Daily Topics - Wednesday December 21st, 2011
By shawnt56
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Hour One: Why is NPR giving out Republican talking points?
Hour Two: Is it time to tax the church? Carol Swain, "Be the People: A Call to Reclaim America’s Faith and Promise"
Hour Three: The high cost of low prices...domestic outsourcing - Dave Jamieson, Huffington Post
Comments
#2
Happy Solstice Thom to you and Louise - and to the entire staff of The Thom Hartmann Program! =)
Thank you for the work you do all year long for progressive causes! I appreciate you all!
#3
Cornificially ugly? Hmm, "corn" means "horn", and "fic" means "make", so horn-makingly ugly?
#4
Temp staffing, the scourge of the American worker. I know exactly what you guest is referring to, my current job is working as a temp in a city position. I actually interned at this city for about a year and after I gave up on expecting any permanent position and left, I was offered the position through a temp agency. Here is what the worker can expect from a temp agency... no benefits (though some do offer them), no vacation (though I had paid time off, but it was discontinued recently), no holiday pay (was initially given 4 paid holidays a year, after I had been with the temp company for a year) that too was cancelled with the paid time off. I can pay into a 401K with some matching funding, but you can't expect that at all temp companies. I have no expectations of getting a raise, last I inquired the poor economy was given as an excuse not to give employees raises. Even though I work as a civil servant, hired to do the job of a civil servant, I enjoy none of the protections. I can be fired at will, I can't strike since the contractor I work for doesn't even have a work force that is focused in any one company. So lets say I don't like how I'm being treated at my position, well the people who are working for the contractor may also be at hospitals, warehouses, private offices, etc... so our grievances are not shared, and replacing employees at these shops is all to easy.
These temp contractors are making money off of their employees since they get a premium for providing workers. More and more companies are going with these contractors to provide their employees because it drives down their liability even more. Its a shame but since its a shadow of the American labor problems, no one pays attention to it, but they are helping to drive the race to the bottom of wages ever faster. I'm glad you had this guest on to discuss this issue Thom, and I do truly hope that you continue to delve into this subject, there's a lot that needs to be exposed in this industry.
N
#5
Right on, Maxrot. I was just talking about problems of being a temp yesterday. And I used to be a temp for a municipal government. (They could have prevented my layoff by reducing everyone else's raises by a nickel an hour.)
I'm with a different agency now, on top of being with a different client. Benefits are offered, but I can't afford them. I get "vacation pay", but it's only one week's worth and I get it whether I take time off or not, so it's not really vacation pay; it's more like an anniversary bonus. I get holiday pay for 6 days (however, where I work offers its employees 7 holidays and 3 personal days, which I can't take advantage of). There is no standard process for getting a raise; I've been at the same rate for 21 months, and my rent is about to go up. The client has stopped bothering to even dangle permanancy in front of me, even though the original excuse for making it a temp job was that they weren't sure the position needed to exist (like I said: 21 months).
Thom's Blog Is On the Move
By webmaster
Hello All
Thom's blog in this space and moving to a new home.
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Mueller's favorite place to pray (written about in "Prophet's Way"), and the roof of the room where the Last Supper is reputed to have happened.
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If municipalities can't collect taxes from churches, wouldn't that discourage the towns from letting churches be built? After all, it requires higher taxes on everything around the church, in fact everything else in town.