yet another glimpse into how empires feed on starvation

[sophiaserpentia]

A while back I commented on the connection between Empire and starvation: the Empire keeps us all starving because we are more pliant that way and less likely to look up from our struggles to apprehend the bigger picture.

This is the first thing I thought of when a friend on FB linked to this story:

With nearly 14 million unemployed workers in America, many have gotten so desperate that they're willing to work for free. While some businesses are wary of the legal risks and supervision such an arrangement might require, companies that have used free workers say it can pay off when done right.

"People who work for free are far hungrier than anybody who has a salary, so they're going to outperform, they're going to try to please, they're going to be creative," says Kelly Fallis, chief executive of Remote Stylist, a Toronto and New York-based startup that provides Web-based interior design services. "From a cost savings perspective, to get something off the ground, it's huge. Especially if you're a small business."

In the last three years, Fallis has used about 50 unpaid interns for duties in marketing, editorial, advertising, sales, account management and public relations. She's convinced it's the wave of the future in human resources. "Ten years from now, this is going to be the norm," she says.

from Unpaid jobs: The new normal?

So, basically, we can expect more and more that companies will string people along without pay for as long as they're willing to go along with it, because they're disposable and replaceable and there's someone else starving and desperate waiting in line for the opportunity. They will hire just enough of these people to make it seem like other than a con.

Fortunately at present there are still laws protecting people from being used like this. Wanna bet that's going to change in the next two years?

Comments

[oneagain.livejournal.com]

Whereas, I say people like her will be obsolete. She does not have the right to define reality for all of us. I say "don't listen", and firmly, powerfully, assert your own vision of what a future could be without this kind of stupidity. Personally? I'd hex the bitch, if I went around doing that kind of thing. I don't, so the ritual would more likely be one to bring her to Justice for such abhorrent abuse of the economy and people's vulnerability. I don't know that I have it in me to do a huge ritual at this time (gotta lot on my plate, speaking of starvation and lack thereof), but I would be willing to do a personal ritual or one lead by someone I trusted to do one right--if for nothing else, to help folks who could change our communal dreaming become aware of this nastiness.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

It's not just her, though. I'm not opposed, in principle, to interning/volunteer/'spec' work, especially as activism -- I'm opposed to the potential here for companies who are well-off and already profitable to get free work out of people they increasingly see as disposable.

IMO profit margins are going to become narrower and narrower as the global depression deepens. An answer to that concern would be networks of friends/family supplying mutual aid, and more cooperative ventures. And rituals or art that help bring about different ways of thinking can certainly make a difference.

[touchyphiliac.livejournal.com]

I think it's unfair that the only work that deserves to be paid is soul-sucking capitalistic shit. We should be paid well to do good in this world, too.

[oneagain.livejournal.com]

Even sundances are more humane than what she describes, and folks are well-trained for it...

[stacymckenna.livejournal.com]

My mom is routinely frustrated by the number of hours her coworkers are willing to put in off the clock at their blue-collar job. She describes it as lying to management about realistic expectations for employee productivity. Of course, their fear of being downsized (they're in a construction-related industry) keeps them slaving despite her logic.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Wal-Mart was sued big-time for doing this to their employees. But we keep hearing that unions and the idea of solidarity have "outlived their usefulness."

White-collar folks put in OT off the clock too. For a while at a previous job I was illegally classed as a salaried employee when according to the law I should have been wage-earning and overtime-eligible.

[stacymckenna.livejournal.com]

The worst part is, the management at mom's job hasn't asked people to put in off the clock hours. People are doing it SPONTANEOUSLY in an effort to look dedicated in case there's another round of downsizing...

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

What's likely to happen there is a "race to the bottom:" a mixed-up feedback loop that forces people to go further and further outside of their self-interest. The only thing that will stop it is for everyone there to be aware that it's illegal for your mom's employer to accept off-the-clock hours.

[akycha.livejournal.com]

The sad thing is that illegality seldom stops employers/corporations from doing things that are in their interest, especially when they can persuade people (through a culture of self-denial) that they need to do it to themselves.

[stacymckenna.livejournal.com]

Ayup.

[kitkatlj.livejournal.com]

You've just inspired me to make sure I get that last half-hour of overtime I put in this week. What's the point of fighting to keep my nonexempt status if I volunteer my work for free?

I'd recalculated, and had been meaning to adjust my timesheet before submitting it, but kept forgetting. Now it's safely adjusted, so it won't auto-submit w/o that extra half-hour.

Thank you!

[kitkatlj.livejournal.com]

I just wrote a job summary of my position to sound very much "nonexempt," to keep my right to earn overtime, but it was a little tough. I want to keep this employer but make more money, and wonder if the company will consider "non-exempt" "deserving of low wages forever."

Man, if I had access to run queries on the HR databases, the 1st & only thing I'd do is pull up a list of all non-exempt jobs in the company at higher pay bands than mine!

(According to HR's web site, they could exist...I'd really love to see if they do, and which positions they are.)

[kittenkissies.livejournal.com]

I usually work about 8-10 hours a week off the clock.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

"People who work for free are far hungrier than anybody who has a salary"

That's because they can't afford food, what with the whole working for free part. Let me hazard a guess that she lives in comfort, on the backs of all this unpaid labor?

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Says in the article that she's had 50 people work for free under her. So, yes, she lives on the backs of loads of unpaid labor.

[touchyphiliac.livejournal.com]

What I find the most horrifying about the article is that it isn't saying DOOM AND WOE THIS IS HORRIBLE AND COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE.

In one of my women's studies papers, I wrote a paper strongly against a volunteering requirement of the course--not because I think the work we were doing was wrong, but because I think people deserve to be paid. I like community service, even when I do it for free, but I think society is structured all wrong.

Really, we are living like serfs, with the government allied with the owning class against the rest of us. Our taxes don't go to our own welfare and we don't have much authentic say in the system. We are valueless. Everything is organized around the ruling class.

[the-resa.livejournal.com]

...
Reminds me that the last job I had, all interviews involved working a full day at the place to see how you worked, before hiring you.

The only upside was, generally he didn't ask for that "free day" unless you looked good enough to hire in the first place.

[kitkatlj.livejournal.com]

Thank you for sharing this story. I'm realizing how an interview with a test that I had (to get my current job) was done right. (They asked me to demonstrate that I could alter a Mail Merge document to display Mr./Ms. based on M/F in the data source, but they weren't actually going to take the results of my work that day and do business w/ it later on. It really was just a 10-minute exam.)

[idunn.livejournal.com]

I'm currently* working a $12/hour office job for a law firm in Manhattan, which is peanuts, even without factoring in my commute. It was hinted when I started that they'd want to go perm (though the perm salary is also peanuts), but they've kept me at temp because I'm cheaper that way. Unfortunately, this is typical because from a cost perspective for the employer, it's great ... even though workers can't pay their bills.

*I just got two job offers this afternoon, both paying SIGNIFICANTLY more than this place, and having interviewed at both places, I'd be treated with way more respect as well. So thankfully I can leave this place behind me and close the door.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Congratulations on the new offers! That's great news. :)

[kitkatlj.livejournal.com]

Congratulations and yay!

[idunn.livejournal.com]

Thank you :) I also ended up starting my own business anyway. Life's too short not to pursue your passions, especially if it means being free of an office.

[idunn.livejournal.com]

Also, after looking closer at this article at home, can I just say that it sounds like the writer's actually ... I don't know, excited at this trend? They make it sound like this is a cool thing and oh, those evil, evil labor laws that forbid people from working for free! This whole thing is just so bizarre to me.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

The author definitely thinks it's a positive trend. "Look, people making the best of a rough situation!" Only it seems to me like people making the best of someone else's rough situation.

[kittenkissies.livejournal.com]

How is one supposed to live when one is working their ass off for free?