No Wonder Our
Middle Class is Vanishing: They've Been Out-Sourced!
Outsourcing. It's a sterile sort of word that was meant to sound
positive. It describes what happens when a business arranges to have
another company assume responsibility for a job function to save costs and
cut expenses and improve efficiency. And, to quote the
Supremes: "it could happen to you"!
Not
more than a generation ago the folks who picked up trash ... the guys who
drove the garbage trucks in your neighborhood were employees of that
community. The staff of cafeteria workers & janitors in local schools
were employees of the school system. Bus drivers? Yep, they were
employees of the city or town the transit system serviced. And these
were jobs skillfully handled by local citizens who lived in or near the
community they served, shopped at local stores that also employed folks that
resided nearby ... folks who paid local taxes and contributed in
countless ways which represented the American dream.
I grew up in the '50s believing in these simple truths which were reinforced
by popular culture of the era: television. Pictured above / right:
Ralph Kramden the eternally optimistic NY City
bus driver living with his wife, Alice, Ralph's best friend &
sanitation worker Ed Norton with his wife Trixie ... lead characters in
CBS hit TV sitcom 1955: "The Honeymooners". Art Carney who
played the character of Norton won 3 Emmy Awards for his convincing
performances of a typical middle class fellow.
Yesterday I was reading the news of the day and stumbled upon a disturbing
headline:
Boeing’s 737 Max Software Outsourced to $9-an-Hour Engineers
The Max software -- plagued by issues that could keep the planes
grounded months longer after U.S. regulators this week revealed a new
flaw -- was developed at a time Boeing was laying off experienced
engineers and pressing suppliers to cut costs.
Increasingly, the iconic American plane maker and its subcontractors have
relied on temporary workers making as little as $9 an hour to develop and test
software, often from countries lacking a deep background in aerospace -- notably
India. [source]
No wonder our "middle class" is vanishing, I thought … they've been
outsourced! The story was yet another chapter in horrific accounts of
two airliners crashes involving Boeing's latest designs of their 737 jet
liners. And it's the latest example of corporate greed that has put profits
ahead of supporting the citizens and our social fabric in this grand
country. (Outsourcing is also at the root of some issues related to
our current immigration debate ... prisons and detention facilities that are
run not by employees of a city, state or the Federal government but rather
private for-profit companies. And what could go wrong with that sort
of arrangement?? Plenty...but that's a rant for another day.)
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