Wednesday, October 26, 2011

A New Word For An Old Travesty

Precariat- Learn this word « The Confluence: "...It’s a portmanteau of “precarious” and “proletariat”. A precariat is a person who doesn’t have a reliable job. Precariats initially were service workers who may have been working a 40 hour work week, but maybe not. A precariat could be called in to work a 6 hour shift, every other day and one long 12 hour day at some other point in the week or come to work expecting a full 8 hours but sent home after 2. The amount of work can vary from day to day, week to week. This worker typically has no benefits..."

I think the worse, or at least the longest, abuse of precariats occurs in higher ed where tens of thousands of faculty are employed "part-time" with virtually no job protection or recourse. These abuses have been going for at least fifty years. Yet the situation only grows worse.

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