Wage Slavery: Alive and Thriving

[Stark]

Is he just basing sweeping generalizations on nothing? Amusingly management theory and research is all about why he's wrong. :v Zak did you skip your 'stop mustache twirling in the office' class?!

The language fascinates me. Managers must be MADE - FORCED if necessary - to not be evil, counterproductive, selfish, etc. I'm aware this is probably his experience, but my point was that every business textbook spells out why it's stupid. American business thinkers are a world apart from some American business practice, and that's interesting. I'm willing to bet muh of this behaviour is because of poory hosen performance measures.

Turns out if you offer a bonus to cut costs people will cut costs.

[Starglider]

I agree with Simon in that most executives assume that 'modern HR theory' only applies to knowledge workers. Or at least, people with significant and visible recruiting / replacement costs. The up-front cost of getting a temp agency to replace someone is negligible; training costs are usually hidden if it is just other employees losing time to showing them what to do.

[Simon_Jester]

Nah, Stark's obviously right.

Managers in other countries wouldn't behave that way if they got the chance, except a few bad apples.
It's much more likely that America just produces worse managers than every other developed country. It must be something in the water.

[K. A. Pital]

I'm aware this is probably his experience, but my point was that every business textbook spells out why it's stupid. American business thinkers are a world apart from some American business practice, and that's interesting.

Interesting? That's just doublethink and not much more. "Business thinkers" are just there to write apologetic texts about how something "works ideally". It does not work like that in reality.

The fact that theoretic exercises in textbooks are full of apple pie and goodines says nothing. Hell, there are constitutions of entire nations which are filled with goodiness, and yet in practice tough luck to have the word of the constitution followed, and the spirit of it even less so.

No matter what 'advanced theories' you conjure, if in reality you economize through the use of lease labour to be treated as drones, the separation only indicates the level of doublethink involved and not much more. It can also be a matter of shifted perspective. For example, fucking up lease labour can be considered a minor aspect while some fluffy aspects of "teamwork" and "respect" and yadda yadda can occupy the greater part of these books simply because the people reading them want to feel good about themselves. In reality they are pompous assholes; in the books they're the equivalent of Merlin at Arthur's court.

Fuck them all (c).

[Kanastrous]

Huge volumes of extremely high-quality management theory is produced in the USA on issues like retention, development, culture, even things like responsibility and ethics. The rest of the world uses these ideas. And yet America itself seems to but run in short-sighted and self-defeating ways. It's a mystery to me, in particular the attitude towards labour pools.

I suspect that it varies depending upon which end of the labor pool you look at. Within my own industry, the treatment given well-trained, well-educated, experienced craftspeople is distinctly different than that given easily replaceable, unskilled workers even though we're all unionized. So, how much worse the disparity, in an environment where the people on the professional 'low end' don't have those protections?

Managers probably don't care to think in terms of retention, development and culture when it comes to easily-replaced squeeze-em-empty-and-throw-em-away-type hires. That regard is reserved for more skilled, more educated employees higher up the food chain (or, more accurately, employees -perceived- as more skilled, educated etc since in this economy there are doubtless PhD holders carting goods around a warehouse, somewhere).

That high-quality management theory is probably still widely-applied, just not evenly applied. Why not kick the dog, if he's only a dog, you figure you can get away with it, and you happen to be a dog-kicker, by nature?

[PainRack]

You wanna know what really hurt me about this article?

Thank God that I (unlike Brian, probably) didn't need to pay for opting into Amalgamated's "limited" health insurance program. Because in my 10.5-hour day I'll make about $60 after taxes

My 9 hour workday gives me around 60 sing dollars after taxes.... Of course, this ignores the crap that I'm supposed to arrive 10-30 mins earlier to check out the area, something I been skipping because my place is heavily overstaffed at the moment.

So, by US standards, I'm considered a wage slave..... I'm not too sure how I feel about that at the moment since I'm not at the low tier of wages in the hospital.

[Mr Bean]

You wanna know what really hurt me about this article?

Thank God that I (unlike Brian, probably) didn't need to pay for opting into Amalgamated's "limited" health insurance program. Because in my 10.5-hour day I'll make about $60 after taxes

My 9 hour workday gives me around 60 sing dollars after taxes.... Of course, this ignores the crap that I'm supposed to arrive 10-30 mins earlier to check out the area, something I been skipping because my place is heavily overstaffed at the moment.

So, by US standards, I'm considered a wage slave..... I'm not too sure how I feel about that at the moment since I'm not at the low tier of wages in the hospital.

FYI you have to factor in American living costs so for 60$ a day that's 300 a week 1200 a month in a place where a shitty apartment plus shitty renters insurance (Which every rent place makes you buy) plus heating, water and gas will cost you 560$-640$ a month. Meaning your standing expenses eat half your budget before you add in food and gas money means your looking at 800$ a month in expenses or roughly 400$ a month free to spend on frivolity like clothing or dental heathcare (Which the heath plan won't cover) or doctor visits since limited America heathcare just means going to the emergency room won't instantly bankrupt you but a two day stay in the hospital will.

That's what it's like for most Americans at the bottom rungs, sure you have spending money but the instant you start saving it some crises comes along and you have to spend the 2-3k you save up on an engine overhaul or a downpayment on a new car (Hello car insurance and car payment now you have 180$ a month after expenses)

[Kanastrous]

I'm unfamiliar with labor practices and public policy, in Singapore - are the wages at all offset by things like public health care programs, good useful public transit, housing assistance, etc?

[Civil War Man]

Managers probably don't care to think in terms of retention, development and culture when it comes to easily-replaced squeeze-em-empty-and-throw-em-away-type hires. That regard is reserved for more skilled, more educated employees higher up the food chain (or, more accurately, employees -perceived- as more skilled, educated etc since in this economy there are doubtless PhD holders carting goods around a warehouse, somewhere).

This is pretty much the way I view it. Managers will likely devote more energy into retention and keeping employees happy if it is expensive to replace them, assuming they can even find a replacement in instances where demand for a certain skill set outstrips the supply of qualified applicants. Managers may not be actively malicious, but they aren't going to value an employee as much if they can fire someone in the morning and have 15 possible replacements queuing up before lunch, and have the eventual replacement trained to effectively the same level of proficiency as the former employee within a week. Especially in a business where high employee turnover is normal (like a company that employs a lot of high school or college students, for example).

[Akhlut]

And that's exactly the sort of labor the temp agencies in the OP are using: the labor is simple, so anyone can be hired. And given the current economic situation, they can hire and fire at will without any issues at all. When the company is focused on profitability to the exclusion of everything else, then labor's going to get the brunt of the company's cost-cutting measures.

[JointStrikeFighter]

You are all missing the point; management theory overwhelmingly talks about how even at the low level retaining staff and fostering a quality working environment costs almost nothing whilst the costs, mainly through oportunity costs of high turn over are enormously high.

[Kanastrous]

Perhaps some employers have found that they can modify the application of the theory, and still get the results they're after.

[Starglider]

No one is hiring MBAs to manage a crew of box stuffers. The supervisors are likely paid less than the average wage themselves and probably don't know / don't care about (from their point of view) all that fancy HR stuff from overpriced business school textbooks. I suspect it's the same dynamic as call centers; the supervisors are just the people who managed to survive a year or two in the job and claw their way off the bottom rung, and are often pretty bitter and jaded about it.

[Stark]

I've worked with guys that manage call centers, and the floor managers might be leveled up guys but they're still exposed to these ideas. In this case it's likely that the way the manager is measured is more important than the evil inherent in all managers. The only decisions or actions I'd call 'bad' were a result of policy.

Even unskilled stuff like call centers are owned by and run by people who know fucking people up the ass does not increase productivity.

[PainRack]

FYI you have to factor in American living costs so for 60$ a day that's 300 a week 1200 a month in a place where a shitty apartment plus shitty renters insurance (Which every rent place makes you buy) plus heating, water and gas will cost you 560$-640$ a month. Meaning your standing expenses eat half your budget before you add in food and gas money means your looking at 800$ a month in expenses or roughly 400$ a month free to spend on frivolity like clothing or dental heathcare (Which the heath plan won't cover) or doctor visits since limited America heathcare just means going to the emergency room won't instantly bankrupt you but a two day stay in the hospital will.

Er.... I made a mistake in my math.
Although the wages of 1200 dollars a month does apply to my enrolled nurses. Once one takes away CPF contributions(mandatory saving program), they have a takehome pay of 900 dollars to 1 thousand, including ward and night shift allowances.

My starting take home pay was 1.4k a month including allowances, although I had hit 1.5k when I done nightshifts on consecutive weekends. Income tax at that level, since I had tax deduction for staying at home with my parents is neglibible.

It sorta hit me hard though, because the complaints about wage scales and costs of living in Singapore don't really start to hurt until you start comparing it to overseas. My colleague, who's a filipino pays 200 to 300 dollars a month rental, and he achieves this because he's staying with buddies in a single room. A rental apartment with utilities will cost several THOUSAND dollars.
http://www.rentinsingapore.com/current_ ... rket_rates

Granted, the facillities aren't the equivalent of the studio apartment with a hot stove but its still cramped and basic, as people double up to save on costs.

And the only advantages these guys get is because they're working for a hospital, they enjoy some medical benefits. This as opposed to those working in other service industries.

I'm unfamiliar with labor practices and public policy, in Singapore - are the wages at all offset by things like public health care programs, good useful public transit, housing assistance, etc?

Other than public transit, no.

At least, nothing on the scale of a western social safety net, and since a good majority of the low rung workers are vulnerable folks like the elderly or foreigners, it isn't enough to meet their needs at all.

We have a very extensive network of public transit, however, its something that's required due to the innumerable amount of measures created to keep car populations low. Unfortunately, as we're now the most densely populated country in the world, our infrastructure is buckling as it can't meet the load. Attempts to increase services have met into capacity and safety limits, with several public breakdowns being publicly attributed to the increased workload of our train system.


Housing assistance...... is nowhere comparable to the British system and also not available to people earning more than 1 thousand dollars a month. Neither is it available to foreigners. There used to be a very successful public house ownership scheme, which has broken down due to the rising costs of public flats. My new home, costs me an additional 300 dollars in interest a month, on TOP of my deductions from my mandatory saving program(CPF) and it will take me more than 20 years to pay off the loan.A 5 room flat apartment,103 square meters in size, costs me more than 300 thousand dollars, and its cheap because now, the prices would have hit 400 thousand dollars.
And these are with public subsidies, government loans factored in. At least the insurance comes involved with it, and I bought castrophic insurance to cover the deaths of myself, so, even if I do die, as long as a minium sum has been paid, the apartment is ours.
http://www.hdb.gov.sg/

I'm going to assume you're talking about healthcare assistance as opposed to public healthcare programs, where we do score well in anyway. Prices here are cheap compared to the costs I keep seeing in the States, but its still much more expensive compared to Japan, Taiwan,Germany or well, any other co-pay scheme available in a developed first world country.

Primary healthcare is 80% private, 20% public, with most GP charging around 20-30 dollars per consultation. Going to a public polyclinic is much cheaper, with consultation begining from 8 dollars and public subsisdies on certain medications. On average, bills with meds cost around 40 dollars or so, although this seriously depends on the level of polypharmacy you're at.
http://www.nhgp.com.sg/ourservices_list ... ories.aspx

Dental sucks though. Its a month or so to squeeze into the public lists, and even if I could do it, it still costs me tens of dollars to do so for basic polishing and examination. Paying an additional 20-30 bucks for that is usually much more convienent for me. The only time I used the system was to get my wisdom tooth extractions, braces or x-rays done since its much cheaper and isn't an "emergency" situation.

This is our hospital bill sizes in mean.
http://www.moh.gov.sg/content/moh_web/h ... lSize.html

Public finanicing for hospital bills are paid for via the 3Ms scheme.
http://www.moh.gov.sg/content/moh_web/h ... ncing.html
Medisave, which is a component of our mandatory saving account(the much beloved HSA of US conservative dreams), Medishield, a government opt out insurance scheme and Medifund, a community chest which helps defray bills for the poor and needy.

Private insurance is easily bought for via our equivalent of the HSA, which are easily more comprehensive and includes allowances to cover your daily needs expenses, although the Medishield is comprehensive enough to cover for basic treatment. The issue comes with regards to the newer technologies and drugs and that is where private insurance supposedly excels over public insurance.

The government also steps in with subsidisation of hospital bills for the "public" hospital stay, ranging up to 80% for needy patients.
However, these are only with regards to hospital finanicing, with medication bills paid for out of pocket for the majority of Singaporeans. Most basic drugs are subsidised,(they FINALLY subsidised HIV meds..... the bastards) but well.... remember that whole NICE issue in britain with regards to glaucoma? we have that too. HIV drugs was one HUGE fucking issue and most patients eventually got their drugs from Thailand generics.

Its fucking annoying because we face the problems of both private and socialised medicine. The patients are paying for the bills, which run into cost problems, and public assistance can be limiting and we do run into long waiting lists, aka, socialised medicine ills.


Our mandatory savings program, which essentially function as our "social security" net when combined with Community Chest.
http://mycpf.cpf.gov.sg/Members/home.htm

[Kanastrous]

That's a lot of useful stuff. Thanks!

[Starglider]

For comparison, private health insurance in the UK is approx $30/month for diagnosis cover + $60/month for treatment cover (for young adults with a $150 excess). That's about half the cost of similar cover in the US and actually less than I pay for my home internet connection. A side benefit of reasonably comprehensive public health service is keeping private premiums down; you're mostly paying to avoid waiting lists and it is priced accordingly.

[PainRack]

Agreed. Even in countries with a government mandated health insurance, private insurance rates are generally lower although there are thereotical issues regarding cherry-picking healthier people and etc.


For example, the basic government health insurance here costs 30 dollars annually, and private Medishield plans cost anywhere up to 159 or 700 dollars(depending on age of buy in), but this covers treatment at private hospitals and the significantly higher bills those incur. The issue rests on deductibiles, although it IS possible to shelve that off onto our equivalent of the HSA....... for certain procedures anyway.

http://www.moh.gov.sg/content/dam/moh_w ... le%204.pdf

[The Yosemite Bear]

I recalled my brother when he was still working for temps before he got to work for his current pharma company. with his student loan payments, unpaid OT, he was loosing about $500 a month, in basic medical expenses, phone, etc.

[Dalton]

Just saw this article.

[Raj Ahten]

Even government agencies in the US go the temp worker route these days. I should know, as I am one. I'm capped at 1500 hours a year with no benefits and other folks at the park I'm at are in a similar position. The thing is their position used to be salaried for around $35,000 a year with full benefits. Mine is officially a seasonal position but I'm on the full year because staffing levels would be to low to keep the place from falling apart otherwise. We shouldn't worry though as we have a right to work here in Virginia .

[Losonti Tokash]

What's up, fellow "temp" worker for a state agency? I've been working in Medicaid in Nebraska since October. Not eligible for any benefits either.