FIGHT the Hegemony of Temp Agencies
with PEOPLE POWER, Part II !!
Free counters provided by Honesty.com.
TEMP SLAVES REVOLT AGAINST PRE-MATURE BURIAL!!!
click here to join a discussion group in Silicon Valley on how to sue your temp agency in a CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT ... forget the humiliation of unemployment compensation .... click now!
click here to join another posting group and make your replies heard ASAP ... angry and fired temp engineers from the Department of Defense are willing to sue ... read about it here.
<
"OVERWHELMING RESPONSES TO TEMP JOBS BY UNEMPLOYED HOLDERS OF MASTERS DEGREES"
[excerpts from a New York Times article by DAVID LEONHARDT}
[...] The number of applicants at some agencies has doubled, while the number of job listings has fallen 20 percent or more in the last few months.
[...] The struggle of ... millions of temporary workers nationwide is perhaps the starkest sign of how rapidly the labor market has shifted since late last year.
[...] temporary employment has ... fallen by 20 percent, or 500,000 people. That is more than the combined PAYROLL REDUCTIONS at automakers, restaurants, hotels and department stores.
[...] That these stuggles are now common in ... [the] nation's economic slowdown, has spread well beyond the industrial Midwest ... many people have found their financial situation becoming precarious over the last year.
[...] "Every door I've knocked on, they say, 'We have a hiring freeze on," [she] said, adding that the few openings she has found are for low paying clerical jobs ... I think it's going to get worse before it gets a little better."
[...] One 37-year old woman said she had made $80,000 a year when working in the Human Resources department of an accounting firm in Chicago but has been unable to find a job paying $50,000[.] In the meantime, she is earning $12 an hour -- the equivalent of $24,000 a year -- doing a six month project for a medical laboratory.
[...] Besides increasing the supply of temporary workers, the recent layoffs have also reduced the demand for jobs ... as companies cut their temporary work forces as well.
[...] Quality Distribution, a trucking company ... relied on about 50 temps a year ago, is down to about 15 now: "For the first time in a long time, when we advertise, we just get an OVERWHELMING response ... We get people who are clearly OVERQUALIFIED for the types of positions we're recruiting for."
SEND YOUR GRIEVANCES TO PREZ GW "GIGI" BUSH, TODAY!
MASSIVE LAYOFFS HEMORRHAGE the U.S. Economy, Making Our Working and Middle Classes Deathly and Anemic: Wall Street Cheers and Celebrates!
[exerpted from David Leonhardt's article in a recent NY Times article]
"[...] Goodyear Tire & Rubber, Dell Computer and Nortel Networks are the latest to announce plans to lay off thousands and thousands of employees, joining companies like DaimlerChrysler, Lucent Technologies, Sara Lee and Whirlpool ... with their announcements of plans to eliminate about 140,000 jobs[.]
[...] As the economy's growth has slowed, investors expect managers to restore profit gains quickly, and cheer the announcement of major cost cuts and layoffs ... recent cuts have consisted almost entirely of quickly imposed mass layoffs, forcing thousands of workers to hunt for new jobs.
[...] Companies have little incentive ... because large job cuts appeal to investors and Wall Street analysts looking for signs of aggressive cost-cutting.
[...] In January, an index of consumer confidence posted its steepest drop in 10 years, largely because people expect the economy to be worse off in six months than it is today.
from the LONDON FINANCIAL TIMES, on the U.S. Economy & FIRING of TEMPS:
"... a slowdown in the US economy has forced companies to curb their rapid expansion. Take Corning, a long-established glass-maker that has turned itself into the world's biggest supplier of optical fibre for communications networks, and glass for liquid crystal displays. As a result, its staff numbers expanded from 16,000 in the mid-1990s to 40,000.
"At the end of last week, Corning said sales of optical components would not double this year, as it had believed. With customers such as Nortel cutting back their orders, it now thinks sales of components will increase 50 per cent. Having CUT ALL OF THE TEMPORARY WORKERS in its manufacturing plants two weeks ago, Corning now plans to start LAYING OFF PERMANENT EMPLOYEES as well."
from the NEW YORK TIMES
"Temp Agency Slavery Soon to be as Conspicuous as Dutch West Indies Slave Shipping"
[excerpted]
"[...] Terry O'Sullivan, the president of the AFL-CIO's Laborer's Union, said LABOR READY had sent temporary workers across picket lines in at least six strikes the last few years.
While union ranks have been stagnating, TEMPORARY WORK has been growing by leaps and bounds ... revenue from the TEMPORARY WORKER INDUSTRY is expected to reach $140 million this year ... with 90 percent of American companies now using temporary workers.
The union campaign has had a limited effect on LABOR READY.
[...] The company is now rebuilding its sales force. In July, the founder and chief executive, Glenn Welstad, was forced to resign after the board accused him of taking an unauthorized loan of $3.5 million to cover a margin call on his LABOR READY stock ... LABOR READY says it is the top provider of manual laborers for temporary tasks, but it remains a NICHE PLAYER with revenue only now approaching $ ONE BILLION DOLLARS.
[...] Union officials said their members were paid $15 an hour plus benefits.
[...] LABOR READY ... last year paid workers and average of $6.94 an hour ... but makes NO PROVISION for current health care and has NO PENSION FUND.
The AFL-CIO's goal, ... "is to UNIONIZE THE WORKERS OF THE TEMPORARY AGENCIES."
from the New York Times
[excerpts from reporter LESLIE EATON]
AN ECONOMIC DISASTER OF BIBLICAL PROPORTIONS
"[...] Job growth has slowed in the northern suburbs and on Long Island, and has stalled in parts of New Jersey and Connecticut, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
[...] High tech centers like San Francisco, Bost and Austin, Tex., are also showing some weakness as individuals and corporations throttle back on their computer purchases.
[...] This is bad news not only for investors, but also for Wall Street. When stocks decline, securities firms may make a little money from trading, but they lose the huge fees they make from initial public offerings and mergers.
The stock market is not the only problem. The bond business has also been bad. And securities firms have been hit with a wave of mergers.
Industry estimates suggest that 10,000 workers will be laid off, most of them in New York.
[...] The industry ... is now warning of a cataclysm for the city if its profits plunge.
"The disaster to the city's and state's budgets, economies and job markets could be biblical in proportion."
Hot off the NEW YORK TIMES presses!
from a story by DAVID LEONHARDT
OVER 30 MILLION "FREELANCERS" in the US Today!
[summary of the article]
"Self Employment Will Grow in the Coming Years"
WHY??
* Before WWII, America had many many more independent farmers
* All the widespread layoffs among white collar workers in the late 80s and early 90s
* More than 30 million Americans now call themselves "freelancers" [rather than temps], or "self-employed
MAIN DRAWBACK: HealthCare costs have grown faster and higher for self-employed than for the big companies. Other forms of NON-TRADITIONAL employment, like TEMPORARY HELP and telecommuting, are quickly gaining ground in our BOOM BOOM BOOM economy!
"ECONOMIC SLOWDOWN & Stagnation"
by Louis Uchitelle
[Excerpted from a recent New York Times feature story]
"[...] "We are in an economic slowdown," said Mickey Levy, chief economist at Bank of America. "EMPLOYERS are clearly HOLDING BACK on hiring and adding hours much more slowly for those on their payrolls."
... [in] August, 91,000 jobs disappeared ... the federal payroll ... has shrunk by 320,000.
[...] Private-sector employment has registered a similar DECLINE.
[...] The Federal Reserve has argued that the nation is in danger of an inflationary spiral[.]
[...] The average HOURLY pay of production WORKERS --- constituting roughly 80 percent [of all people employed] ... has risen a mild 3.6 percent.
[...] Manufacturers [typically big users of oil and gas] reduced their payrolls by 66,000 people, after CUTTING 117,000 jobs in August.
[...] The strong dollar and weak euro dollar have hurt exports ... and [U.S.] companies have therefore cut production and LAID OFF workers[.]
[...] Temporary agencies led in job creation ... but the growth ... had to do with abnormal seasonal variations[.]
[...] Retailers ... have failed to expand payrolls ... a stagnation that some experts attribute to ... rising interest rates.
"They see that if they are going to have to spend more on gas and heating fuel, they are going to spend less on other things [...]," said Richard Curtin, chief of the University of Michigan's consumer surveys.
for a complete synopsis of the real data on H1-B, and H2-A, freebie work visas,
in this time of a very tight economy for 80% of us [or larger percentage] please click for your life ASAP
====>>>>>> HERE!!!
The number of TEMP JOBS in the U.S.A rose 577% from 1982 to 1998: Overall Employment grew by a whopping 47% !!
[excerpted from a recent WASHINGTON POST article written by Frank Swoboda]
"[...] the Nation's employers increasingly rely on temporary staff to trim costs and gain flexibility. Temps, contractors and consultants who are not attached to a company's core work force make up as much as 25 percent of the nation's employment base by some estimates, or nearly 35 million workers.
The number of temporary jobs in the United States rose 577% from 1982 to 1998, according to the General Accounting Office, while overall employment grew 47 percent. MANPOWER Inc., a temp agency, is now the NATION'S LARGEST EMPLOYER.
[...] contingent workers ... have often been "relegated to second-class status and rights " because of their inability to join unions.
[...] Some unions already were planning ... to boost its organizing in hospitals that often hire temporary nurses on a long-term basis.
[...] Challenges to the widespread use of temporary workers have also landed in court in recent years. In one of the more celebrated cases, thousands of current and former independent contractors and temporary workers sued MICROSOFT CORP., essentially claiming that they deserved the same rights as permanent employees. They won in a US Appeals Court, but the U.S. SUPREME Court DECLINED to review the case.
[...] David Larson, who has worked on and off as a Microsoft temp for six years, said he is not sure the younger temp workers realize how important unionizing could be but he hopes they soon will. "The younger you are, the less you thing about things like retirement," said Larson, 44. "Once [the younger temps] start thinking about this, they'll think, "Gee, I'm coming up short here."
Watch out for RANDSTADT (Dutch-American), Office Specialists, Accustaff, and Olsten --- they are particularly offensive temp agencies
-- read more below --- from the
main East Coast Establishment newspapers! But first, a peek at how the new EU is making slaves out of all those nicely schooled German, Swedish, Danish, French, etc., Europeans, who always scoffed when told they might one day live in a HELL like the one we have here in the USA!!
from "The Economist", a London magazine
TEMP SLAVERY revvs up to HIGH GEAR in the new EU!!
[excerpted from ECONOMIST]
"[...] most of the net jobs created between 1994 and 1998 in the EURO area were of either a PART-TIME or TEMPORARY nature. Such "flexible" jobs, many of them in Internet-led
services, could account for two-fifths of ALL EMPLOYMENT.
[...] TEMPORARY WORK often suits EMPLOYERS, who can hire and fire readily, more than it does their employees, for whom it offers little security.
[...] unburdened by regulation [regarding part-timers], British employers have less need to seek cheaper ways to create new jobs ... in other words, unburdened by regulation, British employers have less need to seek cheaper ways to create new jobs ... in France, the employers are negotiating with the
unions to CUT unemployment benefits to those who refuse job offers. IG Metall, Germany's biggest union, is considering ways of loosening the system of industry-wide agreements, which remains one of the country's ... "hard landings"."
HARD TIMES ARE GONNA FALL
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
OLSTEN TEMP SERVICES DRAINED OFF MILLIONS
from the New York Times
[excerpts]
by Milt Freudenheim
"PENSION FUND AGENCY [PBGC] IS BEING SCRUTINIZED"
from the Sunday New York Times
by David Cay Johnston
"Costs and Safeguards Are at Issue After Lawsuit and Internal Audit"
[excerpted from the original]
"A quarter-century ago, Congress created the PENSION BENEFIT GUARANTY CORP. to make sure that the 42 million workers with traditional pensions would get paid even if the
EMPLOYER went BANKRUPT. The legislation was hailed at the time as second only to SOCIAL SECURITY in its significance to working Americans.
How well that agency operates is now being questioned in a series of audits by the Agency's Inspector General, which are to be made public this week, and by a lawsuit charging
that one of the pension agency's contractors [OFFICE SPECIALISTS Temporary Employment agency] DEFRAUDED it.
[...] Two Republican Senators ... said that hearings would be held by SEPTEMBER to investigate how well the Agency is run and why ... half of the 472,000 people covered by failed
pension plans [due to their employers having conveniently filed bankruptcy] ... have not been told how much they are due [.].
[...] The audits, the lawsuit and the hearings come as Congressional Republicans are gearing up for a battle to pass major changes in the Employee Retirement Income Security
Act [ERISA]
that have long been sought by major corporations and business owners.
[...] the Pension Agency, which received five awards from Vice President Al Gore for improving efficiency and customer service, had reduced the backlog of people waiting to hear
how much they are due [.].
[...] One employee of the Agency, who calls himself Jim Dough, to avoid any RETRIBUTION, has filed a LAWSUIT on behalf of the Agency against one of its biggest Contractors,
OFFICE SPECIALISTS, of Peabody, Mass.
[...] The Dough lawsuit, unsealed on March 18 by a Federal District Court judge in Baltimore, says that a senior Pension
Agency official, Bennie L. Hagans Jr., steered business to OFFICE SPECIALISTS, which received a number of contracts WITHOUT competitive bidding, and ordered PAYMENTS
[to the temp agency] to be EXPEDITED.
The suit also asserts that Mr. Hagans improperly intervened when Myrna Cooks, the Office Specialists' liaison to the Pension Agency, quit to form her own company and was sued
by Office Specialists for violating her employment contract. Mr. Hagans, the lawsuit asserts, "threatened Office Specialists" with a loss of business from the pension agency unless
it dropped its suit against Mrs. Cooks and let her assume an Office Specialists' contract valued at $13.5 million. Office Specialists then settled with Mrs. Cooks, whose business,
operated out of her home, was awarded the contract.
WE SALUTE the efforts of BARRIE PETERSON, Director of the Bergen County Employment Action Project, the UNION-backed non-profit organization that is coordinating the New
Jersey efforts to develop and promote a CODE FOR TEMP AGENCIES, and commend anyone who can implement a federally mandated CODE OF CONDUCT for all USA temp
agencies.
Congrats also to Charles Taylor of the South Carolina Alliance, who is working as hard as Barrie Peterson, and the People of San Jose, California, who are also making sure the , a $60 billion a year lobby group in DC, receives plenty of
NEGATIVE ATTENTION!!
We have nothing but CONTEMPT for radio station WNYC,
an NPR corporate controlled mouthpiece for WALL STREET values. Feb. 4th, 2000, they let EDWARD
LANGE, of the American Staffing Association, mouth off ZILLIONS of lies, without correcting him, or allowing CALL-IN listeners much time at all to say more than "Hi. I'm Frank
from Brooklyn," or cutting off a veteran who was complaining on-air about the 22% to 49% profit his temp agency made off his graphics work, billing the client as much as they paid
him (i.e. a TEMP earning $12/hr. will see his client billed $24/hr. by the temp agency, in general practice).
"Olsten to Pay $61 Million in MEDICARE Billing Case"
" The OLSTEN Corporation, a big provider of HOME HEALTH CARE and TEMPORARY Office Workers, said yesterday that it would pay $61 million, including $10 million in fines
and penalties, to settle Federal investigations into MEDICARE billing practices.
[...] By agreeing to the GUILTY PLEA, OSLTEN based in Melville, NY, may be preparing to divest itself of Kimberly to keep the MEDICARE business of the parent company.
[...] Retaining the right to serve patients under Medicare and Medicaid, the Government health programs, is essential for hospital and home health care companies."
++++
UNISYS UNISYS !!!
click here for class action lawsuit against UNISYS for SEC fraud
UNISYS also in a class action suit brought by angry engineers who were laid off by the hundreds and hundreds a few years ago for reaching the age of 35!!!
UNISYS defended in court by Epstein Becker & Green
+---------------->>>>>>>>>>>
In Rodolico v. Unisys Corp., CV 95-3653 (ADS),
the employer was sued over the layoff of 232
unionized engineers. The plaintiffs allege that
there was age discrimination in the selection of
engineers to be laid off.
The collective bargaining agreement between
Unisys and its engineers was negotiated by the
company and Local 444 of the Engineers Union.
The bargaining agreement created a seniority
system within Unisys, and called for a distribution
of layoffs between three tiers of seniority, with
one senior engineer being laid off for every two
middle-level engineers and every three junior
engineers.
Paid Corporate Stooges EXCAVATING Your Personal & Confidential VIRTUAL ON-LINE Unprotected RECORDS!
PRIVACY VIOLATIONS FOR PROFIT;
CHASE MANHATTAN BANK
January 26, 2000
Chase Manhattan Bank cut a deal with an unnamed Denver Internet company to share their CREDIT CARD FILES and HOME MORTGAGE clients files on more than 18 million of
their customers for a 24% COMMISSION on all sales made to these 18 million VIOLATED credit card holders and home mortgage customers by the undisclosed Denver internet
company.
Pharmaceutical records are also being shared across the nation at an alarming rate. U.S. Citizens have vitually NO LEGAL RECOURSE to sustain even a modicum of privacy
pertaining to their confidential electronic files since Congress REPEALED last year a depression-era law (GLASS STEAGALL ACT) that had restricted banks from entering the
securities and insurance industries. This REPEAL made it a free-for-all for jointly owned corporations to share data on their customers, OPENING UP THE DOOR for virtual ACCESS
on nearly any U.S. citizen and their confidential portfolios.
All EUROPEAN nation's to date have IRON-CLAD legal restrictions against such BLATANT CORPORATE INTRUSION.
U.S. Federal Government officials have completely stepped back from protecting U.S. citizens. There is currently only a FEEBLE PATCHWORK of Privacy Laws in any way
protecting Americans from total loss of privacy over their personal and confidential records.
Jim Finn, spokesman for Chase Manhattan, says that this kind of snafu "... does make it easier for customers to understand their rights ... [and] gives the customer, in the end, more
CHOICE."
from the "Chain Store Age"
trade magazine
TOYS 'R' US --- FINED $200,000
by Dept. of Labor for CHILD LABOR VIOLATIONS
[excerpted from an article written by Washington DC correspondent Ken Rankin]
"WASHINGTON OUTLOOK, 2000"
"[...] The debate over the national minimum wage and the Clinton administration's plans for raising it to $6.15 per hour, will resume
early in the 2000 Congressional session as supporters of the proposal appear confident that they have enough votes to push it
through this year. Retail industry lobbyists and other opponents of a rising pay floor are resigned to the prospect that some
mimimum-wage legislation is likely to be enacted.
[...] In what may be the first in a new wave of such actions, the Labor Department's Wage and Hour Division accused TOYS R US
of a series of federal child-labor violations involving more than 300 fourteen and fifteen year old store employees in New England.
(To resolve the complaint, the chain [TOYS R US] agreed to pay a $200,000 fine and to assign color-coded name badges to help
store managers identify them more easily.).
[...] An even more heated controversy figures to flare up over the next few months involving the taxation of electronic commerce.
Although Congress imposed a three-year moratorium on state or local taxes of Internet sales transactions, the blue-ribbon
commission created to recommend a "level-playing-field" solution to this problem now appears to be hopelessly deadlocked.
[...] There will also be opportunities for the industry to support legislative corrections in laws that have proved troublesome for
retailers in the past. During the coming year, for example, Congress will be debating a newly introduced LEGAL EMPLOYMENT
AUTHENTICATION PROGRAM (LEAP) ACT, designed to make it easier for retailers and other employers to verify the immigration
status of newly hired workers."
"THE NEW YORK TIMES"
"TOYS 'R' US HIRES F.A.O. CHIEF, HOPING TO COAX BACK
CUSTOMERS"
by Dana Canedy
"[...] the appointment of John Eyler, FAOs chairman and chief executive, comes at a critical time for Toys "R" Us. The company,
which has been operating without a permanent chief executive since August [SEE STORY ABOVE from "Chain Store Age"], had a
dismal Christmas despite Pokemon madness."
CONGRESS'S
MINIMUM WAGE PLAN
[excerpted from USA TODAY, by Owen Ullmann]
"[...] The Senate minimum-wage increase was passed as an amendment to a bankruptcy-reform bill that would make it harder for people to walk away from credit-card debts. That
measures's fate is uncertain.
An increase would benefit 4.4 million workers who earn the current minimum wage of $5.15 an hour and another 7 million making SLIGHTLY more, who also would get a raise.
Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., assailed the GOP proposal as "a TURKEY with three right wings." He complained that it would stretch out the wage increase, eliminate overtime
pay for millions of workers and give "juicy tax breaks" to the WEALTHY."
click here MICROSOFT uss temps to avoid shelling out PROFITS!!!
[...] Jesse P. Schaudies, General Counsel for RANDSTAD North America, a subsidiary of the DUTCH company that owns OFFICE SPECIALISTS, said
"we have no basis for believing there was anything improper" in its dealing with the Pension Agency."
A PORTAL
Check out these links below NOW!!
