So, we’re absolutely SURE this is a worker paradise?

When I was a kid, the thought that some people weren’t totally fulfilled by their jobs horrified me. If we went to the grocery store and the check-out lady didn’t seem absolutely ecstatic to be there, I worried. If this person had to be hanging out somewhere and serving people and not enjoying it, what did that say about the kind of world I lived in? My worst childhood fears — at least about this — have turned out to be true. To add insult to injury, a lot of those crappy jobs increasingly don’t even achieve the basic purpose of getting people’s basic needs met.

Neo-liberals have done an excellent job of discrediting the labor movement and the entire concept of worker rights. Would anyone 30 years ago have suspected that “No, actually a full-time worker doesn’t necessarily deserve to make enough money to cover the basic cost of living” would be an acceptable viewpoint? It’s like the ghost of Ayn Rand secretly possessed our political and economic discourse.

Most of the current debate has taken place during my lifetime, unbeknownst to me — I was a kid when a lot of these ideological fights were going down.

The “social contract” — the idea that companies will provide workers with enough money to live and opportunities to grow if the worker provides the company with loyalty and good work — is all but myth…