The Help

Genuine piece of a classifieds section; found marking a copy of Studs Terkel's 1974 Working.

Now there's a story Studs would no doubt have liked, though the background has to be guessed: disgruntled employee takes out ad, and, anonymously or not, spreads the word to check out Sunday's classifieds?

Still, this was the 1970s: lots of industrial workers had union protections—for that matter, we still had industries here.

For whiter (and pink) collars, this was before trends beginning in the '80s would catch up with us all. For those jobs not yet outsourced, most workers have lost ground. With the absence of raises; diminuition of benefits; demand for continuous increase in "worker productivity"—the class war has been won, through the management sticks and tricks with which we are beaten.

In other words, the "job requirements" of that '70s classified—"at least 4 years of college" to work in a "sweat shop" for "low pay" and "no benefits"—may have seemed a rude joke then, but predicted much about the workplace nearly four decades later.

And for the unemployed, the herd-culling grows ever more relentless.

Just a couple of recent posts from Digby, on the plight of the long-term unemployed—

Out-of work professionals as unemployables—because being unemployed makes them so unattractive to the buyers;

The story of one laid-off middle-aged worker, in a once working-class New York.

Just before this Labor Day: a columnist from Studs' hometown reminds us of Working, and of how much its author's voice is missed.