I was looking through some articles on the internet and I can across this particular article: Use of temps may no longer signal permanent hiring. This article tells about the current state of temp services with companies during a recession. It used to be that when a company hires a temp worker, there is a possibility that after at least three months, that worker could be hired permanently at the company. Due to the state of the economy, a lot of companies that are hiring temp workers have been hesitant to hire them full-time and instead, only hire them for part-time work. Some say it's because employer have a lack of confidence that the economic rebound has staying power. They fear that their sales will remain weak or falter as consumers spend cautiously.
Companies don't want to have to hired permanent workers and then get rid of them in six months because of the unstable economy. They are not willing to risk the cost of it. They are unsure about the going demands for what they produce. But now employers are squeezing more work out of the permanent staff they have left. So in turn, people are doing the jobs of others and not rally getting paid for doing that job as well as their own.
I took this mean exactly what Marx says when he explains how skilled becomes unskilled and capitalist needs a mass of unemployed people to work. It is in the self-interest of the company heads and not that of the workers. This is where you get a lot of unemployed people competing for jobs that paid less than what they are used to getting in hopes of getting permanent positions.
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I see exactly this in my own life often in recent months. My dad, a teacher in the Illinois Dept. of Corrections, tells me so often about how the institution he works at is so under-staffed and how he has had to do so many things in the past year or so that have been out of the realm of his job description. He is a teacher, but has been subject to do maintenance, janitorial, and even secretarial work because the prison is so short-handed due to the state being broke and not hiring any new employees.
ReplyDeleteI understand where employers are coming from being hesitant to hire full-time positions nowadays and I do not think the motive for the freeze is necessarily cynical. However, because many places are short-handed and employees are being forced to do work outside of their job description, I feel as though they should be compensated for that. But still, it is another case of the working man bailing out the unaccountable capitalists.
I see where you're coming from. This, I would say, is a good example of what Marx is also trying to say. We see that since there is so much competition for jobs currently, that the people who are employed have to conform to doing more than what they are actually getting paid for, which agrees with Marx. I also see this being put into play at my own job because alot of us are doing the job of two people instead just what we are being paid to do, since they had to get rid of some people to reduce costs, so now there is still the massive amount of work to be done and less people to do it. Good post!
ReplyDeletethat does make sense, why hire permant staff when you have such a large pool willing to work for anything? why not just keep them termporary? the longer a person works for a company the more they come know about the company and the better they get at their job. this causes them to want a rasie; which if they are doing a great job they deserve it. marx says that the working class needs the capitalist and the capitalist need the working class. becasue of this co-dependency we the working class are forced to fall under the hand of the capitalist to work for them but they have more control over the pay and stability of jobs.
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