> Date sent: Tue, 31 Dec 1996 13:58:57 -0800 (PST) > Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Doug Henwood) > To: Multiple recipients of list <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: [PEN-L:8006] Re: contingent work > At 12:40 PM 12/31/96, James Michael Craven wrote: > > >Where do these numbers come from?; e.g. < 5% employment is contingent > >and "something like half of those are happy with their contingency?" > >"Something like half" are happy with being disposable--more > >explicitly-- cogs in the machinery of capitalism to be used up and > >disposed of with no regard to the contributions they have made? > >Really? I have heard of poll madness, but this takes the cake. And > >for someone on the left to make a statement like this? On what basis? > >Who did the surveys? Where were they published? I wonder if our part- > >time teachers were surveyed by the Administration how they like being > >contingent workers how they would answer vs if they were surveyed > >anonymously. > > > >Of course in reality under capitalism all workers are contingent > >workers in the real or de facto sense. Contingent workers have the > >status that formalizes the de facto status of all workers under > >capitalism. > > > >I just find the above statements amazing--especially on pen-l. > > They came from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, an organization I have great > respect for. A preliminary version of the report is on their web site, and > a fuller version will be published soon in the Monthly Labor Review, if it > hasn't been already. If you have reason to doubt their accuracy, please > tell me, and while you're at it, why not contact the authors at > 202-606-6378? Otherwise, please dispense with the attitude-copping, which > is analytically and politically useless, no matter how superior it makes > you feel. > > Doug > > -- > > Doug Henwood > Left Business Observer > 250 W 85 St > New York NY 10024-3217 > USA > +1-212-874-4020 voice > +1-212-874-3137 fax > email: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > web: <http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/LBO_home.html> > Response: I wrote my response as to the problems I had with the BLS Stats before I read this snotty reply. I'll dispense with my "attitude- copping" if you dispense with the term "Left" on the title of your little newsletter. I stand by comments and do not need or even care about your opinion as to what is or is not "politically useless." I question not the methodologies per se but the whole bankrupt contrived categories, parameters of analysis etc. Jim Craven *------------------------------------------------------------------* * James Craven * "Reason is a narrow system swollen * * Dept of Economics * into an ideology. * * Clark College * * * 1800 E. McLoughlin Blvd. * With time and power it has become a * * Vancouver, Wa. 98663 * dogma, devoid of direction and * * (360) 992-2283 * disguised as disinterested inquiry. * * [EMAIL PROTECTED] * * * * Like most religions, reason presents* * * itself as the solution to the * * * problems it has created." * * * * * * (John Ralston Saul in "Voltaire's * * * Bastards") * * MY EMPLOYER HAS NO ASSOCIATION WITH MY PRIVATE/PROTECTED OPINION *
