I call it Greed.
The use of perma-temps has been increasing nationwide and not just in Texas. However Texas appears to be one of the leaders of this practice. This should be troubling to many Americans. Temporary jobs have grown at a far faster pace than permanent hire positions. Companies use temporary workers for years and by using these types of workers they are able to conveniently get around labor protections and the paying of benefits. This is an extremely unfair practice to the worker.
I've seen many major companies in the Dallas, Fort Worth area use temps so often , and in such high numbers, they have contracted for years with certain temp agencies to do the majority of their hiring for them. These are "multi-year"contracts the businesses are signing. The temp agencies now are brought on site and given offices at the actual company. Many of these contracts are so lopsided, for every hour the employee works, the temporary staffing agency can at times recieve more than the employees hourly wage if not the same. For instance , let's look at labor ready staffing. 95% of labor ready's jobs in the DFW area pay minimum wage. Yet a friend who worked at labor ready was privy to the contracted fees charged by the company for every hour a temporary employee worked and for many positions labor ready was charging the employer over twice that amount. Most would look at this and question why would an employer pay twice as much to the staffing agency for use of a temporary worker. The answer is that employers choose this option because the employee hired on through them directly would potentially cost much more in benefits and unemployment insurance and potential litigation costs. So in using a temporary worker the employer gets a completely powerless and disposable worker and is absolved of all responsibility for the employee.
So it's no wonder that the increased use of temporary staffing employment has given rise to a litany of employment abuses such as non payment of wages, terminations for discriminatory and retaliatory reasons, unsafe working conditions and other abusive and exploitative treatment. Working as a temporary agent in Texas places the employee in a particularly precarious position because Texas is long known for being hostile towards any notion of employee rights or worker protections. Texas has the lowest number of worker protections out of the majority of other states, which coincidentally has led to Texas being one of the deadliest states for workers according to OSHA.
If a worker complains Texas State Law mandates they do so openly or their complaint simply won't be taken. Complaints to the Texas regulatory agencies tasked with overseeing employee abuse also cannot be placed by a third party. Many people fearing for their jobs, and rightly so, as Texas is a right to work state "on steroids" and people know they can easily lose their jobs over complaining about mistreatment, simply do not come forth.
There is no type of "whistle blower" protection in the state of Texas. You either give your name and make it public or you don't step forward at all. So many employers know they can operate with near impunity when it comes to ripping off or abusing their workers.
Since I've lived in Texas I've heard numerous complaints from friends about employers simply stiffing them, then dumping them and moving on to the next "victim".
Its bad in this state. Worse than I've ever seen.
The next point I will mention is one that I really hate to mention because people are race weary. However, as an african American, Texas is very racial. They recognize race in this state moreso than any other state I've lived, and white people (not all of course but a concerning number) are hostile to race. Hostile to blacks. Hostile to Hispanics, and hostile to non Christians.
Texans prefer their leaders and their executives and their darlings to still be "white heterosexual men".
I can hear it now when people read this the voice in their head saying "well if Texas is so bad why are so many people moving there?" Simple. Because Texas has created a business climate of no regulations, businesses have found Texas to be especially attractive and have moved from states that mandate, for instance, that their workers can't be blown to pieces in fertilizer plants to Texas where apparently the workers can be. In other words, Texas simply doesn't regulate these businesses. Therefore abuses and deaths have ensued.
The worker is NOTHING in Texas. You have no rights and no voice and if anything happens the answer from the state offices will be "Get A Lawyer".
Even though as a low wage worker (and truthfully even a middle class worker) you may not be able to afford one. If you look at someone earning between minimum wage and let's say $20.00 an hour, it will be a stretch to afford a $250.00 to $300.00 dollar an hour attorney. Legal representation is quickly becoming a venue of the the rich and well resourced, and not the regular working class voter. What that means is that businesses who use low wage workers know and rightly assume their misdeeds will go overlooked. Its expensive to fight through the courts and let's be honest the courts in Texas have never been known for their "fairness" when it comes to ruling on issues between the poor (and often minority) and corporations. The judges list corporations as some of their major campaign backers and they rarely recuse themselves from hearing cases in which a financial backer is a part of.
There is very little justice in a Texas court if one is black, Hispanic, non Christian or poor.
Since I've lived in Texas I have tried to adjust to a "new normal". A new normal of aggregious employer conduct and very low wages. But ever so often someone makes a comment that reminds me "something is wrong". The other day I was at a meeting and there were many people new to Texas. They mentioned the people were friendly and I agreed. However in the course of the conversation someone said it.. They said that phrase I have often thought and wondered about which is "why are the wages so low"? I had no response. I met several people who had been sucked into what I refer to as the temporary trap. Every company they applied at, they find the only way to be hired was through an agency and once hired they found the contract is three or four years and the contract bars the company from hiring them in that timeframe. Temporary agencies often do this to ensure the person will be stuck with them or go somewhere else.
The wages are so low in Texas and the treatment of workers so horrific many people find it less cumbersome and traumatic, as well as better paying, to get on welfare as apparently (as noted by a recent study) in Texas welfare pays MORE than the average job.
And never mind mentioning this to a republican because they usually say (in such a very sarcastic way) "well you should have become a doctor or an engineer". Nevermind the fact the MIDDLE CLASS is being SCREWED ROYALLY by these practices so much so that the middle class is dying out. Eventually there will be nothing but the filthy rich and the extraordinarily poor.
The republicans are so extreme in this state, the state of Texas has been sued (a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of agriculture in 2010 I believe ) because the Texas government was illegally finding tricky and underhanded ways to push people off of food aid simply because it was "ideologically opposed" to the program. I knew of a young woman who was informed (rather recently) that the state of Texas would deny her food aid simply because she "wasn't married when she became pregnant". This was told to her by an agent who worked in a local HHS office. When she escalated to a manager the manager then advised her that Texas reserved the right to not give food aid to unmarried women. She was persistent and went up the chain. She sent a few emails and contacted the HHS Ombudsman office who informed her this was not correct. She already knew it wasn't correct. But why were members from the department of Health and human services making these types of statements to the public? Who was behind this?
None if this will change until minorities, fed up with corporate exploitation, abuse, and judicial bias get out the vote in numbers equal to their population percentage. And this is what the republicans in Texas do NOT want. Several efforts by Texas republicans and the Texas governor to limit the voting of minorities were struck down for being racist. Yet these devils continually try.
From the ugly sidelines down in dirty Texas...
The Infinite One
