Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Precariat of the World Arise!

Precariat of the World arise from your slumbers!
You have nothing to lose but your chains.

Besides, it's nearly lunchtime already, so for gorsakes, get a grip and don't let yourselves go!

So you think you're not chained?

Then what do you call that invisible umbilical cord that ties you to your PC, and is even now pulling you towards seek.com, lest you fail to report to Kafkalink and lose even that $235 a week that you had, you wretches of the earth?

DH finds it hard to claim to be desperate when everything is crumbling around us. As a mostly unpaid  member of the Precariat despite a string of degrees, qualifications, references, high level computing skills, and an arguably charming personality to boot, DH can only tighten her belt and be grateful that she still has a roof over her head, unlike so many of her fellow over-qualified middle-aged men and women. And young people fresh out of courses without jobs attached. And immigrants. And all the rest,  people who are just unlucky, unnattractive,  plain average, or deficient in the requisite sharks teeth,  ie most of us..

Here's the latest body blow to the Precariat.  Read the The Aussie making a motza from offshoring white-collar jobs and be very afraid. It's no longer just big corporations that are outsourcing our jobs to a grateful third world. Now small business can get in on the act. Those bits and pieces of jobs that DH and her fellow Precarissimos scrape up from the bottom of the shrinking barrel at ever shrinking hourly rates will now decline further.

Now there's a job for the Labour Phoenix arising. How about going out in a blaze of glory by having the courage to change the taxation system that encourages the housing crisis, and do the right thing and have one pension for everyone, with extra on top for those with disabilities. Yes, we know the National Disability Insurance Scheme is coming and will cost. That's good. But the Newstart policy is creating more disability and homelessness as we type. Force those 3 mining louts, Gina Rinehart, Clive Palmer and Twiggy Forrest pay. And let's not forget the Faceless Criminals of the gambling industry. Confiscate their assets and send them packing. Talking about packing, think of the back tax the alltime gross-outs, the Packer family must owe.

Labor has not changed Howard's punitive regime of industrial conscription. Unemployed Australians

  • first have to lose their life savings before they can even get on the miserable Newstart of abt $240 a week for a single person.
  • can only earn $30 a week before starting to lose 50 cents in the dollar of their pension. What is appalling about this is that it is the same figure as it was 25 years ago, if DH remembers correctly.
  • even employers associations are now starting to think this is bad.
Is it any wonder that there are so many homeless?

Let's hope this isn't an excuse to divide and rule the underclasses by bashing people who live in public housing. Housos do not cause the housing shortage.

Change the unjust laws that positively encourage landlords to get away with highway robbery first!