Are Boomers Being Targeted in Layoffs to Cut Health Care Costs?
If this is true, this is exactly why it would be such a good idea to lower the Medicare age to 55 - because otherwise, industry paints a target on every Boomer back:
Every day there's another layoff announcement, so Sean O'Grady finds himself confused about why his Philadelphia-based recruiting company, CareerTV USA Inc., is doing so well.
"We had to shake our heads at that," he said, "because we're doing our best sales ever, and we had our best quarter at the end of 2008."
So O'Grady started asking his clients to explain why they are bothering to recruit in these times, even when, in some cases, they are cutting back on hiring.
What he learned and what he is seeing "is the layoff of the baby-boom generation. Companies are filling those holes with bright-eyed, bushy-tailed college graduates.
"They are essentially trying to hire people they can pay less and get a lot of energy and enthusiasm," said O'Grady, 26, a senior producer at CareerTV.
[...] One was Andrew Vavra, 55, of Schwenksville, an unemployed marketing project manager. He had been to a another job fair recently "and no one under 40 was there," he said. "It made me angry.
"They are laying off older workers to reduce their pension exposure and their health-plan exposure," he said. "The young people are being hired in without medical plans and pension plans."
What is clear, said economist Joel Naroff, is that companies are using the recession to reconfigure their workforces - and that is what they should do.
"There is a popular phrase - 'don't waste a perfectly good crisis'," said Naroff, chief economist with TD Bank N.A. "The idea behind that is you can do things you couldn't do under a normal set of circumstances. You have the opportunity to make the changes that you really should have made before."
Companies that cut jobs just to shave expenses will not be prepared when the economy rebounds. The cuts should be strategic to position the companies for the future, said Naroff, of Holland, Bucks County.
If companies are going to announce layoffs of 5,000, he said, it does not give them much more of a publicity problem if they say they will lay off 5,500, with the idea of getting rid of "dead wood" or entire unproductive divisions. "It looks the same to the public."
"Now they've been given free hand to do it," Naroff said. In a sense, "the economy gives them cover."
At least it's not Euthanasia. That's what the republicans are doing with the poor and elderly. Drive the economy so far into the toilet that we lose a substantial # of these as collatoral damage.
Don't care about collateral damage.
Capitalism at its best.
I will lay off older, more experienced workers because it is advantageous to do so in the very short term (they can do it with the cover of the economic collapse.) But, in effect they screw their long term prospects to get experienced workers who truly understand their markets because now they want to rely on neophytes who have NOTHING anchoring them to the company. These new workers have NO staying power and will be OUTTA there when the market rebounds and better jobs come down the pike. They will bolt at the drop of a hat. And then these scumbag, republiscum companies will whine about how they can't compete.
Boo fuking hoo.
Oh, the precious irony.
As much as the poster of this log would like you, the reader, to think this is some new thing, the latest republican trend, please refer to your history, in future, when preparing a post. You see, this exact type of thing has been going on since the 19th century at least. Why pay an older worker, who has a higher base pay, more issues with health, attitude, and etc. when it is possible to hire two or three young 'uns for the same amount. Old as can be, nothing new, been done, and done, and done. Doubt what I say? Go ask your grandpa.
My grandparents and my own research inform me that this sort of behavior was not the norm during the period of labor gains from the early 20th century through the 1970s, ending with Reagan in the 80s (along with a lot of other beneficial societal norms). It was during the Reagan era that employers were given the signal (with Reagan's scandalous firing of air traffic controllers) that they could get away with firing anyone they wanted. Sure, employers firing people just because they're old is now accepted as normal in the US, but it really only dates back about 30 years.
And friends in other countries inform me that it would be scandalous if it were done in France or Mexico or the Netherlands. It is definitely not the norm in most places outside the US, which is a sign that it doesn't have to be this way here.
that many employers, certainly not all, looked at taking care of their workers as a responsibility. Shocking as that may sound? I have had a few employers that went above and beyond what the law required of them in taking care of their employees.
I don't doubt that there are some out there that still think that way. But they are getting fewer and farther between. And even the one's that do give a damn are getting crushed in this economy. Not every company is out to pull a Circuit City.
But I don't, for a second, doubt that many companies will abuse the situation in this way.
I remember my dad, a right-wing oil company executive, expressing surprise in the mid-80s when his company began not only deliberately firing the eldest employees (or forcing them to take early retirement), but also giving preference to new hires who were young and without families to support. He'd worked for the company for over a quarter century and this was a new pattern. Before the mid-80s, older workers were more valued because of their greater experience, family men were more valued because they were seen as more stable and reliable, and firing older employees to save money was unheard of, especially during times like the 80s when profits were sky-high. What's annoying to me is that these practices, now considered normal, began and have been maintained during times of massive profit. I think it has more to do with ideology than with necessity, since they've been doing it for years, even when times have been great for them.
In the 80s, I used have arguments with my dad about the lack of loyalty companies had toward their employees -- especially older workers. In Dad's day, if a company had to downsize, there was a given preference to seniority. Newer workers were let go, and more experienced workers who had did their time in the company stayed. It was last in, first out. In this system, loyalty was built, standards remained high, and productivity was maintained.
Yet, in the Reagan era, all that started to change and employers worked the numbers to trim their idea of fat. Fat only related to the bottom line, and did nothing in protecting or being responsible to the communities they had blossomed from ( i.e. Michael Moore's Roger and Me ).
I would try to explain what was happening to my career and the careers of many of my co-workers to Dad. Dad just didn't think I knew what I was talking about. He thought I was being some sort of Hippie rebel. Later, Dad started to see the light in the 90s, and today, Dad is totally disgusted with the whole corporate system. Dad never told me how he voted in the 80s. Yet today, Dad mentions, now and again, that he can't for the life of him ever understand why anyone would vote for a Republican.
In Dad's day, if a company had to downsize, there was a given preference to seniority. Newer workers were let go, and more experienced workers who had did their time in the company stayed. It was last in, first out. In this system, loyalty was built, standards remained high, and productivity was maintained.
That strategy is short-sighted; in the long run, it results in demographic disaster. What it leaves you with, given repeated recessionary cycles, is a workforce that is mostly made up of old people... who eventually die or retire with no-one available to replace them. Aerospace has, for various historical and cultural reasons, a particularly bad case of this affliction. I've been to a number of places where there is essentially no-one between the ages of 35 and 50, damn few between 50 and 60, and the place is being held together by a handful of guys in their 70s who everyone is dead scared are about to drop dead of a heart attack.
Any company worth its salt will do what it can to balance its internal demographics.
But to throw away people who have helped build the company, and have given a piece of their lives to the organization, just to satisfy the greed of a small group of corporate elites, destroys the employee/employer arrangement that my father's generation had experienced for 40 years after WW2.
Personally, what you described in Aerospace is a excellent reason for Labor Unions. All ages and experience levels would get their say.
Balancing demographics means that when the organization has to cut people, it has to cut them evenly across the age range; any significant demographic preference will, all other things being equal, produce demographic problems if carried on long enough. Also, there are secondary effects -- if an entire industry obviously always lays off the youngest people every time there's a downturn, that will discourage young people from entering that industry.
Unions are not a panacea for this sort of nonsense -- aerospace is among the most heavily unionized US industries, and the aerospace unions are partly responsible for the demographic problems due to their historical insistence on laying off only the least senior people.
Have destroyed any sense of loyalty that an employee would have to their employer. The Wall Street excuse for excessive pay and benefits is employee retention. That's a lame excuse. Why would employees feel loyal to any company when they know that the company would not be loyal to them? This is Republican free market at it's worst. There never was a best.
Fuck the corporations. They knowingly sell poisoned food, pay poverty wages, and sell products that are nondurable so the buyer has to buy another one. Corporations have made it their policy to be predatory to both their employees, and their customers in the name of money.
America has become a economic environment whose sole purpose is to consolidate wealth in the bank accounts of bankers, corporate executives, investors, and Wall Streeters. Capitalist, and conservatives with their "Free Market" are killing America in the name of greed. Our nation has become one big liquidation sale that destroys lives, families, and communities.
The past 30 years have grown poverty to epidemic proportions. The conservatives, and Republicans continue their mantra of "Tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts", and don't understand why they are being voted out of office. It's because they sold America to their masters: the banks, corporations, and Wall Street. Across America "Fuck the corporations" will be herd more, and more often because of what they have done to all of us.
Later, Dad started to see the light in the 90s, and today, Dad is totally disgusted with the whole corporate system. Dad never told me how he voted in the 80s. Yet today, Dad mentions, now and again, that he can't for the life of him ever understand why anyone would vote for a Republican.
I'm envious. My dad remained the most horrible kind of right-winger to his dying day. In fact, his attitudes got even worse in the 90s under the influence of right-wing hate pundits like Limbaugh and Coulter. Sounds like your dad had a mind and a heart.
Yeah, so what it still hurts the people that are effected. No matter when.
Southern Yankee
It is difficult for anyone when their job is eliminated, no matter their age.
But, even someone from the South can understand that there's a big difference between someone losing a job at age 28, say, and someone at 60, no??
"Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of Stupidity" - Frank Leahy
Yeah, the difference is that the 28-year-old will have an easier time finding a job and the 60-year-old may well be considered unhirable in the US and remain unemployed. If the 60-year-old does have big medical bills, he may well end up homeless because of debt, or even dead if his health insurance was employer-provided, as most Americans' insurance is.
It has become very American in the past 3 decades to not care what happens to people, but the 60 year old definitely deserves more consideration.
Again, it hasn't always been this way (dates back to the 80s) and it is not this way in many, many other countries. It certainly doesn't have to remain this way. It's not just a law of nature.
This is nothing new. It happened the same way when the first Bush criminal ruined the economy after his Gulf War in 91 -- only now it's worse. But older workers were being downsized well into the first two years of Clinton's term. Things didn't start to turn around until 1994-95.
But at the same time, while they're laying off the baby-boomers, they are worried that the boomers starting to draw SS benefits may leave the country and spend those benefits in Mexico or in other expat retirement havens. And that is exactly why Fox News is hyping the Mexican Drug War. Why buy a retirement home in Mexico when there are plenty of foreclosures available in Florida and the Southwest? The US economy won't stabilize until the housing market comes back.
Canada is getting this message too. I noticed that the day after President Obama met with the Canadian Prime Minister, Canada put out a Warden message on the violence in Mexico.
Thanks, George
He had been to a another job fair recently "and no one under 40 was there," he said. ...
probably not many women either, for more than the obvious reason...
i read a report recently that more men than women were being layed off because of the pay disparity - women were cheaper to employ...
Cheaper if the women don't expect health care.
women earn less than men doing the exact same job and with the same qualifications. Regardless of health care.
if they can prove it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vsl6za1Zspw
Study the symptoms not the virus...
The idea behind that is you can do things you couldn't do under a normal set of circumstances.
They can do a lot of things without unions and collective bargaining.
The whole corporate structure now is built around maximum wealth extraction of all available assets to the point of exhaustion, then the owners walk away declaring bankruptcy and then repeat the cycle.
It's a nonsustaining business model that has become the norm and is reaching enough of a critical mass that it can bringing down the whole system.
Witness offshore manufacturing.
It snowballed past the point of no return and has gutted entire domestic industries.
A sure sign of the end of empire is when the balance of trade becomes chronically negative.
A new equilibrium is attained after the contractual pain.
Brave new world my ass.
What happens to the Boomers than? After all alot still have families to support. I guess that is what captialism does for us?
Southern Yankee
Foreclosure on their homes, that's what happens.
.....because soon the US will be offering a new Silver Card Visa to retired Canadians and other foreigners. This means that instead of having to leave the country every six months and stay away for two months before being allowed back in, foreigners can stay all year and renew the Visa once a year.
These are people who's currency is valued higher than US so they have good purchasing power and will buy up all the foreclosures. The info about this new Visa goes out all over the world by Fox News. Right after the segment on the new Silver Card Visa, Fox switches to Geraldo Rivera hyping the Mexican Drug wars.
But if they want foreign expat retirees to live in the US, the fist priorty should be to clean up the crime and the police brutality. Geraldo Rivera likes to say the Mexican police are corrupt but I don't know any retired expat who's afraid of getting brutalized by the Mexican police.
This is another reason, in a litany of reasons why we should enact National Health Insurance.
The primary reason is, National Health Insurance would be cheaper than our current approach. With the current approach, employers have no choice but to attack the costs. Europe and Japan spend 11% of GDP and manage to cover everyone, while we spend 16% and leave 48 million uncovered. A cheaper health system is in a sense, a more productive health system, and productivity helps the economy.
We need to be asking our politicians
(1.) Since health care costs is cheaper in Japan and Europe,
(2.) The U.S. is a free trade nation that competes with these countries,
Why is it that this country's employers and individuals are saddled with more expensive insurance than could be the case if a system from Europe or Japan is copied?
National health insurance would greatly reduce the incentive to lay off older folks.
on that one.
Do any of you realize the exposure the top corporations had by matching or even doubling 401k contributions. The shit was gonna hit the fan because of Reagans trickle down theory and policies covering how much actual cash these corps needed to pay off these huge sums. Bankruptcies have always been a hallmark of reaganomics this was thought out 30 years ago. When it came time to pay the working class just give them the best anal sex they will ever experience. So What as Cheney and Bush would say we got ours.
Isn't this age discrimination? And isn't that illegal under federal law?
Proving it could be problematic.
All you have to do is look at the ages of all the people who are fired to know if that's the reason they're fired. There will be a "pattern". But if "business necessity" can be demonstrated by the company, it isn't unlawful.
At the businesses where my sons-in-law work. They are in their early 30's and the people that lost their jobs were in their 40's and 50's and had been in the job way longer than my sons-in-law.
packet theory.
When you go through McDonalds drive-thru, you never get enough ketchup, so you squeeze it, turn it, fold it and do whatever it takes to get the most out of it.
After that is done, it's actually a burden because you have to find a place (outside your car) to throw it away.
have been laid off for years. Remember the layoffs by GM and others back in the 80s? Men in their 50s all of a sudden losing their chance at a pension and health benefits for them and their families. I remember a few interviewed on the tv and how it devastated them.
My brother was one of the laid off. He had been a union worker, a lineman with CMP here in Maine. He went into middle management and, boom! Layoff time. He lost everything.
I was tossed out on the curb, alongside the trash, but I stayed union, and was able to get back in under provisions that laid off workers are considered before off the street hires. Pension was cash balance, so not that much of a consideration, I was chasing post retirement health. In sight now. Still, I want national health insurance and an end to this BS.
was smart. Good luck with your job.
one more reason why we need Congress to pass the Employee Free Choice Act.
The targeting of boomers (employees 50+) has been going on for 25 years.
The green eyeshades in business look at total cost of an employee, and make their decisions based on that.
Young employees can be made to work longer hours (with promises of advancement that experienced workers know is bullshit), and they get sick less.
THERE are your productivity gains of the last 25 years.
"Anyone that makes less than $150K in this country, has no business voting Republican."
Well that is a play from the Bush & Co. book for sure.
I would sure be thrilled if the Medicare age got lowered. We are spending $900 a month on family health insurance and I'm supporting my family making $14/hour! Man we are good at eating beans and rice!
This is interesting because I have been trying to figure out why, on February 6th, 3 of us 'older' people were let go after more than 10 years service each. I'm 42 and married with two children. The others? Pushing 40 and families. The remaining IT staff? Much younger, unmarried and without children. Most only have a few years service. The CTO's reason for letting us go was cost cutting measures and not performance related at all. Yet, we all made about the same money...so why us? We've been on a 6 year wage freeze so those coming in usually start where us older guys left off.
I've been out of work ever since, by the way. I can't get one contracting recruiter or staffing company, out of many, to even consider me. It never makes it past the first visit or phone call. I can forget about long term, permanent employment because as the recruiters are telling me, companies aren't looking for that now. It's in and out type work now. Recruiters are also telling me that companies are being very picky and cheap. They expect the candidate to know everything at entry level wages. Put what you were worth on and app or job board...get passed up.
some work soon.
I hope it's soon but I'm preparing my family for the worst because my confidence is at an all time low. I went through lay off bouts here and there when I was a mill rat. It never lasted long. This is the first time in my working life I've been out of work more than a month and without any prospect of returning soon. I'm really freaking out here!
What get's me is after 10 years of loyal service, I'm put in a room, terminated and escorted out like a dog by security. No rhyme or reason...just like that. The usual 6 weeks severance package was cut down to 2 weeks. No notice...nothing. Out in the street. They sure did save money on that one.
There are some things you might try..
Bartering. Sometimes your knowledge and expertise can be bartered or traded for something you might need. When I was laid off, I bartered and traded jobs for others and was paid in food, at a farm, and paid in services by a carpenter for doing paperhanging for him.
Many food pantries are accepting anyone who can show need. Don't be shy. They help fill the gaps.
Sell some stuff on eBay if you have to. It's a pain but can be a help with the budget.
Don't lose faith in yourself.
When you have a family it's psychologically devastating to be laid off. It's actually a traumatic experience, and I hope you go talk to someone about it. I don't know where you live, but don't be ashamed to go to a community clinic and ask for a referral to a counselor. I resisted doing this (years ago) out of pride for my self-reliance, until I got almost suicidal. I found that going to a counselor relieved a tremendous pressure of guilt and shame that I'd been feeling. As Jo says, don't be shy. And don't be like those guys whose self-image is so tied up in making a living that they finally can't stand it any more and harm their family and themselves. You're NOT alone, and there ARE people who care and can help.
but I do understand and would surely talk before acting. I hope it never reaches that point though. I saw my mom and dad struggle with the steel mills in the early eighties. It left a lasting impression. I love my parents but I don't want to be like them. I learned a lot from their struggles. If I can get McDonald's to take me serious, I'm not above that. I'm okay with it. I'll do whatever it takes.
I was lucky, had a decent severance package, so used the period to relax and recharge my batteries. After that ran out (paid out weekly) I then went to the unemployment office. The guy told me at my age, no employer would want me, but that they could help. Unemployment (in GA) has certified resume writers who would write my resume. They deal with unemployed people all the time, and they said that the battle was in getting the interview, but if I got the interview, my chances of getting hired was greater than the younger worker. They said they could write the resume in a manner that would increase my chances of getting an interview. So, check with UI or other state resources. I don't believe in writing my own resume. Get an expert to do it, if possible. Get people who know how to get people jobs. That's what your UI office is there for.
Business: IT
About 3 or 4 days after I got rehired by my former employer, they called me to set up an interview. I gotta say, great folks at the unemployment office in Georgia. Depending on the state, your milage may vary.
it's MOSTly about the ability to pay less. if corporations could they would have a right to work type laws in every state. Darwinian Capitalism.........only the"cheap labor" survives. corporations HATE labor and rules. some countries still have a lot of children working 10-12 hours.....it's cut throat.
the corporatists and government folks and all the young'uns plan to do with all of us unemployed or underemployed old farts, who are apparently too old to keep on the job, and now have no income, are losing our homes, have no health insurance, no pension plans and thoroughly devastated IRA's and can't get a new job because we're too old.....
>>>> but, are too young to collect Social Security or qualify for medicare or medicaid???!!!!
We are not only the so-called greatest generation - we are the Biggest generation - there's a lot of us and the stench could get real bad.
"Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of Stupidity" - Frank Leahy
The Boomers are not the 'greatest generation', that was their parents. The Boomers are the 'me' generation, and much of the whining I'm hearing proves it.
To be fair, much of what's happening to the boomers now is of their own making. Many of the same people bitching about shrunken 401K's and age-based layoffs have supported every dumbassed pro-corporate agenda the 'Pubs pushed for decades, because they wanted those tax cuts, which affected them most because they were/are the ones making the most money.
And now the 'young folks' are supposed to bail them out.
Medicare at 55? And just who the fuck is supposed to pay for that? If we give the Boomers early Medicare, they'll just quit working and start relying on the younger people to support them.
Sorry to be 'age-ist', but the boomers are going to have to suffer just like everyone else.
Pity the twenty-somethings who'll be paying taxes out the ass their entire lives to make up for the bad decisions made by the 'me' generation.
they hate us, money ain't power unless no one else has any.
I remember during the farm crisis of the 1980's how devastating a time that was for everyone. My graduating class went from 50 students down to 35 due to the closure of bankruptcy of Rath Packing company (to be replaced by IBP) and the lay offs of 10,000 workers from John Deere.
My dad even went so far as to become a delivery driver of Winnebago's to keep us afloat until Deere's hired him back. It wasn't easy and the times aren't easy now either.
We have a mess, mostly created by the corporations and their minions in Congress (Democrats and Republicans alike), and its time we fixed it for good.
Election 2012: Be Educated! Be Active! Vote!
www.phoenixjustice.com
Every step of this destruction has been a planned process from day 1 when Bush , Cheney , the republicans stole the election with the help of the courts they have set in place over prior past years..
They know there is not way they could have a more complete deletion of our social programs , retirement , health benefits and wages without sending our jobs/plants overseas and destroying our economy..
There is only one way the American citizens are going to get our government back and that is to take it from the criminal mob which has stolen it..
For our elected officials including Obama not to persuade and prosecute the crimes of Bush , Cheney , Rumsfeld , Rove and others is a crime in itself...
They do not have the right "NOT" to seek out and prosecute the war crimes and other crimes which has been executed by Bush and his administration including the democrats..
Every wonder "NOT IF" but how many democrats have been involved in knowing and supporting Bush's criminal crimes.
None
Your hypothesis requires competence not in evidence.
Looks as if this destruction of our economy was planned as this administration's other criminal acts were for the benefit of this Global Monopoly given to corporations...
Letting corporations build a monopoly was what our forefathers tried to stop from happening and our government has now given corporations the monopoly under the name of Global which has destroy our nation...
Bush and his administration has attack and destroy our citizens , our constitution , democracy , laws and our economy and was a well thought out policy and with the help either intentionally or un-intentionally of the democrats..
Our government officials should of had the knowledge and background to see this coming and if not they do not belong in the seats of the senate and house which they are being paid to govern for the people and our country....
They have been passing policies for the wealthy , corporations and even for the benefit and jobs of foreign nations.
By destroying our economy there is not a d... thing the American citizens can do because they have transferred all the wealth of this country to corporations ,, which gives corporation complete control and power over our work force and country which will determined the lives of the American citizens...
This planned depression by Bush's administration has given corporations every thing they had in their wished for in over 40 years but could never take..
Americans have / are funding these corporations to move their plants , businesses and jobs overseas while cutting the Americans workers...
Corporations are benefiting with paying little to no taxes , receiving money from the elected official , who have placed these funds on a credit card for the American citizens and their grandchildren...
We are being s... on and there is no one fighting for us , our future and our grandchildren.... The democrats had to have known d... well what would happen to the citizens and our country when they ok these policies.. Like every criminal policy or action from Bush's administration gave the name of their policy "free trade" which really stands for outsourcing our jobs overseas
People called Bush and idiot , but he has given corporation every item they could have possibly dreamt of for over 50 years. Complete power and control over this country and slave market around the world...
None
When I was laid off from CSC a few years back, there were about 40 of us at our location. Of the group, I was the youngest at age 50. It was fairly obvious that these were middle manager in the upper pay scales. This practice by CSC is well known throughout the ranks. And, such periodic layoffs have occurred for years.
Targeting "older employees" was a cost cutting measure. Although salary was the primary motiviation, I'd have to believe that health care costs figured in.
Before you say illegal, just imagine the difficulty in suing a major multi-billion dollar corporation. It was easier to take the severance and get another job.
And if they give you a modest severance package, it comes with strings attached that make it extremely dangerous to sue and lose.
the median age of those terminated was exactly 50. the average years of service was about 18(the range was from 13 to 21 years).
Yeah, I'm sure that boomers were targeted.
Some stuff you can't make up!
It appears to be so discriminating and unfair... But the fact remains that we are all going through this heavy recession with the prediction of getting worse for years to come... Needless to say, all those companies has only one thing in mind, "how to survive through this recession"... and the quickest way to achieve it is "cutting cost" especially a big cost, which is the big wages... I'm in 40s, married with two kids and I'm still employed and trying hard to hang in there but as many of my colleagues have been laid off already, it'd probably be just a matter of time for me to go too... So I'm trying to set up a small biz at home as I'm taking this as an opportunity to take control of my financial life rather than being sxxt scared of getting sucked...
-Mick
Slim Digital Camera
Organic Fashion
let's see what Rick Santelli's favorite cheerleaders have to say about backing "the losers" medicare costs and UI checks.
You know what they're going to say. UI is ok and these people can pay for medical until they're bankrupt. At that time, they can go on Medicaid. That policy IS the status quo.
Which group should take to the streets to protest first? The older folks who are suffering obvious age discrimination and threats to their ability to survive? Or, the young worker hired in with a lower wage than his or her predecessors and a decidedly lesser amount of benefits than the worker in Europe or Japan?
Or, they could get smart, band together and discover that they have power in numbers "Dear Congressperson, You stink and will find yourself out of a job soon..."
the younger worker. We all need jobs and we all need to work together to survive in this down economy. Americans are going to need to make changes in how they live and that will require changes to habits that were encouraged during the Republican years.
The sort of worker they're talking about are probably managers. This impression is reinforced by the fact that the only laid-off person quoted is a manager, and a marketing manager at that! I have yet to see a large organization in America (corporate, NGO, government) that couldn't be improved by canning half of the managers at all levels. There's been a destructive cult of the managers in the US for the last several decades; the result is an absurd number of managers for the number of people actually doing the work of the organization. And since these people need to feel important (and justify their salaries to their management), they end up forcing the people actually doing the work to spend half their time teabagging management rather than doing the work they were hired to do.
And unless you drop the Medicaid enrollment age to 0, it's theft from younger working folks... you know, the people least able to pay it.
but it's just a gut feeling. When I was laid off, that was my first thought, but I have absolutely no proof other than instinct, which is, of course, why it can happen this way.
Remember the KMart class action suit because they were firing managers at 50?
Trust me, kids. You will _not_ feel half dead at 50. [Modified by your individual admixture of alcohol, tobacco, heroin and bacon fat usage of course.]
Or all of the above.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Not sure why anyone would be surprised by this.
Two comments - both of which reveal my rather dim view of unfettered capitalism - or unfettered any other ism. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.
a. It is standard unwritten HR policy among big box stores that only management above the store level shall gain seniority. One small company I worked for was taken over by a big box who promptly divested themselves of all employees with more than a year seniority. It was done in such a way that the employees quit. Split shifting was common 8-10, 12-2, and 4-8 was not an unusual day.
b. Medicare should be rewritten to include all Americans. It's time to stop dicking around with duct tape and go straight to a universal single payer (government) health care insurance. Canada's may not be perfect, but it is miles ahead of the US's.
they talk a good game...about the Founding Fathers, and America's independence and toughness, but where is the outrage? They sit in their homes and listen to pundits spew about scapegoats (like government and "bad home buyer"), but don't want to actually think about what is going on. They watch complicity as the U.S. Treasury is plundered by very crooks and thieves who created this debacle, the very thievess that fire those same Americans at the drop of a hat...and then they (the American People) wring their hands saying that the government needs to give the crooks more and more.
We truly are a nation of morons. We really are. Americans are cheap whores, they let the rich and powerful bone them up the ass, and then say thank you and oh by the way...here's my wallet.
"Anyone that makes less than $150K in this country, has no business voting Republican."
It's been said: In France the government fears the people while in the United States the people fear the government. In France when something rubs the masses wrong those "cheese eating surrender monkeys" put down their brie and take to the streets. In this country when the government and wall street rape the public the "rugged American individualists" just sit there and take it. I wonder why. Is it because we don't see ourselves as a collective group "that's all in this together", but rather a bunch of individuals fighting with each other over the scraps that "trickle down" from the ever gluttonous filthy rich. Go Ragonomics!
And being in construction, the long term looks rather bleak for me.
At least being a painter, it has taught me things over a long period of time. Things that are somewhat valuable to the trade. The trick is, finding the right job. But I suppose I've been fortunate. I got in with a decent group of guys. But make no mistake. Everyone can be replaced. It's always been that way. No one was ever safe. And yes, it's worse now. If I have to start looking for work now, I'm screwed.
No one wants to hire a 52 year old person. To much of a liability.
Forget the experience, they don't care about that. They focus on the bottom line. The Church of the Almighty Dollar.
We're merely pesky little humans. Who want too much.
What is your conceptual, continuity?
Yup, there you have it folks. This economic crisis will be over the moment all the super rich arsholes have accomplished their goals. With Obama leading the way...
My father was forced into early retirement in his mid 50's after working for a company for some 25 or so years in the late 1970's. He went thru hell for about a year and got a federal govt job at the department of commerce. His college major was in economics, University of Michigan 1942 which was before Milton Friedman type economic theory infiltrated the universities in the 1950's. I remember vividly Dad being very concerned about a trade deficit of $30 billion a year in the late 1970's. He happened to be a trade specialist in the private sector and at the department of commerce. He would have been fired in a new york minute had he had to work in the 90's or 2000's. Dad knew the truth about trade and had all the experience and education to back it and wasn't tainted by the nonsense regarding free trade and deregulation that passes as sound theory these days.
One of his best friends was forced into early retirement in his mid 50's while being the #1 salesperson for Blue Cross. It took a huge toll on him though his connections in the medical industry enabled him to continue working as a consultant... he was still doing it even being in his mid 80's...being a consultant wasn't what he wanted to do and most older workers forced into early retirement don't have those options available to them.
What young people, though they are aware of to some degree, need to realize is that whatever fate happens to their parents or other baby boomers in the working world, it will happen to them because the political economics of today have only worsened since the 70's and 80's.
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