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When Two Jobs Aren't Enough
Thousands in BC lack the full time, decent paying jobs they seek. Walk a mile on their treadmill.
Melanie Hardy, director of Career Zone employment centre, has seen client list double. Photo: J. Langille.
-
Looking for Work
As unemployment rises in BC, Surrey's mega job fair is a magnet for hopes and frustrations.
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Campbell scare mongers on minimum wage: NDP
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Mary Poppins Had It Great…
Compared to a lot of live-in nannies here on special visas. One mistreated caregiver says the program breeds 'a modern type of slavery.'
Lyn is a shy mother of two, with long black hair, slim black-framed glasses and two draining jobs that even together don't give her much hope of getting ahead.
She gave up a career in China as an accountant and moved to Vancouver five years ago so that her kids could go to school in Canada. When she's not working at her brother's store on her day off, she makes $11.50 an hour putting in up to 50 hours a week at a chain grocery store on Hastings.
It wouldn't be a bad job, but paying overtime isn't one of the boss's policies, she says. She wants what she's owed but she's scared to report it. It's the same for her co-workers. None of them are happy about the way they're treated at work, but no one wants rock the boat. For now, she chips away at the debt she acquired moving here, and pours more than half of her meager salary into rent.
Of course she wants to work as an accountant again, she says.
She has talked to the right people, she knows what it would take: language skills, time and money. Of those, she possesses not nearly enough at the moment. And though I meet Lyn at an ESL class investing still more hours to better herself, she worries she's stuck on the margins of a good life in British Columbia.
Lyn is one of thousands of largely invisible people in B.C. working two, three, sometimes more jobs in order to make ends meet, somehow piling those exhausting duties on top of caring for children and relatives while striving to gain the education needed to step up and off the low-wage treadmill.
Three years ago, the widespread nature of this tough reality in B.C. was masked by seemingly robust economic figures. In 2007 the province's unemployment rate stood at 4.2 per cent after 335,000 jobs had been created between 1997 and 2006. Beneath that surface, however, lived and worked many, many people like Lyn, as 21 per cent of women and nearly 30 per cent of men were employed in casual and non-standard work, according to a 2008 study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
And then the global economic meltdown hit, causing anyone precariously employed to hang on for dear life to what they had, for fear of being kicked loose from the job market altogether.
I ask Lyn about her prospects.
"Right now I'm afraid to think about the future," she tells me.
Changing standards
The prospects for Lyn and others like her have been shaped not only by a rough economy but by policies enacted by the B.C. Liberal government since 2001. Complex changes to the Employment Standards Act have ushered in overtime averaging rules that cause employers to pressure workers into pulling long shifts over consecutive days. Call-in periods for employees have been reduced from two to four hours, giving people less time to rearrange their lives for the sake of a shift.
Posting employment standards and work schedules in the workplace was deemed unnecessary.
Enforcement of the act switched from routine government inspection to a complaint-based system devoid of requirement to investigate complaints. Fifty per cent of standards offices were closed.
New Canadians like Lyn, who are expected to make up two thirds of B.C.'s population by 2025, are especially likely to end up on this ragged edge of the labour market, according to a 2008 Statscan study.
Their wages were lower and their likelihood of being overqualified for work was higher. They also more commonly did involuntary part-time work -- a way of saying you are working an extra job to make up for wage or hours your primary job isn't giving you. "If someone has multiple part-time jobs, it's not because they're choosing part-time employment," Sylvia Fuller, a University of British Columbia sociologist and leading expert on Canadian employment trends, told The Tyee.
"People do choose part time employment for a variety of reasons, but if they're trying to get full-time hours with multiple part time jobs, it's because they can't find the adequate full time work."
The standard employment arrangement that came to prominence in the post-war era in Canada -- the full-time, 40-hour work week that most labour policies are based on -- has lost ground.
Non-standard work has emerged in its place; lower waged work that offers few benefits, tentative contracts and little mobility, while giving employers more power to dictate terms to their workers.
The erosion
Two years ago, fewer than two out of three working Canadians had a standard employment relationship. That is, a stable, year-round, full-time position, with one employer and at one location that met their needs.
The other 36 per cent, according to Statscan, were employed in non-standard jobs; part-time permanent work, temporary full-time or part-time, self-employed employers or, by their own account, self-employed: in other words, workers that are especially vulnerable to recession and the bottom lines of private companies and governments.
Throughout the '90s and the aughts, public and private employers in Canada took a hit as economic globalization came to fruition. Manufacturing and production jobs, among others, were cut or sent off shore to keep the bottom line in tact.
Employers sought "flexibility" from their employees. New positions created tended to be part-time or temporary contracts that didn't offer the same degree of security and benefits as full-time positions.
These types of jobs aren't only vulnerable to economic insecurity; they often don't often include benefits, raises or promotions.
B.C. Liberal policy changes also increased both the supply of casual workers and the abundance of casual jobs, making it necessary for people to take nearly any available job, no matter how low paying or volatile.
Access to social assistance was complicated and restricted, along with a 30 per cent cut to the budget of the ministry of housing and social development, according to the CCPA's 2008 report on casual work. Additional changed to eligibility for single parents with children, waiting periods for social assistance and cuts to benefits furthered the likelihood of job seekers to take on non-standard, precarious work.
The privatization of crown corporations like B.C. Rail, part of B.C. Hydro and B.C. Ferries made well-paying jobs in the public service prone to cost reduction measures and cuts.
Meanwhile, the passing of bill C-29 in 2002 privatized and contracted out 9,000 jobs in B.C. health support services. This transformed accessible, dependable full time jobs, worked largely by immigrant workers, into low-wage part-time positions, which many employees now have to work two or three of to get by.
"While additional resources provide part of the solution, more must be done to develop innovative approaches to both meet the challenges and create the opportunities to better serve seniors, families and communities in our province," Colin Hansen, then minister of health services wrote in his introduction to the ministry's 2002/2003 annual service plan report.
In rural B.C., the gradual decline of forestry and logging industries shook the job market the hardest.
Between 1990 and 2008, workers in these industries endured an average 13.5 per cent unemployment rate compared to the 7.8 per cent average for all B.C. industries, according to Statscan figures supplied by a government published guide to the B.C. economy, current to Jan. 2010.
Traditionally high-paying jobs that supported families and the economies of whole communities were shed, forcing loggers and mill workers to take low-service sector jobs or seek work out of town, sometimes in other provinces.
The current Liberal administration knows that demographic shifts may also put those emerging into the B.C. labour market in a tight spot. "The overall aging of the workforce also has implications for the availability of potential labour supply to enter the workforce," concludes the 2009-2019 B.C. Labour Market Outlook. "The number of new entrants is expected to decline over time, meaning that migrants will become an increasingly important source of labour supply."
In Dec. 2009 the CAW, Canada's largest private sector union, began a nationwide campaign, taking action against the erosion of good jobs in Canada.
The B.C. Federation of Labour's campaign to raise the minimum wage to $10 per hour has been touted by many as a bare necessity in providing economic security to those in low wage positions. But the government has opted instead to "offset financial circumstances and directly target benefits to individual needs" in drug costs, trades training, child care assistance and rental assistance, Minister Murray Coell wrote to The Tyee.
"Our government has held fast to the view that there are many better and effective ways to assist these workers apart from increasing minimum wage," wrote Coell.
Over the last decade, some of Canada's top academics have been researching who's working on the most fragile edges of economies across the countries.
Their ongoing research finds that vulnerable members of the workforce, who are most likely to work over time without proper pay or work multiple part time jobs to make ends meet, are not only the new Canadians that our economy will increasingly depend on.
'It's not the way it was'
On the sixth floor of a high-rise with a view of beautiful Coal Harbor, people work a different daily grind than those on the floors above and below them.
From 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., unemployed women from all sectors of Vancouver's labour market come here to carve out a place in the economy. The YWCA's Focus at Work program offers workshops that help them assess their career interests, develop their employability and refine job-hunting skills.
In a real way, precarious work is a women's issue. More than twice as many women as men are stuck in part time work.
Statscan research from May 2009 showed that in the past 30 years, 45 per cent of "core age" women (15-24 years old) worked part-time versus just over 20 per cent of men the same age. In the last year, B.C. unemployment rates for men have dropped by 1.4 per cent, but have stayed the same for women. In July of this year, 28.1 per cent of employed women held part time jobs versus 9.3 per cent of men in B.C.
"It's not the way it was," Karen, a mother of three who's re-entering the work force after 19 years, tells me. "It's not full-time 40 hour weeks. It's casual, part-time, temporary contract..."
A chartered accountant, a manufacturing worker, a teacher from Columbia and a recent graduate are among those in the room who want back in the workforce. They're looking for jobs in the non-profit sector, social services, childcare or marketing, but they've had to meet the challenges of finding work head on.
Applying to jobs via email yields virtually nothing, they say.
The jobs they're looking for are never offered to the public, filled internally instead, or else hidden among mazes of contacts and networks. When they go for interviews, they are sometimes asked their age and the size of their family, and they sense their answers count against them. Some of them have been out of work for months, some for years. Everyone at the table wants the security that full-time work with a good organization brings. Commuting between two part-time jobs would be draining, being on call could disrupt and damage their home lives and working a temporary contract could spell disappointment, but most of them are more than willing to take the chance.
However, they're hoping that if the program works out, they won't have to.
The program claims an 82 per cent success rate and offers further help with the search once you've graduated. This approach, combined with being in a positive environment in the company of other women has been a godsend, participants said.
When I ask them what would help others in their position, they don't mince words.
One recommendation rings out with a bit more volume than the others.
More funding for progressive employment programs like this, yes, but more importantly, more available "childcare!" they exclaim, nearly in unison.
'We have to lift everybody up'
On Granville Street, past the clubs, sex shops and hostels, there is a storefront less popular than weekend haunts, but more important to the unemployed.
"We usually see about 200 new clients, now we're seeing 400... on a monthly basis... and we're not seeing it magically going away," Melanie Hardy, manager of the YWCA's Career Zone tells me.
"Youth... they're the last hired and the first fired."
The employment centre's central location in Canada's most expensive and desirable city invites a diverse clientele and a myriad of old and new trends.
A third of clients have multiple barriers to the job market. They steer around poverty, histories of sexual and substance abuse and mental health issues to get job ready.
Homelessness and unfinished high school often compound these stresses.
The remaining majority is a mélange of interests competing for a foot in the door.
University graduates are a more frequent fixture and an increasing number of internationals with temporary visas having been showing up on their doorsteps.
Highly educated 20-somethings with nothing to lose from Germany, Italy and other parts of the European Union are one more demographic in the urban Lower Mainland vying for jobs in customer service, hospitality and tourism.
These demands on the job market are meeting gradual developments head on: high paying, low-skilled jobs have been shed in the transition to a knowledge-based economy over the last 20 years. Over the last two decades, North American employers have shut down unionized factories here in favor of moves to low wage environments in the third world, leaving Canadian workers facing a job market heavily weighted towards barista and other service sector jobs
"They've been replaced by a lot of customer service, hospitality jobs, that are great, but you can't raise a family on them and pay the rent," Hardy laments.
"We have to lift everybody up, and that requires investment in education and training, as well as helping young people transition... to not just throw them out in to the labour market."
Hardy also thinks that part time or temporary opportunities can be beneficial.
She endorses an emerging employment counseling model that does away with staid assessment and one-track career exploration, instead encouraging direction by trying out many experiences. Temporary contracts and part-time jobs allow youth to try out a number of different jobs and potential careers, but these opportunities need to be formalized and supported.
Co-ops are often only offered within the corridors of education. Why not expand the possibilities for formal training provided by wage subsidies and internships to the rest of the job market?
This is where she feels government investment in job training should go, "especially in times of high unemployment like the recession. That's when you really need the government to still be engaging young people."
The worker's interests
Any search for the most precariously employed will take you beyond the glass towers and asphalt causeways of downtown, outside the sprawling Metro Vancouver suburbs, and into the fields that require planting and harvesting by human hand.
Every year, thousands of temporary foreign agricultural workers come to B.C. to work swathes of agricultural land in the Okanagan and the Fraser Valley. And the numbers are only growing.
In 2009, 3,437 temporary foreign agricultural workers came to B.C. from Mexico, South America and the Caribbean Islands, a significant increase from 1,484 in 2006. The total number of temporary foreign workers in B.C. that year was 44,381, according to Human Resources and Development Canada.
In Abbotsford in the Fraser Valley, Lucy Luna does front-line casework with farm workers on behalf of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union.
When I spoke with her, her desk was filled with E.I. claims, employment standards complaints, ICBC insurance forms and workers compensation cases.
"Anything. You name it," Luna tells me. However, organization is key.
Year in and year out, she and her staff educate temporary workers generation by generation, with the hope that in the future, more workers will want to unionize.
Only one farm is unionized in the Lower Mainland, but unionization is pivotal to protecting the rights of workers, Luna tells me. The low education level of most workers leaves them unable to advocate for themselves.
Some come to Canada with educations as low as grade six.
Opportunities for exploitation are legion.
Workers are bound to be working for one employer by their visa. If conditions are poor, if there is abuse or poor treatment, workers are often too scared to lose their job and opportunity in Canada to bring it to anyone's attention.
Even if there is a problem, if someone gets hurt or wants to leave an abusive employer, the consulates of their own countries who are supposed to represent workers are often their own worst enemy, says Luna.
"They're not representing the worker's interest. They're representing the employers' interest," says Luna.
Back in Vancouver, UBC labour economics researcher David Green confirmed for me that Luna's clients represent a burgeoning sector of precarious work in B.C..
"What a lot of labour groups are worried about, quite rightly, is that those people just feel like they have no rights," Green told The Tyee. "They don't know how to complain. They're worried they'll just lose their job and get sent back home if they do."
A better job
On the evening I meet Lyn at her ESL class on Commercial Drive in Vancouver, I enter a world hidden from most Vancouverites. Over 100 people have come from their one, two or more day jobs to gather in small classes at this education centre run by MOSAIC immigrant and refugee services.
They come three nights a week after changing beds in hotels or pulling 12-hour shifts at bakeries, staying from 6:30 till 9:30 to improve their English.
At the break, I hear Cantonese, Spanish, Vietnamese and Arabic spoken. A student sees me interviewing Lyn and steps forward to share her story.
Six days of the week, Yong spends long days making noodles for one of Chinatown's most popular restaurants. Her schedule is unpredictable and so is her pay. It's commonplace for them to not pay her on time, she tells me.
For the past year she's been taking classes at MOSAIC, working her way through the phases of the program.
When she's not at work, she's taking care of her daughter and trying to make her way through a citizenship application nightmare.
Months ago, she responded to an ad offering help filling out citizenship application forms and practicing for the test. Eager for a chance to have her forms filed and the application process underway, she went for it.
A botched application resulted in her being investigated by the government and being out thousands of dollars.
Never mind the woes of her working life, she just wants me publicize the fact that there are frauds out there trying to make money off of vulnerable new Canadians like her looking to get ahead.
I listen and write. Eventually she admits that, like so many who spend their working lives dealing with disappointment and exploitation, she wants something else. She would like to provide for her family by providing something to society other than its next bowl of noodles.
"I want to be a nurse."
Tomorrow: What B.C. labour experts are reading about the world of work. ![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
- BC snuffs out AirCare test program
- AFN national chief Shawn Atleo to launch re-election bid
- Citizens group releases video to fight undead Bill C-30
- Conservative MP says he might vote against budget, then 'clarifies' his position
- Genetically modified plants won't take root with councillors in Richmond, BC
- Hundreds at Vancouver rally to support Quebec students
- Could Fort Mac become an eco-tourist hotspot?
- Rick Hansen's Man in Motion anniversary tour concludes in Vancouver
- The Gem of Canadian Science that Harper Killed
- Who Mowed Down the Premier?
- Canada's Economy, Deconstructed (by a 12 year-old)
- Death in Remand: a Tyee Inquiry
- Now Is the Time to Talk up Big Ideas
- Sexism Tinges Criticism of Teachers' Job Action
- Bill C-38: the Environmental Destruction Act
- Death In Remand: 'A Gut Feeling'
- Bias in BC's Pesticide Decision? Follow the Bouncing Verbs
- The Ethics of Addiction Studies
- The Gem of Canadian Science that Harper Killed
- Sexism Tinges Criticism of Teachers' Job Action
- Now Is the Time to Talk up Big Ideas
- The Ethics of Addiction Studies
- Bill C-38: the Environmental Destruction Act
- Alberta Fills Pipes with Corrosive Denial
- Bias in BC's Pesticide Decision? Follow the Bouncing Verbs
- How Our Immune Systems Exaggerate Fear
- BC biotech company seeks approval for GM apple
- What's Behind BC's Doors?
- Should You Run from that Medical Test?
- 'The Dictator'
- Death in Remand: Stacked Deck
- 'Moonrise Kingdom'
- From Financial Advisor to Occupier
- Seven Goals to Build the Conservative 'Dream'
- How Our Immune Systems Exaggerate Fear
- Who Mowed Down the Premier?
- Does Simon Fraser University Need a Men's Centre?
- Now Is the Time to Talk up Big Ideas
- Double lung recipient dances on Ellen show
- ISS astronauts grab DragonX space capsule by the tail with Canada Arm
- Metro Vancouver gas prices peak at record levels
- Ottawa posts $9-billion deficit in March despite pledge to avoid spending spree
- BC phases out AirCare to focus on fighting bigger vehicle emissions
- Tsunami senors to be dropped into deep sea off of Vancouver Island
- Student groups file court challenge against Quebec protest law
- ...while on the streets, pirates and ninjas put aside mutual animosity to join student protests
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Fiat lux
1 year ago
It is a very interesting
It is a very interesting economic and ideological fact that before the present criminal economic theory was forced on us in the 70s, before "free trade" and "globalization", and the WTO etc.and before the over 1,000 inflation of living costs due to "competitive wealth creation", people have been making decent wages,could afford to buy houses and foodbanks haven't been heard of until 1981.
So, where are people's brains to put up with this crime wave ?
Canada is the richest country on Earth , even by World Bank figures, and we have the greatest child poverty etc, while the country is being sold from, under our feet to "foreign investors", some with many miles long conviction records all over the world, given immediate citizenship with "domestic treatment", so they can take over long established businesses and fire people by the thousands and steal us blind.
In the name of "globalized competition", of course.
I've been an employer of tradesmen in Vancouver from 1957 to 79 and have always made it certain that my guys were well paid, had the best conditions, because happy workers are the best producers.
Now try to explain logic to "investors" and "econonomists".
Ed Deak.
Van Isle
1 year ago
I remember back in the '50s
I remember back in the '50s when a shoe salesman could purchase a house, a car, and raise a family. His wife would work 1 or 2 days a week down at the local department store so the family could buy the little extras that they may want, like a TV. Boy, are those days long gone. We have been thoroughly sucked into this consumer/economic/financial ponsi game which has made a very few people on top very rich.
demotto
1 year ago
Bills of Exchange Act
Read it
learn it
use it.
The only way we can get out of debt as there is no money only debt notes.
sludge
1 year ago
personal responsibility?
Not trying to be a hardass here, but did Lyn, the subject of this piece, divorce her husband and then move to Canada? Did she take the kids with her and leave her husband behind? These are pertinent questions, because you are demanding my sympathy, aren't you? Why should I be sympathetic to a chinese immigrant who wants it all? That isn't racist. You have to earn my sympathy, yes? If anyone feels differently, lemme know...
Fiat lux
1 year ago
The issue is not Lyn, but
The issue is not Lyn, but the fact that millions of people are underpaid, while a certain group of criminals are legalized to steal them blind. We had no homeless and foodbanks even 30 years ago and some of us can remember the days when one breadwinner per family was enough and the schools weren't expected to serve as daycares.
Does anybody ever ask, what the hell is going on and why ? Who gave the right to our pimp politicians to permit the legalized robbery of the public ?
The same goes for taxation, where certain corporate mafia is permitted to take billions from the country, leaving people homeless, destitute, schools closed with kids having to travel for hours every day, services cut all over, only to "remain competitive", in other words the ratrace, to the bottom, called "wealth creation"
Ed Deak.
G West
1 year ago
@sludge
Sorry fella - sounds pretty racist to me...AND, it's not a question of sympathy at all - people have their own lives to lead and their own problems to deal with.
These matters are questions of equity and fairness - no one cares what you or anyone else does with your sympathy.
Period
snert
1 year ago
Two jobs
There are a significant number of people that hold down two jobs not just to hang on but to get ahead, far ahead. Most are compulsive workers. They just can't sit and do nothing with their time so they make money. A significant number of the waiting staff at mid and high end restaurants are in this boat. They have good day jobs and so do their partners. For the most part they do spend their money or at least a larger portion than most.
This makes it tough for anyone working at a subsistence wage to catch up or even get ahead because of the lock that the others hold on the better paying jobs.
warbler
1 year ago
One vast service sector
This is what happens when, over the span of just a couple of decades, you shift taxes from corporations and wealthy folk to lower class consumers, stop manufacturing things, sprout a Wal-Mart on every strip mall, import more and more stuff from China, export more and more raw materials and become little more than a glorified service sector economy in which next to nothing trickles down from the top.
And to think that we are better positioned than Americans tells you just how extra-screwed the American Lyns are.
But hey, there is hope in BC - we have state sanctioned online gaming now! And Lyn is just one virtual slot coin away from doing her happy dance!
morechatter
1 year ago
It Is What Ever You Want It To Be
Why are the Canadian banks disclosing record profits?
All the while the average Canadian is heavily indebted to that very same bank that is why the interest rates had to go up it was a demand. The very same bank that British Columbians Premier has given so many breaks to are going to find themselves out on their rear. And government is to keep spending to a minimum it is a demand of OECD as jobs loses are expected to make it an even leaner year. Borrowing money is also going to be different as banks have new rules to adbide to given Canadians don't have the ability to handle a whole bunch of new debt. Is it chicken one day and feathers the next? The economy is stagnate and the cost of food is very high and the Federal government closing down prison farms is an absolute crime.
morechatter
1 year ago
Correction
the very same banks that British Columbians have given so many banks thanks to their premier and Carol Taylor no doubt are going to find themselves out on their rear. Two heads are better than one dosn't apply to jobs.
kootenay
1 year ago
Work Force Destabilization
The flourish of Part time jobs created in the market place has several purposes;
Destabilize the work force; nobody knows when their next shift is going to be or how long their job is going to last for
As an added bonus Companies save a lot of money as employees no longer qualify for Medical Benefits, Pension Contributions, Stat Holidays, or any Paid Holidays for that matter
Snert's comment above is a perfect example of the desired effect on the workforce. Citizens are already so desperate for work they are scraping with each other over who has the best part time job.
This further empowers Employers continue to lower wages and benefits knowing full well there is always someone desperate enough to take their shitty jobs and offer no resistance to the dehumanization of the workplace.
It’s a neoliberal dream come true. One only needs to look south of border to Mexico and beyond to see our future.
morechatter
1 year ago
I give up
So many breaks to like taxes and I believe it was the finance minister, Carol Taylor who made it all a reality before going away to work for the same big banks as government represents the best interests of the people of BC.
Jerry Munro
1 year ago
The Doublespeak of Sludge and other Rwingers...
"Not trying to be a hardass here, but..." Sludge.
Rwingers talk funny. (Actually, with forked tongues.)
Right after he says the above, he then immediately in fact, is a rwing hardass and a racist... all in one breath. They catch this doublespeak from each and pass it on to the other... which especially skilled doublespeaker is Campbell. (Goebels was the one who first defined it, and wrote it down as an ideological treatise of sorts... "A lie repeated often and loud enough..." and so on.
"I'm not going to break any union contracts.", and the immediately after the election comes the "but" and he breaks union contracts, as HEU workers and others should well know.
Fiat lux
1 year ago
Coyote....According to the
Coyote....According to the prophet Milton Friedman and his disciples in our universities, "unions are trade distortions as they eliminate competition in the workforce" and "employers should pay what the worker is worth to them" I have the book and can quote the whole chapter
But corporate mafia unions, like the Bilderberger and Trilateral gangs are "trade enhancement".
Obviously, what they're discussing at their secret, "invitation only " meetings is how to compete against each other.
Ed Deak.
appalbarry
1 year ago
How Far can It Go?
I've returned to school to study accounting at age 53 because I could no longer see surviving in the non-profit sector. I would kill to find a reliable, decently paid job for even three days a week.
By reliable I mean - set hours, set days, and a likelihood that it will continue for more than four weeks.
In two years of job hunting in Vancouver I've found:
- I am considered way over qualified for most jobs, and ruled out immediately for others because of age. Jobs that I would take in a flash, but that are never offered.
- I highly doubt that I'll see benefits, much less dental work, in the next five years.
- Every employer I've dealt with in two years has offered sporadic or irregular work - there is no long term commitment to employees.
- One employer delivered notice of a ten percent pay cut to workers by letter. While he was literally on a plane to Bangkok for his honeymoon.
- Everyone that I know is juggling multiple temp and part time jobs, and is barely surviving. None of them hold out much hope of steady work.
Rip-offs of wages, overtime, holiday pay, and other things are the norm in BC. Employers know that employees will seldom complain, and government will seldom enforce. The latest scam in construction is forcing employees to pay for their own WCB coverage.
Surely all of this is doing immense harm to this province, and to this country.
Barry
Jerry Munro
1 year ago
Re More on Doublespeak... from Fait...
"Obviously, what they're discussing at their secret, "invitation only " meetings is how to compete against each other." wrote Fait Lux.
You know it, Ed. :-D
freebear
1 year ago
Most sheep have their heads down grazing!
"Does anybody ever ask, what the hell is going on and why ? Who gave the right to our pimp politicians to permit the legalized robbery of the public ?"
I suppose because just enough Canadians have well paying jobs; so they put their heads down and keep grazing while they can!
Jeffrey J.
1 year ago
What Ed Deak Says
What Ed Deak says is correct (Fiat Lux). And what he said last week. For those who don't get it, please read his posts over and over again.
Great article!!
Luck
1 year ago
who is complaining anyway so you think....
who is complaining anyway so you think its bad now just wait until 2013 when the gordo liberals get back in again.
According to stats canada 85% of canadians do not care about change. They do not care if they vote or not. So if you don't vote you can not complain.
If you do not vote and complain then you are cheating the system.
My neighbour is 49 years of age and is an in and out of work tradesman. Most families have been working 2 jobs for over fifteen years now, so were have you all been.
I do not feel sorry for the sad assed people who don't care, don't support UNIONS and don't vote and have 3 jobs.
I have seen happier people in third world countries who have at least have the balls to stand up and be heard by voting even in face of death.
People in BC and the rest of canada must start taking responsibility for our miserable state of affairs.
Get rid of these so called political leaders have led us into doom and gloom and allow real leaders to surface.
For the people who feel it is too far gone with corruption, please step aside, shutup and let real men and women lead the way.
Wonder if the bc conservatives under an out of town leader can pull win off in 2013??
Nice to see rest of canada is watching BC.
Remember what a statemen once said, "if it can get real bad then there is opportunity for it too get real good again".
Failing that then the right to bare arms with a civil war is required to clean up the country.
I am sure we all have our favorite targets.
kasi_visvanath
1 year ago
jobs jobs jobs
another excellent if appalling story on Tyee; excellent comments as well reminding us just how much the Liberals screwed the ordinary folks who live here in B.C., just to benefit their rich friends in the business sector. the ongoing rape and pillage of the former middle classes, being demoted through Government re-regulation efforts to lower, can't pay the bills class.
Fiat lux
1 year ago
Mexico is an excellent
Mexico is an excellent example of the work of the so called "free trade" fraud, called NAFTA. And it is coming to Canada and the whole world.
This is what's called "global competitiveness". Otherwise known as "seigneurs' rights" and permanent war.
Ed Deak.
Jerry Munro
1 year ago
Ruling Class Unions I...
"Coyote....According to the prophet Milton Friedman and his disciples in our universities, "unions are trade distortions as they eliminate competition in the workforce" and "employers should pay what the worker is worth to them" I have the book and can quote the whole chapter
But corporate mafia unions, like the Bilderberger and Trilateral gangs are "trade enhancement"." wrote Fait Lux.
I feel there is a need to address and acknowledge a little more, something, a truth, that should not be ignored, that our friend Ed Deak addresses here, and that is "the class organization" of the ruling class.
For this "corporate mafia" of which Ed speaks is indeed highly organized into its own unions and international level of unions, as its own "special interest group". Of which they tend to speak sometimes, as if it is only the "wage slave" or "trade union" sector that is a "special interest group"... echoed and parroted by the Rwingers here and everywhere.
There is indeed no more highly organized, disciplined or effective class organization into a "special interest group" than is the ruling class... into local "chambers of commerce" and sundry "business round-tables", which have their own provincial and national levels. As well there are the various "sectoral interest" organizations, with their own hierarchical levels, such as forestry, mining, manufacturing. retail, restaurants etc., etc. And then, at the international level, of course, there are such as the Bilderberger Group, the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations etc. (They are manifold and extensive across the globe.) With all the weight of these "ruling class" organizations, often drawing in others such as Peter Mansbridge, the dupe, directed toward influencing and less subtly directing international/global economic policy on the part of various State governments etc.)
In short, this is not the little individual corner mom and pop shop capitalism we are talking about here. But a highly organized movement of a ruling class, in control and benefiting from its control of "the commanding heights" of national and international economies, and State's policies.
Continued next post...
Jerry Munro
1 year ago
Ruling Class Unions II...
Continuing from previous post...
Alongside this level of "Union organization" of the ruling class", the working class still has a long ways to go indeed. (Though the international working class is not entirely without its own global "power" structures either: ILO's etc.)
So, feel sorry not for the poor little "non-special interest group" businessman or woman out there, who is constantly decrying "Big Labour". For they know that we are "objectively", even if the lower levels of the working class don't always know it, "class enemies", with diametrically opposed interests at the "work place" level of the economy, AND in the global "international" workplaces of the economy, systems of trade and finance etc.
You want to take these sonsofbitches on, you had better be prepared, know what you are doing, have your ass drawn up tight and be courageous, or stay home and suck up the shit they are going to send down the pipe, your way.
I, of course, am a fool perhaps. I think we should take them on... We are the mass of the populace, and we occupy a not insignificant place in the economy as well. Indeed, they should try running it successfully without us... though they keep trying with technological change.
THE END...
dorothy
1 year ago
@ G West @ sludge
I really can't see it's racist! The man is questioning the quality of somebody's actions, not her skin color or genetics.
Personally, I think it is a poorly chosen example. It starts with saying she burned her bridges so her children could get to go to school in Canada. Well, they got to do that - n'est-ce pas? So other things did not work out so well. It is really quite a muddified picture! Better to write about soemone who grew up here and went to school here and got quite decent grades, i.e. C+, and then it didn't work too smashingly well for them. It would have kept the focus clearer in the story. Yes, there may be a special plight of immigrants, but is that what this story is about?
Quite aside, China is one of the places to which outsourcing happens from here. So over there, are they thinking of that, or are they just lapping up their 'economic miracle'? If so, it is a little bit trying for the patience for somebody from China to act this gobsmacked that the streets are not pave with gold here! Is it only Westerners who have an obligation to question where all the good stuff comes from and what it might cost others? I find the condescension in that differentiation far more racist than anything sludge said!
aalborg
1 year ago
I have no idea why anyone
I have no idea why anyone would come to BC to educate their children. If Lyn was an accountant in China it would seem she could educate her children at private schools there. Our public schools leave a lot to be desired and I wouldn't willingly send my child to get an education at one of them. There has to be another reason she wanted to come to Canada. Living as she does and seeing the reality of the BC school system you would think she'd pack up and go back to China. The grass is certainly not greener here.
dorothy
1 year ago
Here's an idea...
I notice that there is a mention of 'children'. So I am wondering if 'other reasons' might include a non-desire to follow the one child policy in her homeland.
Maybe it is time to realize that we shouldn't just blindly keep importing people when there is nothing better to offer them. Reading that "New Canadians like Lyn, who are expected to make up two thirds of B.C.'s population by 2025...", one wonders why there will be all those 'new Canadians',since they obviously aren't desperately needed as extra hands. Is nobody in charge, and if somebody is, what are they tripping on?
G West
1 year ago
Well dorothy
First of all, Lyn is not white bread Canadian - the implication is that she, from another country and race came here: ...and that she might have "divorce(d) her husband and then move(d) to Canada? Did she take the kids with her and leave her husband behind?"
All of this is irrelevant - in my opinion - and bringing it up is, as I wrote, is a racist and prejudicial approach.
At the very least, it's sexist and jingoistic.
It demeans her as a woman, as a chattel and as someone who came to Canada from somewhere else - it implies her problems are simply 'her' fault...while we know from the rest of the story that she's doing her level best to 'make it' in this society on horrendously unfair terms.
It shouldn't matter who you are or where the hell you're from, you should be able to work at a job that will provide the necessities for living a decent life in this country without becoming a slave.
Furthermore, she also clearly has family in this country so why wouldn't she want to come here and, once here, she deserves no worse treatment than anyone else.
I do agree the author might have chosen a better example - because there are lots of people born and bred here who are in the same boat.
However, attacking the exemplar the author chose on the basis sludge did was, without question (and again in my view) a racist attack.
That was, as sludge asked readers to do, why I reacted with what I wrote.
It was a racist analysis.
Marysue52
1 year ago
working 2-3 jobs
I worked one full time and two part time jobs for years to support my two kids (one, brain-damaged from brith), and I had bad health, too--most of it related to the traumatic labour which wound up almost killing my brain-damaged son and I. The strain damn near killed me and has likely shortened my life expectancy, and that of my damaged son. Men, as a whole, would rather pay %50 to watch the Canucks and drink overpriced beer than help single moms' kids. It does, indeed, take a village to raise a child--especially a damaged one. Men as a wholw, alas, don't give a rat's ass. Single men get more support from women than women get from men. Most Men just want to stay kids forever, it seems.
rantnic
1 year ago
"WORKING HARDER ISN'T WORKING"
I read that quote in a good book the with the same title. The quality of my life has been eroded by the work-a-day world, while trying to get ahead in this society we live in. I missed a lot of what could have been a much more enjoyable life. Being sucked into the belief that I must be a "productive".member of our society, I worked harder and what did I get? More work.
We now live in a province where one good paying job (with benefits) is equal to four of those part time "great jobs" that the HST is suppose to create. The concept of the single income family is now a thing of the past unless you are one of the privelged. Others must put their children in all day kinder garden making them available to man the great, "newly created" "new jobs", in our wonderful "Liberal" economy.
dorothy
1 year ago
G West, go easy on that Dymo...
"..It demeans her as a woman, as a chattel and as someone who came to Canada from somewhere else - it implies her problems are simply 'her' fault..."
To examine people's reasons, try to sort their motivation, and analyze what is knotty in their situation, that is 'sexist'? I beg to differ. If a man misuses the mandate he has been given as a breadwinner to keep everyone under his heel, if he turns into a control freak and instigates a regime of horror at home, no one has problems labeling him as a 'sick' person, who is a gross failure in life. So, conversely, if a woman manages her procreative and child-care situation less than optimally, it is 'sexist' to question the quality of her decisions? Hogwash!
As for 'jingoistic', where do I say anything about this woman's presence being bad for Canada or Canadians? Au contraire, I say it's not fair to let her come in here, when she will not be offered anything better.
I have no control over the market and its machinations. It's a fairly simple calculation that if there is a tremendous surplus of 'human resources' somewhere in the Wold, this can and will be used to make it a buyer's market when it comes to worforce. It's no one's fault, for we have seen the alternative, the Soviet Union where there was a right to work legislation in place, and that country went broke.
I don't know what the solution is, but I do know that we will not get an intelligent - or any - discussion going here that goes anywhere, if people cannot post controversial views and do brainstorming without you being all over them with you label-printer.
I challenge you to take apart what I have written here and show me where there is a racist/sexist/jingoist bias. Do the analysis instead of just flinging names. It's so not like you - what's happened?
Jerry Munro
1 year ago
A counter to Dorothy's Obfuscation Hypothesis...
Please, take your meds, dorothy. :-)
Of course you have no control over the market. On the other hand, you have chosen to join with Sludge in diverting attention from the MAIN issue here, which is the shitty wages many folks, men and women, but especially women, regardless of race or where they come from, are making within current "free market" society. And not just here, but worldwide throughout the system.
That's the issue, not this other nitpicky poop you keep raising to an obfuscating effect.
Likewise, you outright side with those Capital forces that do in fact control the free market, and fundamentally set the conditions and rules under which it works:
"It's a fairly simple calculation that if there is a tremendous surplus of 'human resources' somewhere in the World, this can and will be used to make it a buyer's market when it comes to workforce. It's no one's fault," Dorothy.
Again, you are effectively saying, along with the ruling class, that market forces are "objective" and outside the manipulations and control of anyone. If this indeed is the case, societies everywhere need to get on it right away and make the market serve the interests of "the people", not dollars and stuff, and the capitalists who profit from these manipulations and vulnerabilities of people.
There is a fault, and someone, some class, even shared human tolerance of it to blame.
You are spinning your wheels again, gone off the main track, and are siding with neo-liberal ruling class logic. Which does not make it "objective logic" outside of human control or nothing we nor anyone can do anything about. That's a choice, and a failure/refusal to act to correct.
The main issue is that this economic environment has been artificially created to benefit the global ruling class, and has been and is articulated and driven as part of neo-liberal "economic" ideology... the current thinking of the ruling class.
In my view, you are wrong again Dorothy. I'll stand with this woman of whatever race, though she could as like be a man, anyday over the thinking and likes of such as yourself and Sludge (an appropriate moniker in this case.)
Your "hypothesis" does not stand up to objective scrutiny. And it serve a ruling class perspective, and a conservative/quasi fascist ideology, not that of society as a whole.
Fiat lux
1 year ago
An economy must work on the
An economy must work on the same principle as our roads, where anybody is permitted to travel anywhere, provided they comply with and follow strict laws, protecting their own and the properties and lives of others, enforced by an independent agency.
If the big guys are not permitted to force anybody off the roads, they shouldn't have the right to do it in economics. It is a totally different thing when people are not permitted, or can not drive with faulty vehicles, or with faulty products on the so called "marketppace", than being forced into poverty by some crooks so they can steal their income and account it as "earnings" and GDP. I have seen countless examples where real professionals have been forced out
with criminal activities and know the names of some of the biggest , billionaire, crooks who have been and are doing it
Small producers can be, and most of the time are, more efficient, in the real concept of the word, than huge production runs in China, sold as "cheap products" in Canada. Which is, incidentally, another proof of communists and capitalists being brothers under the skin, both getting their powers from crime and oppression.
The ownership of a business, or playing the stockmarkets, are not supposed to be legalized theft, but under the present laws they are.
Ed Deak.
G West
1 year ago
@ dorothy
First of all, I think I was pretty clear that most of my original words were written in response to a post from sludge, not from you. Secondly, I wouldn't even have bothered responding to sludge if he'd come back to justify his remarks.
On the other hand, your reply did and does necessitate a response.
Furthermore, I acknowledged, you'll note, that the writer might have chosen a better exemplar – by that I meant an avatar more carefully chosen to delineate the general case for providing all people with a decent living wage (not wages). We know so little about ‘Lyn’ and it’s so easy to speculate about how much ‘better’ her choices ‘might have been’ – if, for example, you or I had been running her life. I know you’ll pick up the irony in that sentence!
As for my conclusions, I believe that sludge's remarks can be categorized accurately in exactly the fashion I used to classify them.
The point, surely, is NOT to reason from what seems to me to be a facile analogy extrapolated from the particular experiences of one individual (not Lyn, not you, not me), but to understand and appreciate the difficulties the current 'system' with its 'values' (or lack of them) is creating for a whole 'range' or class of individuals struggling to make their way within it. Lyn, to me, is nothing more than one more telling example of many persons victimized by a corrupt and rotten system: That’s the problem – not that she’s a woman, a mother or an immigrant….in my view, focusing a critique of her as an individual is, as I wrote, offside.
I am more than prepared to judge the system; I am totally unwilling to judge the individuals – especially ones with such a low profile and so lacking in personal power and agency as an anonymous individual (and an immigrant)chosen (from among scores of thousands of possible subjects) for a short article by a freelance journalist.
I'll stick to what I said. One's critique of the market and its machinations should not be reduced to a simple question of laying on layers of 'personal' guilt and judgmental analysis which amounts to attacking an individual for being the individual they are. That is, according to my lights, what's going on here.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to explain my thinking more clearly.
sunshine coast girl
1 year ago
And of course,
then you have the "privileged ones" who, after running their mother's flower store finally make it big and rake in big bucks as BC's finance minister, not because they can add, but because they are really good at brown-nosing!
Whalley Guano
1 year ago
Two jobs
Part of the problem for new immigrants is that provincial and union groups, with the intention of keeping standards high, reject the credentials of professionals from countries other than the U.S., the U.K. or South Africa. Thus it becomes very onerous for adults raising a family (as profiled in the article) to pay the bills and upgrade their education. So we have doctors, engineers, teachers from other countries who are driving taxis, painting nails, taking care of our elderly parents and not doing what they were educated to do. This needs to be addressed as well. It's one thing to blame the Liberals (who I do not vote for) but we need to look at how we can be part of the solution as well and not just fob it off on our current bogeyman.
dorothy
1 year ago
the wrong tree
"you are effectively saying, along with the ruling class, that market forces are "objective" and outside the manipulations and control of anyone."
Nope. We could, and intended to, as seen by our procreation management parameters, manipulate those forces by keeping the 'human resources' supply on an even keel, so that people never became a cheap commodity. This is being forestalled by the insane ongoing import of doctors and engineers, who wind up driving taxis or scrubbing floors. Obviously, things are not falling apart for lack of those skills, or else a way would be found around the credentials crunch. But for those Canadian-origin people who rely on taxi-driving and floor-scrubbing for a living, the effect sucks. They are now a cheaper commodity, and this was the whole idea. The 'ruling class' do not care about wasted human potential. So, I am emphatically not understanding why the 'working class' advocates the ongoing import of more people and brand those who speak against it as racist and worse. We are, as I said in Lyn's case, doing no one a favor by inviting them here to slog it out at minimum or less. All we are doing is enabling the same crap going on in the severely overpopulated parts of the World for longer, where it would be better the sooner the stuff hit the fan so that they could fight their own fight for decent living conditions instead of being 'rescued' to here, which we have just seen is no rescue at-all.
If we choose that course, there is at least a chance that we might play from a position of strength and give these people a real helping hand, instead of seeing our own situation even-stevened out to the point where we are all brothers and sisters in sucking bottom-scraping misery and no one is able to help anyone else.
So, I do not agree that Lyn and the choice of her as an example is a red herring or that my 'attacking' it, rather than her, is a side issue and a help to the 'other' guys. I think it's right in the solar plexus of the main issue, but thanks for making you positions clear, G West and Coyote.
G West
1 year ago
I still think these are red herrings
This article, as its subhead makes clear, is about ..."The thousands in BC (who) lack the full time, decent paying jobs they seek. Walk a mile on their treadmill."
Attacking Lyn and immigrants generally who are NOT responsible for this absurd situation is a waste of valuable effort. The oil sands project alone brings in tens of thousands of 'temporary' guest workers every year - that's the anomaly, not a few health care workers or immigrants with families like Lyn and certainly not anyone's procreation 'choices'.
The main issue is the fact that the people with the power to make changes in this society are more interested in rewarding their friends than trying to address the fact that a hell of a lot of Canadians can't afford to live here any longer.
And we make their obfuscating and dissembling easier by turning what ought to be righteous fire on our own brothers and sisters.
Sorry, but that's the way I see it.
Frank
1 year ago
Elections matter
Well over half the people in BC have been hurt by this government. Yet in spite of the fact we have elections only 25% voted for the government we find that only 23% bothered to vote against the government.
Campbell could have been turfed way back in 2005. The last 5 years of abuse heaped on BCers was not necessary.
Frank
1 year ago
realisticman? Luke? Wilf? Sask Resident?
Don't you guys want to post anything in defence of slavery and poverty or are you going to sit this one out and let the merits of those two things speak for themselves??
lynn
1 year ago
Under Duress and Silenced
Quote:
"Posting employment standards and work schedules in the
workplace was deemed unnecessary.
Enforcement of the act switched from routine government
inspection to a complaint-based system devoid of requirement to investigate complaints. Fifty per cent of standards offices were closed."
The slippery phrase :"a complaint-based system devoid of requirement to investigate complaints " says it all.
Welcome to The Best Place on Earth.
lynn
1 year ago
sorry, mea culpa :
Make that:
The phrase:"a complaint-based system devoid of requirement to investigate complaints" says it all.
The "slipperiness" is not in this perceptive phrase but in "the complaint-based system devoid of requirement to investigate complaints ".
A very fine phrase. A very sly system.
dorothy
1 year ago
Frank -
"...only 23% bothered to vote against the government.
Campbell could have been turfed way back in 2005. The last 5 years of abuse heaped on BCers was not necessary."
You're not by any chance turning your ought-to-be-righteous fire on brothers ans sisters here, are you??
RickW
1 year ago
dorothy
You answered that in a subsequent post, referring to immigrant doctors forced to drive cabs, etc.
It's called creating a very large labour pool, in order to keep wages down. And that is out and out manipulation - not at all what the likes of Friedman alluded to with his anti-organized labour diatribes. The markeplace, in order to work, must deal on a one-on-one contractual basis. But when government just "keeps blindly importing people" at the (unspoken) behest of the more infulential businesses, it skews the marketplace, and results in a need for the Friedman-detested "organized labour".
No mystery at all.
RickW
1 year ago
General Query
Do people such as Lyn, with three and more jobs, offer up the federal Conservatives and/or provincial Liberals an opportuniy to reduce unemployment numbers by counting her and the others as several working people?
zalm
1 year ago
Not to pile on or anything but....
...it bears a comment to sludge, who, for all the wrong reasons sincerely meant what he/she said about people making inappropriate immigration choices based on how our government and media sells Canada
as the "Greatest place on earth".
Want to emigrate to Canada? You need a score of 67,
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/skilled/assess/index.asp
Just try to do it without a spouse. If you aren't a physician educator with a doctorate and completely fluent in both official languages, it's nearly impossible to get enough points.
Lyn pretty much had to have immigrated with a husband.
I'm also sorry for the various school-leavers making their way in our society with less than stellar educational credentials. For whatever reason - uninspiring teaching, lack of effort, bad attitude - these poor slobs are destined to occupy the lower stratum of our society as the cold, dead hand of the market slaps them blow after blow until they end up collecting like leaves in our doorways and gutters.
There aren't many more unionized mill jobs for those with a grade ten education.
dorothy
1 year ago
Zalm
"I'm also sorry for the various school-leavers making their way in our society with less than stellar educational credentials. For whatever reason - uninspiring teaching, lack of effort, bad attitude..."
How about teachers that are occupied elsewhere? Such as the kid of a friend of mine, who sat in the back of the class and was made to finish his grade one math-book a second time after having finished it in kindergarten already, while immigrant parents told my friend that this teacher was 'an angel' because she had run ESL teaching for a group of immigrant children inside regular class, so they 'could now read English'. Guess what - my friend's son is one of those school-leavers. How many times do you need to get the message that people will bend over backwards for something new and pitiable, while being fair-haired and blue-eyed an born in Canada - you can go to Hel?
G West
1 year ago
there are other ways
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/business/index.asp
Which don't involve friends, family or education.
All you really need is 'scratch'....
RickW
1 year ago
G West.....
...perhaps as in "Old Scratch"......?
dorothy
1 year ago
G West
"there are other ways"
Not clear to me what you mean. Other ways to do what? Are you suggesting Lyn should have been an entrepreneur-class kind of immigrant or what?
G West
1 year ago
I think it's pretty clear
If you have enough scratch (a euphemism for cash) all doors will open...regardless of how poorly educated you are...or how few members of your family live in Canada, or how badly you speak either official language.
Had she been one of those - folks with lots of scratch - she wouldn't be working two or three jobs to try and make ends meet.
The point is, rules only apply to poor people and there are a fuck of a lot more poor people in the world...time was when Canada was a place for poor people from all over the world to get a chance in a fairer, more equitable place than they came from..
I miss that Canada - and I don't much like the one where we bring in guest workers to undercut the wages of the folks who are already here and we pretend we're too high and mighty now and we can be selective about who gets in and who doesn't.
RickW
1 year ago
money talks.......
Many people would equate "cash" with "old scratch".....
dorothy
1 year ago
There's that paradigm...
"..If you have enough scratch (a euphemism for cash) all doors will open...regardless of how poorly educated you are...or how few members of your family live in Canada, or how badly you speak either official language."
When I was younger, I believed that the money were in most people's mind equated with 'quality', with some degree of superior intelligence or ability, which would be the door-opener per se. Now I have become a good deal more cynical and realized something much worse: What we are seeing is the sustained brotherhood of the fearful, driven people. Those of us who are at peace with life and with the world around us may occasionally come into some money, because we are usually very good at what we do, but as a rule, those who hoard up 'obscene wealth' are sick, driven people, for whom money, lots of money play the same role as the 'lots of guns' in 'the Matrix' - to hopefully dazzle and fool everyone and everything including Death, into passing by their door. Most would certainly never admit to this, but you can follow it down through history, both the history of mankind and the individual histories of people.
So, the doors being opened is because, by possessing wealth enough to grease palms as you go, you have essentially proven that you are one of the scared crowd, not one of those other people who are themselves scary, those not afraid of life. They are not considered safe to be around, for who knows where you might be taken to in their company? So, effort is extended to exclude them,and many are to be found among the poorer crowd, for money was never what made them tick.
ERGO, what looks like gross injustice is really just a particularity kind of pathology, which will sooner or later crash into its own failure to harmonize with the cosmos and will be destroyed through natural consequences. It is the job of people not affected by the illness to stick together and try to make sure at least some of us survive the fallout, for if all the World will be left with is the sad remnants of that sick crowd, we are done.
RickW
1 year ago
Money......
....was the measure (so we were told) of the competence of those who had it. In a society intent on measuring all, money was the indicator of who worked smart (which we thought meant hard as well).
Then some bright spark got the idea that all he had to do was accumulate money (or give the impression of accumulating money),and it was irrelevant what was done to accomplish that, and VOILÀ, the lottery was born.
lynn
1 year ago
"In a society intent on measuring all...."
Well said, Rick W.
That's the danger in becoming obsessively distracted and seduced by measurement itself (a property integral to highly competitive and ambitious societies), you risk falling in love with the dead abstraction instead of life.
RickW
1 year ago
The Worship of Time......
....for time's sake.
We've long since forgotten that time is a fiction.
All of this brings to mind the Commandment: "Thou Shall Have No Other Gods Before Me."