21st Century Employment: For Many, It's All Work, No Benefits

Fritz Lang's film Metropolis depicts a dystopian future in which drone-like workers slave underground, while the upper-class frolic in skyscraper gardens.

Metropolis was released in 1927, but depicted life in 2026, not so very far away. Chew on that as you read this collection from feminist bloggers whose analyses of work address race, class, and politics.

Sokari Ekine at team-blog Black Looks points to an article that coins the term granulated slavery. She gives a snippet of the article, written by Michael Burke for the Jamaican Observer:

"In primitive slavery there was cruel punishment to intimidate and subdue the slaves into following orders exactly as they were given. Today, material things such as cars and houses are used as 'carrots' to subdue workers into hard work, obedience, and to suppress their opinions and individuality."

Canadian blogger Melanie McBride points to some hard truths in "UK Tories promote pay-per-use work culture":

"By increasing the pool of short term contractors, employers can prevent collectivity—whether for social, professional or union purposes. The short term contractor, like the freelancer, has no real connection to other workers and often face discrimination, exploitation and abuse at the hands of management and salaried employees who seek to isolate workers from one another. Furthermore, as members of projects, contractors are operating behind the scenes while salaried suits take all the credit, get the raise and enjoy promotions. In many cases, a contractor is not permitted to contact or communicate with other team members and the end client. Unsurprisingly, it’s often the contractor who ends up paying for all the miscommunications that result.

"Anyone who has ever freelanced will tell you that having to continually negotiate contracts, find work and be treated fairly (not to mention professionally) is a source of constant anxiety and financial insecurity. Not having salaried positions also means living without health benefits, paid vacations, retirement or the ability to organise or join a union. Clients benefit from the reduced overhead costs while independent contractors scrape by, continually underselling their services in order to survive. With few exceptions, this model has never been good for the worker."

You can read her entire piece at Chandrasutra.

Journalist and blogger Barbara Ehrenreich writes about the suction-like grip of poverty in "Could You Afford to be Poor?"

Ehrenreich, who wrote Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, writes about the ghetto tax:

• Poor people are less likely to have bank accounts, which can be expensive for those with low balances, and so they tend to cash their pay checks at check-cashing businesses, which in the cities surveyed, charged $5 to $50 for a $500 check.


• Nationwide, low-income car buyers, defined as people earning less than $30,000 a year, pay two percentage points more for a car loan than more affluent buyers.


• Low-income drivers pay more for car insurance. In New York, Baltimore and Hartford, they pay an average $400 more a year to insure the exact same car and driver risk than wealthier drivers.


• Poorer people pay an average of one percentage point more in mortgage interest.


• They are more likely to buy their furniture and appliances through pricey rent-to-own businesses. In Wisconsin, the study reports, a $200 rent-to-own TV set can cost $700 with the interest included.


• They are less likely to have access to large supermarkets and hence to rely on the far more expensive, and lower quality offerings, of small grocery and convenience stores.

She finishes with the statement, "If you're rich, you might want to stay that way. It's a whole lot cheaper than being poor."

Related link

See also "Surprise! Not." at Welcome to the Nut House, who also talks about the cycle of poverty.

Photo credit: Greatest Crowd Film Scenes, Barbara Ehrenreich. Also posted at BlogHer.