News about His Holiness -- and -- Drone Workers of America

Some good news about His Holiness: The Dalai Lama was released from a hospital in Mumbai on Monday, September 1, after a four-day observation for abdominal discomfort and fatigue. In the last month he has maintained a very busy touring schedule, and it was thought that he was suffering from fatigue, and a possible stomach infection. The doctors have recommended rest for the 73-year-old Tenzin Gyatso. His appointments for the next few weeks have been cancelled, but he is expected to resume his normal schedule some time in mid- to late-September. He was in good spirits. -- Information Courtesy of Snow Lion, September 5, 2008

DRONE WORKERS OF AMERICA

The United States has always been looked upon as being a land with streets paved in gold -- golden opportunities -- where any and everyone can get rich quick. That may be true for some, but not many.

With Mr. Donald Trump as their exemplar, the new model for American management is to use a worker until they are a dried-up husk, discard them, and reach for another. Oh, did I mention -- mistakes are not tolerated.

On the bottom rung are employees of the large chains of retail stores, who work for long hours (which are arbitrarily extended during the Christmas rush, with the threat of being fired if double shifts and giving up one's days off aren't greeted with glee), minimum wages followed by miniscule increases in pay once a year, and often if not most times, no access to health care benefits.

A step or two up from this are folks working at twice minimum wage under extremely high pressure jobs, where the pressure is steadily ratcheted up, notch by notch. Raises do come - 2 to 3% per year - but they don't keep up with the 4 - 5% cost of living increases and the now infamous 10 cents per week per gallon gasoline and home heating fuel increases. These jobs, usually found in hospitals, nursing homes, schools, and the like, also have -- and this is the hook -- health benefits that are good and reasonably priced, so no matter how bad the work situation gets, the worker is desperate to retain the job, despite the fact that the pressure of the job increases month by month as the employer tries to wring every last penny's worth from the worker. Replacement workers are hired at significantly lower salaries. Always over one's head hangs the threat of being replaced by one of these newer workers if one doesn't meeet the work quota within the work day -- no working overtime, even unpaid, is allowed to complete the extra work being piled on.

And, several rungs up from these pressured souls, are the professionals, who used to be relatively immune from this sort of persecution. Employers, having seen that their tactics work so well on the general population of workers, have finally applied them to the professional classes of clinicians, therapists, teachers, doctors under contract, etc. Dictating that they must see more patients or clients, must take on more classwork, but do so in fewer hours, and at the pay rate of the fewer hours instead of being paid by the hour, the professional under contract might be forced to take up to a 200% pay decrease, plus assume an inhuman amount of work and stress!

Yes, it is legal. No it isn't pretty, nor will it result in quality treatment of students, patients, or clients, or politeness toward customers. No wonder people seem so unhappy in our land of plenty!

The only choice left to workers is to change places of employment: and right now, there are few places available, the market is tight.

Yes, I have heard time and time again, that the worker in these situations is lucky to have a job at all. Lucky, that is, until they completely burn out, become hospitalized for psychological and emotional stress, begin self-destructive activities, neglect their appearance, have car accidents due to extreme fatigue, become so unbalanced as to lose all touch with reality, and kill themselves. It has happened. It almost happened to me.

Feel compassion for workers trapped in ever worsening conditions, who are so abused they can no longer feel grateful just to have a job at all. Feel compassion for the employer, who is driven to act this way in order to keep his or her business open in difficult economic times, and is answerable to the shareholders or will lose his job and be replaced by someone even more extreme. Feel compassion.