The New Feudalism...

Um, Drew Pooters? Is that really his name?

Sorry.

Huh? Changes the subject like Rove.
A significant portion of Red States are wage slaves.
This is what it means to vote against your economic interests. This is the light we need to shine to disinfect the scum Republicans have backwashed over our society.

And Palin is a Fraud. Like McCain.

The Predator State at work.

Thank you! And bravo!

Someone needs to tell these monsters that slavery was abolished nearly 150 years ago. It sure as hell isn't going to be McSame.

Predator state, combined with gotcha state (banking/finance). But its perfectly OK, it is the underclass that is being cheated. Those sub-humans deserve it!

The real key is to find a way to make such issues visable. Most of the victims think they are unique, and are afraid to fight back.

I worked at KMart for a few summers during college, on the night shift. Sometimes they would lock us into the store, but we figured we could get out by the fire exits with the alarms in an emergency. I never did check whether the fire exits had chains on them or not.

I liked the job (stock person) because there were no customers around and if you finished your assignments early you could nap for the rest of the night in the lawn chair section. Sometimes we would take bicycles and roller skates off the shelf and ride around the store during lunch hour. I was also taught by my fellow employees to put broken merchandise on the shelves, because "the customer can always return it" - very similar to the "every American has health insurance because they can go to the emergency room" line.

Steal from the poor to give to the rich.
Steal from the poor to give to the rich.
Steal from the poor to give to the rich.
Any questions?

Half-right, Hilzoy.

If we *don't* think about the distraction du jour, and help push back against it, we won't be able to get people into positions where they can do anything about shit like this.

Do you really think that Obama's going to win more working-class white votes by focusing on obvious economic self-interest alone, instead of engaging on the level where McCain's playing, like doing something along the lines of calling McCain a lying smear artist who's trying to sabotage his campaign the way he'd sabotage the country?

Don't you think that if policy arguments like yours were going to be sufficiently persuasive to voters like that, Obama would've have a larger, more durable lead with them?

Seriously, there are dozens of reasons for white working-class voters to vote for Obama on *policy* grounds, whether they're aware of them or not; is one more that also requires additional explanation and reiteration going to make the difference?

Seems a bit late to be pushing that kind of hope: "Gosh, if only we can keep from feeding the media distraction by talking about it, *then* we can make people realize why they should support us to support them!"

If there's one lesson from the last 2-3 weeks, it's that the media has no qualms about recycling Republican attacks on itself and Democrats, accepting the validity of those attacks, apologizing on its behalf *and* ours, *and* *THEN* turning on us like a jailhouse snitch and condemning *US* for shit we didn't do, all to curry favor with the screeching fanatics of the crazy conservative base. (Shit, I think I just insulted fans of everything, everywhere, from baseball to NASCAR. Now, Obama's really going to lose.)

But hey, maybe talking about another good progressive policy instead of fighting back will show the media how well-meaning and pure-spirited we are, and they'll start opposing Republican bullshit instead of echoing GOP attacks on us.

The red state people of the nostalgic small town America care more about their culture being respected than they do about their own economic interests. I don't understand it but have seen it too often to ignore.

Maybe this explains the reported increase in productivity. GIGO

Chris, about this:

"Do you really think that Obama's going to win more working-class white votes by focusing on obvious economic self-interest alone, instead of engaging on the level where McCain's playing, like doing something along the lines of calling McCain a lying smear artist who's trying to sabotage his campaign the way he'd sabotage the country?"

I think you and I differ about what it is I'm supposed to be doing here. I do not see myself, when I write stuff like this, as advising the Obama campaign. Luckily for all of us, there's no indication they'd take such advice if offered.

I write about things I think are interesting, or important, or just funny. I am not part of the Obama campaign, and if I were, I'd bear in mind that my audience and his are different.

I'll bet 52% of those $3-an-hour stiffs end up voting for McCain. Ignorance begets more ignorance.

Maybe there's a freedom-loving state like Texas in which you can practice your socialist communism in peace.

(Heh. Stolen from "That's Not In My American History Book" - the chapter 'The Great Communist Invasion of Texas' by Thomas Ayres. No, not that Ayers. A different one.)

Wal-Mart and others have become notorious for locking in night-shift workers, often forcing them to work longer hours. -- NY Books, via Hilzoy

There had been a "scandal" a while ago in my area (south-western VA), about W-Mart practices. They not only kept those crews locked but shifted them, in locked trucks, from one town to the next, over the course of a single night. Paid them half the going rate. The whole nine yards...

The trouble was that most of those people, while in the US legally (tourist visas), were doing "black work" -- ie working without a permit. You couldn't get them to come on record until they were about ready to leave the States, by which time it was too late to do anything about it.

WalMart prefers to employ people who have little recourse and who cannot fight back because they're breaking the laws themselves. Especially during the night hours (cleaning), when there are few (or none) people around to question why a crew speaks only Polish or Russian or Spanish...

putting lipstick on a pig is the same as polishing a turd.

Its a saying that means you cant disguise something that isnt viable. Period, end of argument.

A few years ago, when I was last in college, I worked as an office temp, usually in accounting and/or computer programming.

One of my assignments was with Bell Canada, which is one of the largest property managers in the United States: it was to go on the computer and switch all their American employees from having a base 37.5 to having a base 40 hour week.

'Nuther one was with Nabisco, the American cereals and other foods company. This time it was to go through all their computer predictions, e.g. "We will sell 45 cans of Doggie-Slop in Newfoundland in April 1986," to the amount that retrospectively got sold. Hump dem bales; change that 45 to 43...

In this last case I was not sure at the time who was zooming who. Howsomever, a couple of years later I found myself an accounting junior on the due diligence being performed by KKR in preparation for their merging Nabisco into Phillip Morris. I mentioned to my boss that I had earlier been hired by Nabisco to falsify their books, so, uh, maybe their books aren't all that trustworthy.

He was able to convey the simple notion "Shaddup" with a simple raised eyebrow.

The tragedy is that we will probably need a 21st-century equivalent of the Triangle Shirtwaist disaster before the "locked-in night shift workers" gains national disgrace for its inherent cruelty.

I two-thirds agree with the basic premise of Hilz' post, but add that this started back in Reagan/Bush I, was not arrested by Clinton, then accelerated under Bush II.

Let's not forget that the DLC/neolib streak/faction of the Democratic Party has its own share of blame.

That's yet another reason I'm not a Democrat.

I work as an engineer for what the Boeings of the world call a tier three supplier, and today things aren’t easy for anyone who has to work for a living. The people working hourly have it tougher than I do, and my heart goes out to them. But even in my “professional” position I face the total lack of job security (who wants an engineer over forty let alone one over fifty,) and the chronic understaffing considered good American management style. My own company, which is considered well run, is so undermanned that we have to work unpaid overtime even when things are going well. When things go bad, and they almost always do, we are totally screwed. And we wonder why the Asians and Europeans are eating our economic lunch?

Here in Texas I've had no less than three jobs that have tried forcing me to clock out to use the bathroom or leaned on me extensively to use the bathroom "less." How can one use the bathroom "less?"

And the other day some young guy I work with had the gall to bitch at me about unions. I shoulda...

Perfect example of bushcon trickle down to secure the vote up and down the bushcon ticket.
Would it be supprising if these labor law breakers made their employees vote bushcon to keep their jobs?
And with no oversight who cares?
With no justice department who cares?
The main thing is more bushcon votes and the corporate stucture increases profit.
They have gone after every bit of loose change with abandon.
They steal from everyone. Even from those without anything they find a way to steal.
Greed has no limits.
And these guys act like they need all of it.
This type deception and greed can only be the result of over 40 years of constant consumption of bushcon and pre bushcon-con sewage with a few business tips from kenron lay thrown in.

My aunt has worked in jobs like this almost her whole lifetime, for barely more than minimum wage--that is when she's lucky enough to have a job. And you know what? She's grateful to have a job. She assumes everyone has to put up with unfair practices like being docked for taking breaks. In fact, she's eager to bust fellow employees who stretch a five-minute break into a ten minute break, or wear improper clothing to work.

She also told me, incidentally, that John Kerry wanted to take away people's bibles.

Docking hours worked is archaic and cruel. Busting fellow workers for stretching breaks and wrong clothing is pocedure and proper work ethics. 2 totally different aspects of labor environments. EVERY business that docks hours worked or does not pay the minn wage aught to be fined big time and brought up on charges - this is disgraceful.

Poliies and legislation should be passed so these things do not happen here. Seems like McCain has had enough time to get this area some nitice but decided not to. He passed on it and should be ousted as a non-doer. Give Obama and the Dems a chance fix this.

Docking hours worked is archaic and cruel.

Not paying workers for the hours they worked is theft.

What's worse, in general failure to pay employees for hours worked is entirely a civil matter. Get caught, and typically the worst thing that will happen is you have to pay the employees their back wages. If they can prove how many hours they worked. If you can find them to notify them. If your lawyers don't just negotiate a promise not to get caught again.

If it were a worker stealing tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars a year from the company instead, they'd be facing jail time as well as an order for full restitution and then some.

What's worse, in general failure to pay employees for hours worked is entirely a civil matter. Get caught, and typically the worst thing that will happen is you have to pay the employees their back wages. If they can prove how many hours they worked. If you can find them to notify them. If your lawyers don't just negotiate a promise not to get caught again.

If it were a worker stealing tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars a year from the company instead, they'd be facing jail time as well as an order for full restitution and then some.

All the sympathy goes to the hourly workers and none to the managers. But Mr. Pooter's story proves that managers are just workers too: 14-16 hours a day, doing management duty plus whatever work the hourly workers couldn't do. That's one man doing two full-time equivalents of work, for $26,000 a year.

Where time clock abuse ends, salary abuse begins, and it extends all the way up into the executive levels.