A Chance to Help Fight Corporate Downsizing

As longtime readers of TGB know, I now reside in Portland, Maine, because I was forced out of the workplace and my home in New York City due, in large degree, to age discrimination in the workplace and corporate downsizing.

I am far from alone. The news media doesn’t report it much anymore, but corporate America has been cutting and outsourcing millions of job for a decade now. Among the first workers to go when jobs are eliminated are workers older than 40.

“In a corporate culture focused on keeping costs low, people in their late 40s and older are often viewed as too old to be valuable. ‘At some point in the late ’80s and early ’90s, a whole bunch of corporate executives’ attitudes changed toward white-collar workers, says [Barbara] Ehrenreich.

“’Blue-collar workers were always thought to be disposable, but now they started looking at white-collar workers as just expenses to eliminate.’ Thus, veterans of the job market are frequently laid off with little warning and must work benefitless contract gigs to stay afloat.”

- In These Times, 14 December 2006

That’s what happened to me. For two-and-a-half years, until I was laid off in 2004, I worked full time, side-by-side with employees, even while supervising some of them, but as a contractor with no medical coverage, no paid sick leave, no paid holidays or vacations, no 401k or any other benefits enjoyed by those employees.

This practice is mostly illegal, but corporations get away with it because contractors dare not file complaints with the IRS or the Department of Labor for fear of being fired and not finding another job.

Now veteran activist and journalist, Barbara Ehrenreich, is doing something about it. The author of the expose, Bait and Switch: the (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream has founded United Professionals (UP) for white collar workers. Its mission is

“…to protect and preserve the American middle class, now under attack from so many directions, from downsizing and outsourcing to the steady erosion of health and pension benefits. We believe that education, skills and experience should be rewarded with appropriate jobs, livable incomes, benefits and social supports.”

Ms. Ehrenreich is concerned with both older workers and young college graduates who enter the workforce with an average of $19,000 in debt from college loans:

“’It is important to align the two groups [of workers],” says Tamara Draut, a UP Advisory Board member…’Pitting the generations against each other like we often do isn’t an effective way to organize, given that many things would benefit both groups.’”

- In These Times, 14 December 2006

United Professionals is just getting started, but it’s goals are admirable. They include lobbying Congress, legal resources, networking, local chapters of the organization and, in time, insurance aid.

Ms. Ehrenreich obtained $10,000 in seed money for UP with a grant from the Service Employees International Union, but they need further support. You can join the effort for just ten cents a day, $36.50 per year for UP membership. You can also follow some of Barbara Ehrenreich's other concerns on her blog.