Fifty Years Ago CBS

broadcast a famous documentary, Harvest of Shame, which chronicled the lives of migrant workers throughout the country. The plight of migrant workers scandalized the country, but it appears we really haven't progressed at all since the show aired.

In addition to migrant farm workers, we now have migrant warehouse workers who flit from job to job, location to location, to be paid shit by the likes of Amazon.com.

No roots, lousy pay, no future. This is the United States in 2010.

Clips from the 1960 documentary classic:

More Booming Economy

Not only are full-time workers feeling the pinch during this so-called "recession," but temporary workers are also.

This is a scary statistic:

Question: How many people go to work every week without being classified as a full-time worker?

Answer: Nearly one-third of the work force, about 42.6 million people, according to a 2006 report from the U.S. General Accountability Office. About 21.5 million of these workers either specialized in temp assignments, were independent contractors or were self-employed.

I suspect the self-employed are a minority of that statistic. It's scary because these people typically have no benefits.

Thank our federal officials for allowing far too many good jobs to go overseas and helping to decimate the quality of the jobs remaining here.
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With layoffs increasing, so are wrongful termination lawsuits, which are difficult to win in the best of cases.

One of the biggest regrets I have in my life was EVER allowing myself to sign an arbitration agreement, which the union and its lawyers did NOT explain waived all my rights to sue. I couldn't have witnesses, I couldn't bring in evidence, nothing. It was nothing but a kangaroo court process.
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