those skills that I most enjoyed. You may have find creative ways to use your own most bliss-giving gifts while doing some "just work" jobs, as I did, to barely make your mortgage payments, while feeling humiliated for relying partly on support from relatives.

When I taught "Speech 101" (for outrageously low wages) to adults who were paying outrageously high tuition at a for-profit "career" college, I felt my frustration at the shabby facilities and the dubious quality of education for which the students were paying top dollar – but I also felt my bliss when I mentored those hard-working, ambitious people in effective speaking for pragmatic purposes like interviewing, requesting a promotion or a raise, or presenting an innovative idea. It is not easy to maintain a clear vision of your inner truth today and your goals for tomorrow, when today's external circumstances contradict that inner vision. Find a way to do it anyway.

Shine your own light ahead of you, and follow that. And look closely at the lay of the land. Keep in mind that macro-economic and macro-societal forces are in effect, and we are swimming in those tides. We have to take each stroke so that we don’t drown, so that we come to a safe shore upon which we can build the lives we want.

We—the educated, competent and much-abused job-seekers of the Baby Boom generation—must become activists again. We are the single largest economic power and voting voice that this nation has ever produced. We changed our society in the 1960’s, and now we have to do it again.

This country is allowing its corporations to waste our greatest intellectual capital in the prime of our productive years. What are we going to do about that? Can our government provide fast-track business start-up coaching and funding so we can contribute values to the economy of the 2000’s as radical as rock’n’roll was to the music of the 1950’s? Invent new products and services that cannot be outsourced to the countries that now make our tee shirts and electronics?

Do you know the contact information for all your government representatives? Well, do something with that! Sound off! Remember Joe Hill? Remember Norma Rae Webster? Remember Columbia and Kent State? Organize! Vote! The job-market problems we face transcend political party lines. If my name is Legion, all our names are Legion. And you know what legions do – march!

Unemployment - the horror movie

By Bertram Doyle

I am a freelance writer and avid film buff, who toils variously in the belly of the Federal beast in Your Nation’s Capital. After bursting into the world of Federal regulation and telecommunications as a paralegal and researcher during the Go Go Eighties, I job-hopped from law firms to government contractors and back for years. In retrospect, perhaps I was unique: freakishly unorthodox but genuinely hard working, I insisted on leadership, but relished team efforts and shared rewards. I could adapt quickly to different situations and if properly motivated, could represent my employer’s interests from boardroom to mail room with enthusiasm, humor, evenhandedness and dare I say it, commitment.

Alas, to quote Lou Reed, “those were different times…” The Pre-Internet Telecom Boom spawned by the development of cellular telephone service, advances in cable technology and the divestiture of AT&T created a ‘Gold Rush’ mentality – competition was wide open, possibility was everywhere and the best talents in law, engineering, design and marketing were reshaping the landscape of telecommunications forever.

Then one day, while going about my regulatory paper chase through the halls of the Federal Communications Commission, a phrase overheard in conversation chilled me to the bone. It was “the California Syndrome” – referring to workers who felt empowered to demand more. And in California (so the story went) when these workers didn’t get more…they’d quit on the spot, and go surfing.

After all, MCI was hiring. And GTE. And the Baby Bells. A receptionist picked up a $3,000 raise for walking across the street and applying at a different company. Paralegals were getting bonuses for recruiting paralegals from other firms. Copy techs were getting ten hours of ‘time an’a half’ every weekend at the Xerox shop.

From the moment I heard that fateful phrase, I had a feeling it wouldn’t last. It couldn’t last. Something had to give.

Within the next decade, something did. The telecom market collapsed, merged, mutated. Independent major market competition – gone. WorldCom and Global Crossing and the RBOC’s, gone. Boom and bust. And in the end, thousands were unemployed, myself among them.

And having seen it all before, I’ve got that feeling again now. But this time, it’s the entire economy. A bit of time and research on the Internet indicates that I’m not alone in this ‘feeling’. Unseen forces. Indecipherable patterns. Nameless dread.

It’s like a horror movie.

Okay, fine. It sounds crazy. But that’s the point. What’s happening to our economy is crazy. Scores of writings and reports show that the ratio of job creation to job loss is skewed to the ‘bottom’, that is, good jobs (minimum $16.00 per hour, full-time, with medical benefits and retirement) are being replaced with bad jobs (pick one: fry cook, barista, cashier). Firing in San Diego, hiring in Bangalore. The deficit is ballooning into the trillions, pension funds are looted, and unsustainable growth and rapacious capitalism are combining to throttle our future in the cradle.

And you, dear reader, are unemployed. Or underemployed. Or ‘anxious employed’, a term that seeks to brand the anxiety and trepidation of workers who’ve survived the last round of job cuts.

And like me, you’ve seen this horror movie before, too. We all have has. But this time, you’re not in the audience. This time, you’re on the other side of the movie screen.

So, what does the Bates Motel have in common with the ‘white-collar’ unemployed? What can we learn about economic ‘survivability’ from the terrorized teen counselors at Camp Crystal Lake? Is ‘Count Dracula’ an embellished example of an exploitative oligarch whose Machiavellian despotism is mirrored in modern international business practices?

The answers are: lots, plenty and yes. And here’s why.

Lesson #1: See The Circumstances

Like Marion Crane in Hitchcock’s Psycho, the ‘white-collar’ unemployed simply aren’t paying attention. She’s an embezzler on the run, and look were she goes to ground; the Bates Motel. Big creepy house on the hill, dark except for a single light and beneath it, there by the highway, bungalows full of dead, stuffed animals. And of course, Norman Bates, stuttering and sweating as she signs the registry, eyes bulging at her décolletage. She must know this can’t be good…

Her response to the alarms going off in her head? She stashes the money she stole.

And we all know how that worked out for her.

Sometimes, I see in the on-going loss of good jobs, of jobs for college-educated, achievement-oriented, white-collar workers, the same type of denial. All the alarms are going off, all the lights are flashing – and we do nothing. We don’t even talk about it.

Call it what you want. A canary in the coalmine. Writing on the wall. Bellweather. There has been a paradigm shift in the way workers are regarded in this country, and while this country has produced record numbers of millionaires and billionaires, the jobs and productivity that fueled this wealth are vanishing. But nobody talks about it. When the State of California recorded 360,138 initial unemployment claims filed in 2005 (US Dept of Labor; Mass Layoff Statistics), nobody talked about it. When the latest announcement from Ford or Dell or Motorola is more jobs lost - 4,000 by next year, 10,000 by 2010, nobody talks about it. Nobody, but the ‘work-at-home’ shills or the occasional pro-labor newscaster.

We, the unemployed, don’t talk about it. It’s our secret shame, our black dog…

But when your neighbor loses his job, poverty is stalking your street. And all the ‘spin’ and re-training in the world won’t keep it from your front door. Economically, we are all connected.

Consider this. When have you ever seen the headline “WORKERS CALLED BACK TO OFFICE”? Within the last few weeks, the Dow Jones has hit 11,000 and Exxon has reported the highest profits in the history of corporate America. Defense contractors are swimming in fat contracts and no-bids. Where are the massive HIRINGS? Today’s workers not only need to unite, they need to get real and ask the right questions. Or we can ignore the creepy guy at the register, the big spooky house on the hill, and take a nice, hot shower…

Lesson #2: Stay Together

And now, we hire ourselves to Crystal Lake, scene of the interminable Friday the 13th franchise, where once more, a camp counselor has gone missing. The first foolish suggestion? We’ll all split up and search.

Foolish because we all know, though our villain Jason Voorhees is supernaturally endowed with cunning, strength and (apparently) several lives, he seldom attacks a group. He’s a stalker; he waits to get each victim alone (or, in the case of the comely cheerleader and dim-witted jock, alone together) and then wreaks his bloody mayhem. You’d think that today’s teens would realize that there’s safety in numbers. They could all help each other survive! What a revolutionary concept. Pooling resources. Mutual aid. A dozen sets of hands working with a single purpose.

But we know this won’t happen. Not in this movie. And while we have seen how people united in effort and purpose have accomplished miracles from Indonesia to Louisiana, we know that in this movie, it’s every man for himself...

So it is with the unemployed. Out-sourced, laid-off, down-sized ‘white-collar’ workers are isolated at a time when they need support systems most; not only are they seeking to replace their lost livelihood, but they are attempting to repair the damage to self-esteem and self-concept, to position and prestige. It’s not by chance that the most asked question in many social circles is “What do you do?” For some of us, our job defines us as much as anything in our lives. It is an anchor, and when that anchor is gone, we are at the mercy of the storm.

We must stay together. For strength. For comfort. For opportunity and self-determination. Stay together. We have to make it through the night.

Lesson #3: It’s Never Over

And finally, to the wolf-haunted hills of Transylvania we go, where the legend of a barbaric, bloodthirsty nobleman holds sway. Like Dracula returning from the dead, certain special business interests simply won’t quit. Lay-offs are among their first strategies to increase profits. As government support systems such as Welfare, unemployment insurance and Medicaid are slowly starved so that tax breaks for the wealthiest 10% can become permanent, the players in this particular feature must abide by this simple rule: It’s never over. The layoffs will continue, because we’re working smarter. The lay-offs will continue, because the easiest way to raise profits (short of innovation or increased market share) is to cut costs. The lay-offs will continue, because in some manufacturing nations, slave labor is permitted, and you can’t compete with ZERO wage costs.

One final thing the unemployed can learn from horror movies. The most grisly fare is often leavened with humor. We have to remember to laugh. Certainly, times are tough, particularly for those of us with car notes and house payments and family of all ages and needs to care for. It’s difficult to find any humor in a mean, stressful situation that seems to have no sure outcome.

I know firsthand; I’ve been there. And that was pretty much the point of this excursion into the horror movie genre: A bit of solidarity, for the readers out there taking a break from updating that resume for the twentieth time. A bit of encouragement, because I know when you get that e-mail telling you you’ve been passed over for a job, it’s the loneliest feeling in the world. And finally, a bit of humor, because sometimes, laughter CAN be the best medicine: it’s good for what ails you, even the big, bad Boogieman of unemployment.

Working Class Evangelicalism

By Rev. Darren Cushman Wood, who is the senior minister at Speedway United Methodist in Indianapolis and the author of Blue Collar Jesus: How Christianity Supports Workers Rights.

About fifteen years ago I met Woody at a black lung association meeting. Woody (Woodrow, as in the President) Wilson was a retired coal miner and Baptist preacher who had spent as many decades underground as he had behind the pulpit. Even though he did not have black lung, his calling was to be an advocate for these disabled miners. As he put it, being a member of the union was an expression of the Golden Rule because he wanted his fellow miners and their families to be treated with the same dignity and fairness that he wanted for himself.

Woody was undoubtedly evangelical—if not fundamentalist—in his theology. But he was a far cry from the professional evangelical leaders who are the driving force behind the right wing ideology that is controlling America today. The Pat Robertsons and James Dobsons of the world assume that there is an inevitable connection between evangelicalism and capitalism. They see no contradiction between the Bible and the global exploitation of the environment and workers at the hands of multinational corporations. In Terry Gilliam’s film Brazil, a Salvation Army-like band marches through the street at Christmas time holding a banner which reads, “Consumers for Christ” with a dollar sign on the cross. It would be humorous if it weren’t so deadly. Over the past several years Pat Robertson has actively supported African dictators for personal gain.

Jesus called these kinds of religious leaders hypocrites because they “have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith (Matthew 23:23).” A hypocrite is not the same as a cynic. The cynic knows the truth but doesn’t do it. The hypocrite is a true believer who has a huge blind spot and cannot see the devastating inconsistencies in his or her beliefs. On that score, Cheney may be a cynic but Bush is a hypocrite. He’s a true believer is the War on Terrorism and the virtues of the free market.

It is the evangelicalism of people like Woody that exposes the blind guides of the Religious Right. There is another evangelicalism in America—a working class evangelicalism—that may be conservative on moral issues but is progressive on economic issues. There has always been a progressive evangelicalism that opposed slavery, advocated for women’s rights, and supported justice for workers. If evangelicalism is the proclamation of the good news of Jesus, who died at the hands of the political and economic oppressors of his day, then true evangelicalism will be a voice of justice for workers today.

The workers at Peabody Energy need to hear this voice. As the largest private sector coal company in the world, Peabody posted $3.4 billion in revenues for the first 9 months of 2005—a 30 percent increase over the previous year. They had a net income of $260.5 million for the first 9 months of 2005, which is up from $107.5 million for the same period in 2004 – an increase of 142 percent. As a reward, their out-going CEO Irl Engelhardt made over $7 million in 2004 – 90 percent increase from his compensation in 2003.

Yet, the folks who are not getting rewarded for all this hard work are the miners. Over the past several years the company has undercut its union workforce by opening non-union mines. It is a cheap tactic to drive down the cost of wages and benefits, leaving workers’ families and their communities struggling to keep their heads above water.

The United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) is launching a campaign to organize these workers. They are forming alliances with religious and community leaders because they recognize that what happens at Peabody affects the entire community. This is not about “big union bosses” lining their pockets with union dues. This is a struggle to overcome the vast and growing gulf between the haves and have-nots. Labor unions have been and continue to be one of the most effective tools for creating a just and equitable economy. They have been the most effective anti-poverty strategy in American history.

As a follower of Jesus, I am taking my stand with the miners. As a preacher of the gospel I am taking my cues from Woody’s theology rather than the blind guides of the Religious Right.

The Brown Jim Crow Labor Market

by Tom Lewandowski

Today’s Jim Crow construction labor market is brown, separate and inherently unequal. Hispanic drywallers, tapers, framers, painters, brickies, and other construction trades are virtually invisible people. Many business-savvy employers consider this Jim Crow labor market today’s sensible alternative to slavery.

A few hours ago I attended my sixth meeting in two months with Hispanic residential construction workers. At each meeting I have heard new workers and new crews describing the crimes committed against them by criminals posing as contractors. Tonight it was the fourth bad check written on out-of state banks by the same contractor. I already had collected copies of bad checks for $940, $1400, and $1509 written from April though November from the same contractor. Hispanic construction workers worked for no pay and had no recourse. Tonight we heard more charges of contractors’ racial defined wages scale; bad for Anglos and worse for Hispanics. Several times we’ve heard credible charges of contractors cautioning Hispanic not to complain or Immigration will be called. A few weeks ago we heard credible allegations that a Hispanic worker works for no pay because if he doesn’t his employer will sic the police on a family member for a criminal charge. As a result this man is a slave to the contractor.

Ah, the banality of evil. You probably drive by these crime scenes several times a week and don’t even slow down. Here is how it works from residential to massive university projects. It starts with the blind-eye end users who want a building. Don’t bother with the how, just give us the building. The general contractor sub-contracts different elements. Usually the mechanical trades are Anglo and the framing, drywall, painting and other non-mechanical trades are subbed to a contractor with whom the general contractor has a special relationship. That sub will sub to another sub-contactor with whom they have a special relationship. Eventually either a low-end residential contractor or a “coyote”, underground Hispanic employment agent, will staff the job with so-called independent contractors who are Hispanic workers.

The end user may pay $0.50 per square foot for hanging drywall but the Hispanics who hang it are paid $0.09 per square foot in this market. Generally they are undocumented, meaning they don’t pay social security or income taxes so Anglos call them “illegal.” More accurately they are illegal because they don’t get workers’ comp., minimum wage, overtime, equal pay, and are often not paid at all. If fraud, theft, extortion, trafficking in humans, and a host of other crimes committed by employers were actually considered crimes in America, a brown, not yellow, tape would stretch around most construction sites from universities to sub-divisions.

Head-shaking and bleeding hearts are of no value in this or any other labor market. Courage and solidarity are valued and create value. Stay tuned for news.