Recovery

A trooper, Gabrielle Giffords. Alive and well. I know it sounds cheesy but this survival gives me hope. Hope that reason can also survive, rather than extremity.

The American Nightmare

Welcome to the real world class of 2010- No one wants to hire you!

Unemployment rate for college grads is highest since 1970

No one needs you, 2010

"Over the next several weeks, hundreds of thousands of Millennials will graduate from institutions of higher learning. They will celebrate for several days, perhaps longer. Then they will enter a labor force that neither wants nor needs them.

They will enter an economy where roughly 17% of people aged 20 through 24 do not have a job, and where two million college graduates are unemployed. They will enter a world where they will compete tooth and nail for jobs as waitresses, pizza delivery men, file clerks, bouncers, trainee busboys, assistant baristas, interns at bodegas."

1967

"I wheel my two-year-old daughter in a shopping cart through a supermarket... and a little white girl riding past in her mother's shopping cart calls out excitedly 'oh look, Mommy, a baby maid!'"

-Audre Lorde ("Hispanic")

Small goal #1:

My friend and I have decided that banning corn syrup in the state of CA (production of corn syrup as well) is a good idea..

..getting it on the ballot. Need to research some stuff though.

This is a reason for fury

http://money.cnn.com/2010/11/24/news/economy/thebuzz/index.htm?fb_ref=fbLike&fb_source=home_multiline

..yet again.

Career Goals

-Major in Law, focusing on Civil Rights and Labor Law
-Minor in psychology, sociology and philosophy

-to enforce and incorporate any candidates for public office to only recieve and make use of public funding for election campaigns

-greatly reduce the amount of corporate lobbyists plaguing Washington DC

-make minimum wage the minimum cost of living (as it applies to holdhold sizes not exceeding 4 individuals)

-forbid employers from EVER requiring an employee to forsake a higher education to dedicate their time to any current employment (this will not mean that you can simply ignore your employment or abuse your employers)

-ensure that employers cannot inquire an employee's (or potential employee's) union membership status nor forbid any employee from being a union member

-to have GM, Mack Truck, Firestone, and Standard Oil of California rebuild the public transit torn apart by them in Tulsa OK, Montgomery AL, Cedar Rapids IA, El Paso TX, Baltimore MD, Chicago IL, New York City NY, and Los Angeles CA

-close loopholes that corporations take advantage of in order to (in the long term) take advantage of employees; right now this country has checks and balances for our politicians to be kept in line.. but corporations and companies are running amuck.. they have NO balancing system. There needs to be one, period, end of sentence.

-education reform

-welfare reform

I would like to be THAT LAWYER who makes the corporate rats (and that by no means means that ALL corporate workers/employees are corporate rats) shake in their boots when they hear my name, or even a reference to me.

People are not commodities, they are people. It is time that the average household does not need 4 separate jobs/incomes in order to keep their heads above water.

Ultimate goal:
I want to give this country back to the people, not the corporations.

Goals

I was talking to a friend a few days ago and we've come to the conclusion that this era of the working citizen is horrid. I want to change that. About 100 years ago American employers were engaging in all types of horrible and taboo practices such as slavery and child labor, and downright abuse towards most of their every day workers. Workers rights started getting better and more tolerable from the 50's-80's, but now it's hit another downward spiral.

Companies hire lawyers to find as many loopholes as they can and insist on paying people the bare minimum.. and when you say something about it, watch out! Right to work states allow your employers to fire you for any reason or no reason at all. Did you know that a MetLife survey shows that employers have used this recent recession to their advantage? They have been even more abusive towards employees because they know they can get away with it; where would you go? That's right, do what I say or be out of a very valuble job.

What is my goal?

Employers should have to have a reason, a VALID reason (insubordinance without proof is NOT a valid reason), to fire ANYONE. If you quit without notice, they stain your resume for up to 10 years, but they are allowed to simply fire you without warning and without reason? I'm sorry, who out there is happy about this other than greedy bonus seeking employers?

Employers should have to pay you a LIVING WAGE at all times. Minimum wage is a joke in this country and our elected officials and employers do not care.

Online applications and the like should be eliminated. These types of things make face to face interaction impossible and the way you look on a resume or application can be completely different in person. Companies think that they are weeding out the useless with key words, but what they don't realize is that they're weeding out the good people more often than not. You want to test math skills for a cashiering position? OK, not a problem. A psych evaluation to work at Wal-Mart (a very unrealistic one at that; "Were you EVER absent in High School??!?").. what? Humans are not commodities, and we are being treated as so.

NO person should ever be required to do two people's work just because the company you work for would like to save money by not hiring 2 people instead of one. On the same note, if you do not have enough hours for the people you have, WHY on earth are you hiring more??? Also, no more of this starving people out of a job thing. Either give them hours or lay them off. So you have to deal with unemployment? So what. What about that person who is practically starving to death because someone decided that they didn't like him/her so they decided to cut his/her hours and give it to someone else? Not cool.

NO employer should be able to dictate whether or not you're a member of a union. As a matter of fact, that information should be completely discreet and NEVER be asked for on an application, a resume, or an interview.

I want to make these things happen. I'm tired of watching abuse in the workplace. And all of YOU need to stand up as well; if we stand together they have to listen, but if you waltz around being too afraid or not wanting to cause trouble, nothing will EVER change. Let's make it happen.