> Date sent: Wed, 1 Jan 1997 12:11:36 -0800 (PST)
> Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> From: "Ellen Dannin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: [PEN-L:8030] Re: contingent work
> Perception in this area is fairly important. There have been lately a
> number of stories in the papers about how fearful people are as a result
> of their own or others' experiences with downsizing and/or being made
> contingent. Some say they are happy to have been cut free of an employer
> and to be their own persons. Others have become craven in their fears.
>
> The result is a growing sense that employment in the US is "Rent to Own".
> The thirteenth amendment may have outlawed slavery, but lots of folks now
> are willing to do anything to make certain that the rental of their time,
> minds, efforts, and bodies can come as close to ownership by their employers
> as is possible.
>
> ellen
>
> Ellen J. Dannin
> California Western School of Law
> 225 Cedar Street
> San Diego, CA 92101
> Phone: 619-525-1449
> Fax: 619-696-9999
>
I know a large number of "contingent workers" and although my smaple
is selected and biased, I don't know even one who is "HAPPY" about
not having employment for a contractually fixed term or who is
"HAPPY" about not being able to get credit under terms that I could
get as someone who is tenured or who is "HAPPY" about their
contingent status being a daily reminder that they are the most
disposable, most vulnerable, most subject to the vicissitudes of
capitalism among the employed or marginally employed or who is
"HAPPY" about the degrees of uncertainty they face day to day.
The vicissitudes, inner-logic, core imperatives and power structures
of capitalism dictate that virtually all workers and those unemployed
are to be perceived and treated as disposable commodified objects or
"productive inputs", subject to the almighty "bottom line", to be
played off against each other in the quest of absolute and relative
surplus value maximization. Some may not tie their status to the very
structures, core imperatives and inner-logic of capital and
capitalism, but I don't know any who are "HAPPY" about their status
and conditions of existence--whomever or whatever they might blame it
on.
Jim Craven
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