The Liberal Gun Club Forum

"In sociology and economics, the precariat (/prɪˈkɛəriət/) is a social class formed by people suffering from precarity, which is a condition of existence without predictability or security, affecting material or psychological welfare. The term is a portmanteau obtained by merging precarious with proletariat.[1] Unlike the proletariat class of industrial workers in the 20th century who lacked their own means of production and hence sold their labour to live, members of the precariat are only partially involved in labour and must undertake extensive "unremunerated activities that are essential if they are to retain access to jobs and to decent earnings". Specifically, it is the condition of lack of job security, including intermittent employment or underemployment and the resultant precarious existence.[2] The emergence of this class has been ascribed to the entrenchment of neoliberal capitalism."

https://www.alternet.org/americas-white ... ity-ladder
"America’s White Collar Middle Class Takes a Terrifying Slide Down the Mobility Ladder
Alissa Quart’s new book chronicles the pain of a disgruntled class that could change the country’s political landscape."

so does the vanishing white collar sort of middle class come out of their cubicles and go nazi or go social democrat?

AKA the gig economy.

"Freelancers and contract workers make up the fastest-growing segment of the American workforce, and are expected to surpass half of all workers within a decade. But, under current employment law, these workers are ineligible for most of the rights and benefits of traditional employees.

As their ranks grow so, too, do the court challenges from workers who say they are improperly classified as contractors, and wrongfully denied eligibility for things like unemployment insurance, workers' compensation, and protections under most federal anti-discrimination laws.

Popular gig platforms — such as Uber, Handy, Lyft and Instacart that allow workers to find episodic work — are at the center of many new court cases. And the disputes are renewing a debate on the issue of whether contractors are misclassified, which has existed in other industries for decades."

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""Businesses can get all the benefits of closely controlling everything that happens in the delivery of a service or the creation of a product," says Weil, a former Labor Department administrator under President Obama who enforced fair wage laws. "And yet when it comes to responsibility for basic employment conditions like health and safety, or like compliance with labor standards, our laws let them off the hook completely."

Moreover, people working as contractors cannot sue for workplace violations under most federal laws, making them vulnerable to exploitation, Weil says. In his work at the Labor Department, he says he saw cases involving exploitation of warehouse workers, for example, who were labeled contractors doing the work of employees but earning below the minimum wage.

"The probability of violation was very high where you had subcontracting, outsourcing relationships," Weil says.

Even where there are no clear violations, many contractors say the legal structure gives employers the upper hand.

Seth Dudzinski, for example, has worked in quality control for two San Francisco-area pharmaceutical companies as a contractor for the last five years. Dudzinski, 33, feels he should be classified as an employee, because he does the same work as employees, except he wears a different color ID badge.

"There is a shuttle that only full-time employees could use that is six blocks from my house, but I would have to pay to use it, so that's a little messed up," he says. The shuttle would make his commute 45 minutes, but taking public transportation takes up to two hours.

Dudzinski says he desperately wants to be hired so he can be eligible for things like stock options and employer retirement contributions, but he feels he can't push for it.

"There isn't much room to negotiate," he says. And, he says, he's keenly aware that his contractor status restricts his ability to complain."

https://www.npr.org/2018/03/07/58984059 ... ly-workers

Seems the Boss Class needs to lock up them toothbrushes.

joe4570 wrote: Wed Jul 25, 2018 9:57 pm
so does the vanishing white collar sort of middle class come out of their cubicles and go nazi or go social democrat?

I say full on totalitarian whether soviet style Marxist or fascist.

Yes: the precariat is a thing, and most of us are there, being but a few or one paycheck away from zero disposable income. This is due to policies dating back to Nixon and continuing to this day.

CDFingers

Yes, the Gig-economy is only one face of the precariat phenomenon. Wal-mart is another example of creating and taking advantage of precariat workers when employees are purposely given odd hours and less-than-full-time schedules so that management skirts having to pay for benefits and can force low-hourly-wage employees to work anytime under threat of termination.

Moar on the precariat:

The term “precariat” is so new and so little used, at least in the U.S., that every time it shows up on my screen, my computer underlines it in red as though to say it’s not a real word and that I’ve misspelled it. I have not done so.

In fact, Standing’s breakthrough book, The Precariat, which was first published in English in 2011, has been translated into 23 languages around the world and has jumpstarted conversations about work, wages, rents and global economic insecurity. I first heard the word precariat and its cousin, ”precarity” from two men who live and work in the San Francisco Bay Area, where women, children and men live lives that are increasingly precarious economically, socially and psychologically.

Keith Hennessy is a dancer; Stephen Clarke is a schoolteacher. They both used the word “precariat” on the same day, though not at the same time. I was interviewing them for an exhibit about punk, protest and performance art in the 1980s when their lives were a lot from precarious than they are now. Clarke belonged to a rock band. Hennessey performed in the streets. Both figured out how to survive in a stressful time and place, though they are still members of the precariat, which is growing by leaps and bounds in the San Francisco Bay Area where the tech industry and a new generation of millionaires, along with corporate greed and an avaricious class of landlords has pushed rents higher and higher and forced working class families to leave the city.

Once I read the word “precariat” on the lips of Clarke and Hennessey I went online and found Professor Guy Standing the author of several books including Work After Globalization (2009), The Precariat (2011) and Plunder the Commons, out later this year. I emailed him a series of questions. He provided candid, comprehensive and lengthy answers, which I have edited in the interests of compression. Welcome to the world of the precariat, which has begun to flex its muscle and to clamor for reform if not revolution.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/03/19 ... m=referral

I find it not hard to see that much of the precariat would like to visit revenge upon the 1%. Personally, I'd be OK with a top marginal tax rate of 90% and an end to gerrymandering.

CDFingers

Despite the boasts of Putin's Shit-stain and the Retrumplicans, their actions are having exactly the predicted negative effect on the healthy economy they inherited from the Obama Administration.
1) Long term government debt's interest rate has slipped below short-term (3-month) debt's rate. This rather esoteric event only happens in advance of a down-turn. If it doesn't reverse soon, a recession is certain.
2) Despite unemployment continuing the trend downward that Obama started, jobs growth fell of sharply in February, adding only 20,000 jobs--if I remember correctly, previous months added between 150,000 to 200,000 jobs. That's a HUGE downturn and a really bad sign for the economy.
3) The Fed has no plans to raise interest rates, normally a sign that they don't fear inflation, but I'm seeing prices going up, especially at the gas pumps.
4) Housing prices have stagnated.
5) International trade is falling off as China, Europe and the US are all struggling a bit. The Stain's illegal tariffs (That power belongs to Congress, not the President) have had EXACTLY the predicted bad effects. Economists of all stripes (except those dogmatic imbeciles Peter Navarro and Larry Kudlow), from left to right, going back to Adam Smith and David Ricardo and Marx ALL knew that the only effect of general sweeping trade barriers is to create shortages and increased prices, paid by those least able to afford them.

The recession is coming, folks. Trump, like Bush and Reagan before him, has rapidly fucked things up SO badly that even the super-healthy economy he and the Retrumplicans inherited, cannot withstand it. The shit-stain is sure to blame the Democrats, Obama, and the Clintons, but a the only good that comes from a bad economy is it incentivizes voters to replace bad government. As long as Democrats don't repeat their 40 year long mistake of getting complacent.

My secure union job is the only thing that makes me solidly and securely upper working class rather than precariat. Thanks to protections put in place in our binding union negotiated contract I have a guaranteed job for life (as long as I don’t royally f-ck up). Difference between confident and secure blue collar and precariat? Unions!

Upper working class is an excellent and useful term