There’s been a very discernible shift in the American work environment since the beginning of the Great Recession of 2008.
That’s for those Americans who are actually working full-time jobs. Just to remind you, unemployment is still painfully high. Last week’s headlines boast the ‘hot streak’ of new jobs being added to the economy and unemployment falling to 6.2%. But if you read further in these articles you find out that real unemployment is 12.2%.
‘Real unemployment’ is a figure used by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics that goes beyond counting only those filing unemployment claims. It also includes those who’ve given up looking for work and run out of unemployment insurance as well as those who want to be working full-time but can only find part-time work. I reference the bleak labor force realities in America because I want to make a larger point about the realities of those working full-time: employers know it’s an ugly market out there, and a disturbingly large share of them are using that knowledge to abuse and exploit their full-timers.
Over the last five years I’ve heard countless stories of workplace practices that would appall even Mr. Burns from The Simpsons. I’ll get back to the hard stats momentarily, but here are a couple of fun anecdotes.
In 2010, a close attorney friend of mine was laid off from a large, well-respected New York City-based law firm at the beginning of the Recession. The partners gathered together in a large conference room where attorneys were brought, one at a time. The partners went around the table, and in a sadistic frat boy-like hazing ritual, shredded the soon-to-be-laid-off attorney, telling him or her, in so many words, the reason he is being let go is because he is such a loser. I guess saying that demand for services had diminished because of the Recession is just not as much fun as emotionally destroying people.
Another friend told me the story of how her employer instituted a Recession-era policy that involved recording the number of clicks per hour on mouse pads to calculate productivity. Those who fell short were punished and threatened with termination. Employees were also being watched on cameras to see if they violated rules about bringing snacks to their desks or talking on their cell phones.
And then nearly everyone I’ve talked to is feeling pressured to work off the clock. This is not just anecdotal stuff, this is a trend that is well-documented: this week, after an investigation into labor practices at LinkedIn.com, the U.S. Department of Labor ordered the company, which made $1.53 billion in revenues in 2013, to pay nearly $6 million in back wages to employees who worked overtime but were not paid for it. The LinkedIn story is not anomalous: according to a DOL spokesperson, ‘off the clock hours are all too common for the American worker.’
Some employers get busted for this practice, some get away with it. Why? Because there’s either the explicit or implicit message floating around American workplaces: ‘you better do what we say because it’s ugly out there.’
In addition to Dickensian policies, I’ve heard myriad stories about workplaces that have become Machiavellian hell holes where the ruthless and ambitious rise at the expense of every other employee, and often at the expense of the company. Office places have become petri dishes of bad, fear-driven behavior gone wild. Activities that used to be frowned upon have become routine: the new normal is comprised of petty sniping, throwing fellow workers under the bus and obsequious mewling designed to curry favor with management.
Germany is an example of a country handling the Great Recession with so much more intelligence, grace and humanity. Back in 2010 the government instituted a program called Kurzarbeit, or ‘short work.’ The program allows companies in distress to cut workers’ hours while the government makes up for the employees’ lost wages. This way, huge swaths of employees don’t get tossed out on the street, put on unemployment and made to feel ashamed. Kurzarbeit also makes perfect economic sense. If you keep people working, they don’t lose skills. And as soon as demand returns, companies are ready to meet it.
It’s bad enough that middle class wages in the U.S. have been stagnant since the 1970s: workplaces have now become paranoia-filled pressure cookers where only power-grabbing lunatics prevail.
Workplace stories to share? Send them my way: alison.gallant@gmail.com
Alison Gallant is a freelance journalist living in Los Angeles.
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