You thought your better education and skills were the answer, and only the blue collar working brute with dirt under his fingernails would be sacrificed.
Sorry, my man, but the suits on the higher rungs of the ladder are very greedy, and they don't give a shit about your skills anymore.
They can get somebody in Bombay to do the job much cheaper.
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How does it feel?
by Leon Fisher August 12, 2003An article in USA Today titled 'Export of white collar jobs is cause for concern' inspired me to write this ... I never thought I would see the day when these arrogant white collar yuppie bastards would be worrying about losing their jobs. There must truly be a god!
Don't get me wrong, it is a traumatic experience to lose one’s income, no matter who you are. And any further job loss to America's already faltering economy will be devastating. But think about the hits the blue collar working man has taken over the last decade — with manufacturing jobs leaving the country by the millions, entire towns and cities left looking like disaster areas when factories and plants closed to relocate overseas or across the border.
Families left with basically nothing but the shirts on their backs were told by the CEO's and the politicians that this is a different economy now and you're gonna have to upgrade your skills, further your education. Not an easy thing to do for a married man with children and a mortgage. And the white-collar workers, quite aware of the plight of their brothers, did nothing.
So the banks and businesses large and small threw the working man to the dogs. They closed the factories which won for America two world wars. They shut the plants which had created a strong and prosperous middle class. The banks and corporations thanked the American working man for their success by taking his job away, never to return. The Fortune 500 bought the politicians so they would get NAFTA and GATT passed, trade treaties they promised would be good for the working man. Bullshit! These treaties only hastened his demise.
And still, the white collar workers said nothing, and did nothing to reverse a worsening situation. Content to drive around in luxury sedans and SUVs, invest in 401Ks, carry their briefcases and laptops to the train station every day and pretend that the evil infecting America would never touch them. Well guess what, Mr. Three Piece Suit? Now it's your turn!
You thought your better education and skills were the answer, and only the blue collar working brute with dirt under his fingernails would be sacrificed. Sorry, my man, but the suits on the higher rungs of the ladder are very greedy, and they don't give a shit about your skills anymore. They can get somebody in Bombay to do the job much cheaper.
Perhaps I'm being too hard on my white-collar brothers, but every time I've had a conversation with any of them, they have shown a remarkable disregard, even revulsion towards their blue-collar working brothers.
Class war? Well, maybe? It won't be the first time I've been called a Marxist or a socialist, especially when I suggest that blue-collar workers and white-collar workers on the lower rungs of the ladder should get a bigger slice of the pie. Blasphemy! Only the white collar CEO types are entitled to make a six figure salary and more, and everyone else should be happy just to have a job making a little over minimum wage.
And labor unions? How dare these troublemakers organize and threaten to strike in order to diminish corporate profit! You see, my friends, the corporate CEO's vision of the working world of the future is one huge sweat shop where the wealthy own and control everything and everybody. At the end of an average twelve-hour working day the workers will be allowed to go home to their humble abodes, financed through banks owned by their wealthy employers.
And let’s not forget the reinstitution of child labor. This will allow everyone to participate in our capitalist way of life, and expand the tax base as well.
OK, so maybe you think my description of the future is simplistic and biased against the wealthy. Any way you look at it, despite our opinion of each other, we had better begin joining together and organizing against the common enemy — the enemy with no borders, no loyalty, and no compassion, no respect for the working man, blue collar or white!
© 2003, by the author.
Comments? newsuneed@yahoo.com
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The banks and corporations thanked the American working man for their success by taking his job away, never to return.
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