TEMPORARY BLUES
By John Slaughter
I have been downsized, effective Labor Day, 1997.
Being downsized is actually a pretty accurate description of how
it feels, too. My stature as a human being has definitely been
diminished. I am a throwaway, a discard at 58, no longer deemed
productive. Not to be outdone, though, I decided to make a career
change out of it. I couldn't afford to retire, so I got a student
loan, which I will be paying off for the next 10 years, and got
myself retrained. I bought all their hype about all the great jobs
that would be waiting for me when I graduated.
But when I started sending out my very impressive resume, with all
my degrees and accomplishments, I got no response. Overqualified,
or, reading between the lines, too old? So I took off all dates
and the academic credentials, and I began to get some calls. But
when they got a good look at me, the response was the same:
Thanks, but no thanks. No one would dare breathe age
discrimination, but it was pretty clear that that was what was
going on.
It is kind of ironic. For most of my adult life, I have been
fighting discrimination in one form or another, but never my own.
Now it is happening to me. I guess that is really how it happens
in this society. The system attacks the most vulnerable first: the
minorities, women, the youth, gays, and the aging. So now I am a
temporary. Unemployed for six weeks, then work for a month, laid
off another two weeks, then work for two months.
Don't know when I'll work again after this assignment ends. Can't
get benefits. Even tried to get family coverage through the HMO of
my wife, who is a schoolteacher. Denied me because I didn't fill
out the form right. Sent in the form again. They lost it. Heard
about a personal insurance plan through an HMO, which according to
their ad said it would cost only $54 a month. Sounded great, but
when I called, turns out that was the rate for 12- to 24- year-
olds! My age bracket: $200 a month. Who can afford that? So what
will happen to me if I get sick?
What if I can't make the payments on my pickup truck? Talk about a
loss of stature. An ol' Southern boy is lost without his pickup
truck. And what about our house? I sure better stay on Gloria's
good side. I am just one of her paychecks away from the streets.
(Will she still love me when I'm unemployed?) So every morning I
crowd onto the subway train, along with thousands of other
temporaries, mostly African American, mostly women, but some
Hispanic construction workers, some Asian, even some Pakistani or
Indian women with veils showing only their eyes. And me. All of us
riding that A train to jobs that go nowhere, singing the temporary
blues.
So, this is what I think:. I don't like all these changes going on
that are happening to me. I want to be a part of making changes.
The way things look as they are, I don't have much of a future. I
don't make enough to contribute to a pension fund, and everybody
knows that Social Security isn't enough. My kids won't be able to
take care of me. They're just struggling to survive themselves.
I'm more worried about what kind of future my grandchildren are
going to have. That is why for me it is essential to be a part of
at least two organizations. One is the Labor Party. It is time we
got about the business of building a political party in this
country that is going to fight for the millions of people like me.
It is very tough to organize temporary and downsized workers into
a union. But a political organization that fights for decent jobs
and health care and a secure future for the entire working class
is an idea whose time has come.
Second, I feel that it is absolutely necessary to be a part of a
political organization that is about making a permanent change
that has a different vision of the future. That is why I am a
member of the League of Revolutionaries for a New America. If you
really want to know the truth, the one thing I really enjoy doing
is writing. I would just as soon let the robots do all those jobs
that all of us temporary workers are doing just because we have to
do them to survive.
Free me up so I can really be productive. But to do that would
take a whole different kind of society. But this is one thing the
capitalist class, who are really the ones who are engineering all
these changes that are overturning our lives, will come to
understand: What goes around comes around. Things turn into their
opposites. We temporaries are the catalyst of permanent change, a
change that will cast those who think capitalism is forever into
the dustbins of history. I may be singing the temporary blues
now. But there is only one thing for sure: the blues are temporary
too.
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This article originated in the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE (Online Edition),
Vol. 25 No. 5 / May, 1998; P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL
60654, [EMAIL PROTECTED] or WWW:
http://www.mcs.com/~league
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