The 4 AM Army

http://nation.time.com/2013/06/27/the-4-am-army/print/

by w1ntermute • 13 years ago

147 143 13 years ago

nation.time.com

eliben• 13 years ago

An interesting case study in modern journalism. This article has an interesting story to tell, but the author seems unaware of it, so he tries really hard to use every trick in the book to extract hyperbolic statements suitable for headlines.

Authors should realize that a good article stands on its own merits, and tabloid-driven drama just lowers its value.

Stranger2013• 13 years ago

"I’ve always dreamed of having a little house, a really small little house" the thing is that it's not economically possible for everyone to have those.

onli• 13 years ago

What? Why? Economically possible would mean that our society is not productive enough, that it doesn't have the capacity, to produce small little houses for everyone who wishes one. I doubt that is true in any modern economical system.

jinx_xnij• 13 years ago

It isn't about the demand not being there, nor the supply lacking. The issue is the distribution of wealth and how much the poorest workers in America get paid and the insane cost of living associated with the "American Dream"

ubernostrum2• 13 years ago

Economics is subject to the Pauli Exclusion Principle.

enko• 13 years ago

It is not true, of course.

Just once I would like the authors of these "it's just not economically possible for X to have Y" to be referring to themselves in group X.

astrodust4• 13 years ago

1950s America, with its living wages, disagrees.

twoodfin5• 13 years ago

"Living wages" supported by the only major industrialized economy not to be smashed by the two World Wars. And a labor market that actively limited its participants for many of its most rewarding roles to almost exclusively white men.

I don't get this nostalgia for the 1950's. Things have gotten radically better in essentially all aspects of life since then.

king_jester2• 13 years ago

What nonsense. On any given night in the US, there are more unoccupied residential spaces (homes, apartments, etc) than there are homeless people. The problem is entirely political and structural.

epsylon2• 13 years ago

Of course it's possible, wealth just needs to be redistributed fairly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM

speeder5• 13 years ago

Heh, the power of words are interesting.

People will happily say that those people (like the illegals working as temps and cannot complain or get deported) are free.

And that slavery is always evil.

Yet, when you try to look at situations without using your pre-judgement of words, it become something else entirely.

For example, in Brazil, the laws for commerce workers was that the commerce owners needed to house the workers on their own home, give them food, take good care of them, and abusing them was illegal.

Also, it was common for commerce workers get tips, and the law allowed them to keep those (and the commerce owners frequently gave them more too).

Some cities reached a point, where most of the city business were ran by ex-workers, that earned enough to start their own.

This all, were slavery.

When slavery was abolished, all that people were dumped into the streets, and the money they already got from their employers now became wage, slighly higher, but not enough to cover the stuff they lost.

Who is truly, a slave? The one that works in crap conditions because if he don't he will get deported, or the one that although he could not quit (unless he was abused, the law allowed it in those cases) he had anything he might need because the law said so?

It is easy to label a word as evil, or good, but words are used to label and describe things, you should not use words to label other words.

I would describe the situations that those people face as evil, having almost no money, and forced to work, because although they can quit, the only result from that will be starvation.

I also think that student debt is evil, I am one, of countless people, that struggles to make ends meet without even having a family, people that when the debt is paid, will be far behind non-indebted peers, I think it is funny that during the high-point of my career in money terms, I earned more than some family chefs that I know, and ended with LESS money, purely because good part of my money was in studies expenses (paying student debt and other university related costs).

Free, is a friend of mine, that refused to go to university, searched for a low paying but permanent job as manual worker at night, and slowly built his career, debt free, while he still has a blue collar job, he has a motorbike, surplus money, enough money to start a family, and his job is stable. It pains other people that went with school with him, that they got into college, and are now forced to work in "well paying" jobs but with no chance of career improvement or stability to pay their debts, while the "dumb" guy that decided to ignore college and take his time to choose his first job, is the one well off.

Slavery == evil? I don't think so... it is a word, that describe many things, some of those evil, some not. College == success? I don't think so... it is a word, that describe a institution, the context, the process, and many other things, define what happens to you.

Now why I am writing all that? I have no idea. I just felt like writing this after reading the article.

EDIT: I hate how HN wrecks formatting.

stinkytaco4• 13 years ago

Are you making an either or proposition? People either need to be well treated slaves or oppressed free people?

I have to hope there's a third way in there somewhere. An economy where wealth is distributed not equally or fairly (noting that the two are not the same), but humanely. That everyone has the dignity we all want, regardless of their social position or job.

speeder5• 13 years ago

I personally believe this is almost impossible.

I think that some people out there, will always strong arm stuff out of others, there is not way to guarantee that stuff.

As a certain philosopher wrote once, in the end, our rights extend as far the circle of our own sword.

csomar2• 13 years ago

For example, in Brazil, the laws for commerce workers was that the commerce owners needed to house the workers on their own home, give them food, take good care of them, and abusing them was illegal.

Slavery == evil? I don't think so...

Cool. I'll offer you food, shelter, healthcare and you'll work for me. I certainly won't abuse you but you can't decide where to live, what to work and how to live.

This kind of jobs are probably not quite good, but comparing them to slavery doesn't make sense. Slavery is probably the worst thing that happened to humanity.

speeder5• 13 years ago

Why?

Some people don't value freedom, they value food, shelter and health.

I personally value freedom, but I understand completely people that even volunteer to slavery (yes, it happens... it still happens)

UnFleshedOne• 13 years ago

Slavery is probably the worst thing that happened to humanity.

I saw an opinion (really can't remember the source now) that slavery was a major improvement at the time when people who won a war used to simply eradicate conquered populations completely. With invention of slavery, strong and otherwise useful individuals had a chance to survive a bit longer.

There is no one worst things that happened to humanity. I'm sure there are plenty of contenders if one looks hard enough.

sliverstorm• 13 years ago

Slavery is probably the worst thing that happened to humanity.

I wouldn't be so hasty. I have confidence in humanity's ability to come up with other, more terrible things.

jmduke2• 13 years ago

This is actually the same logic anti-abolitionists used prior to and during the American Civil War: "we're providing them a service! We're giving them food and shelter and sometimes even wages, which is more than they could attain on their own." (The parenthetical after that quote, of course, is the subtext that this is true because African-Americans were literally incapable of being self-sufficient. America was racist.)

Still, I feel like your comment is a gross mischaracterization of exactly what slavery was.

You're equivocating the need to work to live with being legally considered a piece of property owned by another human being. These are unconscionable differences: maybe from not an economic perspective, but from a human perspective.

Slaves could be killed in the same way you could throw your computer out the window if you're frustrated.

speeder5• 13 years ago

I gave a example, a specific one, of urban slavery in Brazil, that was tightly regulated, as a example of why labelling a word, does not always work.

Yes, I know how plantation slavery worked in the US, but it is a different animal, that worked in a different way.

Brazil for example do not had this widespread racism, because most of the middle class population was black anyway, data found from some cities in Brazil northwest (like Recife) show that 70% of the middle class was black, most of them ex-slaves that earned enough money to not only buy themselves from their owners, but also to have their own business.

It is a different context...

I am trying to say that you cannot go by absolutes.

Brazil even made a attempt at that legally, here we have laws against "work conditions analogous to slavery" that have nothing to do with slavery, and more to do with employee abuse, unfortunately even those laws are kinda broken and sometimes punish those it is supposed to protect.

Also in US itself slavery is legal for punishment (the article that abolishes slavery in the US, says that it is forbidden except for legal punishment, and currently you can hire a private prison to have their workers be forced to do your work, classic literal slavery... is that evil? or people should be obliged to work to pay for their cost to the state?)

epsylon2• 13 years ago

Who is truly, a slave?

Both of them. The second one is aptly named a wage slave.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery

None of these are ethically acceptable.

beachstartup2• 13 years ago

Walmart, Nike, PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay division—but they are not paid by them; instead they work for temp agencies

large companies hire (generally second-rate) computer programmers the same way. except instead of temps they're called 'contractors'.

gadders3• 13 years ago

Er, no.

Contractors are generally more skilled at the resident staff.

beachstartup2• 13 years ago

you're thinking of consultants, i'm thinking of contractors.

grimtrigger• 13 years ago

I very briefly worked a job like this when I was in college. I would work the concession stands at a huge football stadium with around 1,000 temporary workers on a given game day.

The wage and hours were terrible, but it was the absolute dehumanization that stuck with me. No body knew your name or particularly cared. You would walk in during the morning, flash your badge and get assigned to a particular stand. Every day it was brand new people who you've never met before with a brand new manager. There was obviously no room to move up, because you never had a chance to build a track record with anyone. There was also just plain disrespect on the part of the company towards its workers. We would spend 2-3 hours after the game just waiting for permission to go home. I can't imagine spending much of my life in a job like that, it was just horrible. But clearly there were enough people who had to do it, because there were many 40 year olds I worked with.

People who've never worked these jobs tend to read this article and assume that these articles have a hidden agenda: raising the minimum wage or some kind of socialist initiative. I read it differently, as a reminder of the depressing underside of the US economy.

smacktoward3• 13 years ago

The wage and hours were terrible, but it was the absolute dehumanization that stuck with me. No body knew your name or particularly cared. You would walk in during the morning, flash your badge and get assigned to a particular stand. Every day it was brand new people who you've never met before with a brand new manager.

It's worth remembering that when CEOs talk about flexibility, this is what they are talking about: interchangeable workers, who can be swapped in and out (and thrown in the bin) like interchangeable parts.

Hovertruck3• 13 years ago

That might be true sometimes, but it depends on the expectation. If I have a team of great developers, I'd expect to be able to put any of them on anything and walk away with something great in the end knowing that they brought their expertise and best ideas.

stinkytaco4• 13 years ago

I agree with you, but there is another side to the temp economy:

http://www.theonion.com/articles/temp-hides-fun-fulfilling-l...

I realize that's a joke, but it's a joke I and many people I know have lived. It's a cultural notion that we need to get a bunch of fulfillment from our jobs. Though I now have a fulfilling job, I was probably the happiest when I just had a job to make a few bucks and didn't take home the worries of knowledge work. Temp work was a good option because there was no responsibility and if I didn't want to go to work, I didn't.

I'm not saying that treating workers as animals is OK or that all temp workers are living a life of bliss – this article show most aren’t -- but there is certainly another side to the story.

regomodo• 13 years ago

It wasn't too long ago i worked long hours in removals. It still remains the only job (among quite a few) i've had that day to day I happily felt something was achieved and didn't go home drained. [edit] I've been working as an EE/SE for the last 4 years.

chunkyslink• 13 years ago

raising the minimum wage or some kind of socialist initiative

What would be wrong with that anyway?

asperous3• 13 years ago

Money doesn't come from nothing, there are side effects of raising the minimum wage. Besides the fact that a small percentage of US work force are actually paid minimum, most more or less than it.

runjake• 13 years ago

Raising the minimum wage allows for a (very) short term benefit, but in the medium and long run, it drives inflation up. The minimum wage and inflation are effectively proportional.

clarkm• 13 years ago

I also briefly had a temp job like this when I was in high school. I worked at an Acme Brick manufacturing plant one summer. I'd show up around 5:30 every morning not sure if I was going to sweep the plant floor all day or stack the bricks that had just come out of the kiln. While I was hired through a temp agency, I was at least had a guaranteed spot at work each day. I can't imagine what it must be like to have to wait in limbo every morning.

The worst part wasn't the physical labor, it was the atmosphere. Never mind the fact that I was pretty much the only English speaker there, the other workers didn't even talk to each other. We'd go on the 30 minute lunch break at 11, and they'd all pull out their lunchboxes and eat in complete silence. Everything was so somber -- it was like everyone had the life sucked out of them.

13b9f227ecf02• 13 years ago

minimum wage or some kind of socialist initiative

The socialist initiative we need is to shut down unskilled immigration entirely. Read the article; they're all Hispanic. These people's plight is going to be made even worse by the coming wave of even greater unskilled immigration promised by the senate bill. This is why Caesar Chavez was vehemently anti-immigration.

Kurtz79• 13 years ago

"The socialist initiative we need is to shut down unskilled immigration entirely."

This is the exact opposite of a "socialist" initative. Either you are being ironic or do not really know in what sense "socialist" is being used here.

Either way, feels kind of cheap considering that unskilled migration has historically been one of the driving forces behind US growth and progress, and that many first class US citizens today are probably descendants of some of those migrants.

fnordfnordfnord6• 13 years ago

The socialist initiative we need is to shut down unskilled immigration entirely

So, giant Berlin Wall/border fence with drones and armed guards? Or viable trade/economic policy with Mexico? Nevermind, we've made that choice.

cperry• 13 years ago

Same here. I worked as a temp one summer during college (for two agencies). The dehumanization was absolutely the worst part: at one point I was staffed at a warehouse on a line shipping vitamins to people across the US. We mostly worked in awkward silence, as fast as we possibly could. This was punctuated by periods where a manager would gather and berate us for going too slowly.

My other favorite experience was working for a large energy drink supplier (you've heard of them), transferring cartons of drinks from pallets to other, differently-sized pallets, while 2-3 dudes in polos sat in a corner and chatted, occasionally laughing.

It gave me chills to read this and remember what it's like to work harder than you ever have before, and still be treated as a nameless soulless entity.

vabmit• 13 years ago

I worked for two different Kelly Services offices in Florida (Largo/St. Pete and Pensacola (iirc)) in the 1990's and it was nothing like the article. I actually had a good experience. I worked similar jobs to the ones mentioned in the article (warehouse, plastics manufacturing, construction, moving furniture, etc.) I always transported my self to the job sites and never found no work when I got there. The pay was above minimum and I would specifically ask for 3rd shift work (because it paid a 50% premium).

There were some jobs that were always "temp" - like one time government construction contracts. But, usually the way the process worked at that time was that employers were basically using Kelly to "screen" workers. They'd bring you in as a temp. and after six months if you were still there they'd transition you to permanent position. If they didn't asked you to come back as a temp, Kelly would just send you somewhere else. Sometimes, you'd not get asked back due to an inability to do the job (I once wasn't because I was asked to hand paint the buttons for tv remotes and just didn't have the dexterity for that) but usually it was because of a chronic problem. As you can imagine with people working temp jobs many had "issues". Plenty of people missed work because they were arrested for DUI's or drug related crime the night before. Some had their probation violated. Several showed up drunk or high. One guy had a medical issue (epilepsy) and had a seizure on the factory floor while operating heavy machinery. Using temps let the companies easily handle those types of problems with out interrupting their business. Part of it was not having to involve HR in the "firing" process by just letting the shift supervisor and Kelly handle it. But, it was also that they could just easily get a different temp. There was no need to put an add in the paper and have a person interviewed and entered into the payroll system etc.

I guess it's possible that things have gotten much worse since I worked for Kelly. Or, that things may be different in poor US inner cities (which I make it a point to stay away from). But, it's probably just some sensationalism in the writing of the article and some exaggerated hearsay from the temps. Notice that there's no pictures or any other evidence like that of the articles' most egregious statements.

Udo• 13 years ago

Maybe this market is ready for disruption. What if a new kind of temp agency came in, a company that treated workers like real employees with training, benefits, and dignity? Would it really cost that much more to run? How about after factoring in all the costs that current temp agencies like to offload on society at large, such as health care and basic infrastructure? Could WalMart afford to keep propping up slave agencies if more sustainable resources were available?

orlandob• 13 years ago

The trend has been the opposite in this market. As labor supply increases (to infinity), wages decreases (to zero).

xradionut• 13 years ago

Maybe the labor supply/population needs to decrease in the future?

rayiner7• 13 years ago

Look carefully, because this is the future of America. This is the plight of the average worker in a world where labor is increasingly replaced by automation capital owned by a select few, gutting the bargaining power of ordinary people in the employment market.

itsallbs• 13 years ago

The future? Pay attention, hombre. This is the fucking present.

wwwarhawk• 13 years ago

Yeah, let's just stop automating things. /sarcasm

stdbrouw• 13 years ago

Is it not possible to be in favor of automation while also seeing the destructive effects it can have on society?

knowaveragejoe2• 13 years ago

His reference to "automation" here of course does not necessarily mean automation of labor(i.e. assembly line automation), but instead the fact that companies with lots of cash to throw around can gut their workforce and hire in temp agencies. Hence "automation capital". They are "automating" in the sense that a churning workforce consisting of temps can be paid less overall. There will never be a shortage of people to fill those jobs and there is no need to cover expensive benefits.

twoodfin5• 13 years ago

Assuming you're not describing a woman like Rosa Ramirez as "the average worker" of today, could you elaborate a bit on the process by which the median worker ends up like her in the future? It seems to me that the market in labor is functioning pretty well, with some arguable exceptions at the very high and low ends.

jiggy201113• 13 years ago

Hmm, I'm not sure I'd call the scary levels of unemployment/underemployment in many places "functioning pretty well".

Dirlewanger2• 13 years ago

The wonders of worldwide overpopulation! It's only going to get worse, a lot worse.

rayiner7• 13 years ago

It has nothing to do with overpopulation. In the U.S., the economy is much bigger, in absolute terms, per person, than it was in 1950.

matt__ring• 13 years ago

This is very upsetting. I live in Chicago's Logan Square neighborhood & pass by what I suspect is a similar temp agency, while on my way to the gym in the morning. Now I feel even worse for the people in line at its door...

skore• 13 years ago

The people here are not day laborers looking for an odd job from a passing contractor. They load the trucks and stock the shelves for some of the U.S.’s largest companies—Walmart, Nike, PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay division
This system insulates companies from workers’-compensation claims, unemployment taxes, union drives and the duty to ensure that their workers are legal immigrants. Meanwhile, the temps suffer high injury rates, and many of them endure hours of unpaid waiting and face fees that depress their pay below the minimum wage. Many get by renting rooms in run-down houses, eating dinners of beans and potatoes and surviving on food banks and taxpayer-funded health care.

-----

The willful ignorance for the social implications of this kind of corporate behavior leave me speechless. This is quite literally sucking everything around you dry, poisoning the river and then making a fuss when somebody threatens regulations.

The same corporations who complain (mostly through sock puppets) about "the nanny state" getting in their way, who lobby for laws that leave them with fewer and fewer restrictions, who set everything in motion to pay less and less taxes - they are the entities actually taxing the social systems the hardest.

What they have found is a way to convert the good will of the social system into profit. All while pushing the agenda of austerity and tough love for the people in our society who need our help the most. They give their workers the bare minimum and let the government fill the increasing amount of gaps. Meanwhile, governments see their costs of the social system rise while their tax revenue goes down.

This is profiteering from collateral damage.

And if you do threaten to regulate, they will just move to another country like the vultures that they are.

sbarre2• 13 years ago

I think you're forgetting someone's role in this, and that would be all of us.

If enough of the population was against this type of behaviour, it woud be made illegal (and already-illegal behaviours would be cracked-down upon) but it's not.

Corporations have a legal obligation to provide as much value as possible for as little money as possible, and if the laws let them do this in an inhumane way, then that's the law's fault (and by extension the fault of the society that enacted those laws).

jiggy201113• 13 years ago

Corporations have a legal obligation to provide as much value as possible for as little money as possible.

This really isn't true, it is market forces that incentivise this behavior; not laws.

yk2• 13 years ago

One interesting aspect of the plight of the temp workers is, that this is very exactly the kind of market Marx did analyse. The temp agencies distribute highly standardized work assignments to the temp workers, who have no choice. (If they would qualify for McDonalds minimum wage jobs, they would probably prefer them.) In this kind of environment the agencies can only compete on price, since the specific assignment is determined by the customer of the agency, and this means they need to cut their costs. ( Notice the mention of 22 workers in a 17 seat bus, this represents a 29% increase in efficiency of transportation.) And this leads to the situation where the least decent employer sets the working conditions, since he can out compete the other market participants.

michaelburk• 13 years ago

I was pleasantly surprised to see this wasn't another article about why we should wake up early.

azernik• 13 years ago

These aren't the only companies finding loopholes to get around labor law (and it does seem like, for the long-term temp workers in this article, that's what it's about). In journalism, the preferred legal fiction is to call your employees "contractors", so that you don't have to give them time off or benefits, pay into workplace compensation, or deal with payroll tax.

The 4 AM Army

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