I read somewhere recently that soon there will not be anyone in the work force who remembers what it was like to work in America prior to 1980. In other words everyone in the work force will soon have no frame of reference with which to compare the current American workplace. Ronald Reagan's America will be considered the norm. That is a very frightening prospect.
I began working in January of 1980. So I had about a year of working before Ronald Reagan took office. Throughout the 1980's the changes to the American workplace began to take hold. It was just difficult to see what was going on when you were right in the middle of it. It is only now with the passing of time and the gained perspective that you see how far the American worker has fallen.
There used to be checks and balances in the American economy and the workplace. There was a sense that we were all in this together. There was an unspoken pact in the country for those of us working in white-collar non-union jobs. If you did your job and did it well you kept your job. Your compensation was based on two primary pieces, how well the company did and how well you did your job.
When I began working we had a 40 hour work week. The first company I worked at that included a 45 minute lunch. So the actual amount of time you were expected to be "on the clock" was 36.25 hours a week. On top of that there was an unwritten rule that on payday you could take an extra 15 minutes for lunch in case you wanted to go to the bank across the street to deposit your paycheck. Automatic deposit was in its early stages at that point.
The next company I went to was much smaller and not quite as generous. There you were only given half an hour for lunch. This meant you were expected to work 37.5 hours a week. They did have a nice little option though where you could work a 9 hour day instead of 8 hours. If you chose to do that you then took off every other Monday or every other Friday.
As the 1980's unfolded though all of this began to change. The first sign I remember was how overtime rules began to change. Up until then you were expected to work your 40 hours (minus your lunchtime of course). The amount of work you were expected to produce was based on that formula. Not for long.
After a while the corporate mantra was all about how we were professionals. Professionals aren't on the clock, they don't punch in and out, they do what's needed to get the job done. The amount of work expected of workers changed. Or sometimes the amount of work expected of your area stayed the same but the number of people in the area shrank due to layoffs or attrition without hiring replacements.
We began to hear the phrase "professional day". That was what you were now expected to work. And if that meant 10 or 12 hours a day then that's what you were expected to do. Lunches were taken away. Not literally, you were still allowed to eat. But you were now expected to work at least 40 hours and lunch time was extra, beyond the 40 hours. And if you couldn't get everything done in 40 hours, well see "professional day".
Now people did have to work 40 hours or longer before Reagan. But there was overtime. If you were a certain level you received direct payment for extra hours worked. If you were above a certain level you received "comp time". This was time you could take off from work and still get paid, extra vacation time as it were, to account for those extra hours you worked beyond 40. Reagan changed that too. Companies could have you work 45 or 50 hour weeks and not have to compensate you in any way. It was a Brave New World and not a good one for the average worker.
As I experienced these changes my mind drifted back to a conversation I had in a hallway one day in the mid-1980's. This was post-Patco strike where Reagan had broken the air traffic controller's union and signaled to corporations that it was a new day and the government and its power were on their side and not the side of workers and unions. Some of the signs of change were apparent but again not in a way where a young person like myself was catching on to what was happening.
I worked in an area where we were in one state and one of our main end user groups was in another state at a location about an hour or hour and a half away. A couple of people from that group came down every week. This one week one of the higher-ups was there as well, someone who maybe showed up once a month. It so happened that he and I happened to be alone in a little area for a few minutes and just started chatting.
He made the comment that he felt sorry for young guys like me who had so much of their careers in front of them. I found that puzzling but he continued. He said he had been in meetings and at seminars and it was a whole new attitude in the corporate world and management. He called it a hard-edged attitude toward workers. A "what have you done for me lately?" attitude. Workers were seen as nothing more than interchangeable expenses.
For some reason that conversation stayed with me during the years. I think at first because it seemed so weird and to have come out of nowhere. Especially when I had started my professional career being told I had it made (see Travels of McMammah Part 3). Now it stays with me because I see how prescient it was. All the changes that were going to happen to the average American workers and families were foreshadowed in that grim assessment.
America was changing and not for the better.
I began working in January of 1980. So I had about a year of working before Ronald Reagan took office. Throughout the 1980's the changes to the American workplace began to take hold. It was just difficult to see what was going on when you were right in the middle of it. It is only now with the passing of time and the gained perspective that you see how far the American worker has fallen.
There used to be checks and balances in the American economy and the workplace. There was a sense that we were all in this together. There was an unspoken pact in the country for those of us working in white-collar non-union jobs. If you did your job and did it well you kept your job. Your compensation was based on two primary pieces, how well the company did and how well you did your job.
When I began working we had a 40 hour work week. The first company I worked at that included a 45 minute lunch. So the actual amount of time you were expected to be "on the clock" was 36.25 hours a week. On top of that there was an unwritten rule that on payday you could take an extra 15 minutes for lunch in case you wanted to go to the bank across the street to deposit your paycheck. Automatic deposit was in its early stages at that point.
The next company I went to was much smaller and not quite as generous. There you were only given half an hour for lunch. This meant you were expected to work 37.5 hours a week. They did have a nice little option though where you could work a 9 hour day instead of 8 hours. If you chose to do that you then took off every other Monday or every other Friday.
As the 1980's unfolded though all of this began to change. The first sign I remember was how overtime rules began to change. Up until then you were expected to work your 40 hours (minus your lunchtime of course). The amount of work you were expected to produce was based on that formula. Not for long.
After a while the corporate mantra was all about how we were professionals. Professionals aren't on the clock, they don't punch in and out, they do what's needed to get the job done. The amount of work expected of workers changed. Or sometimes the amount of work expected of your area stayed the same but the number of people in the area shrank due to layoffs or attrition without hiring replacements.
We began to hear the phrase "professional day". That was what you were now expected to work. And if that meant 10 or 12 hours a day then that's what you were expected to do. Lunches were taken away. Not literally, you were still allowed to eat. But you were now expected to work at least 40 hours and lunch time was extra, beyond the 40 hours. And if you couldn't get everything done in 40 hours, well see "professional day".
Now people did have to work 40 hours or longer before Reagan. But there was overtime. If you were a certain level you received direct payment for extra hours worked. If you were above a certain level you received "comp time". This was time you could take off from work and still get paid, extra vacation time as it were, to account for those extra hours you worked beyond 40. Reagan changed that too. Companies could have you work 45 or 50 hour weeks and not have to compensate you in any way. It was a Brave New World and not a good one for the average worker.
As I experienced these changes my mind drifted back to a conversation I had in a hallway one day in the mid-1980's. This was post-Patco strike where Reagan had broken the air traffic controller's union and signaled to corporations that it was a new day and the government and its power were on their side and not the side of workers and unions. Some of the signs of change were apparent but again not in a way where a young person like myself was catching on to what was happening.
I worked in an area where we were in one state and one of our main end user groups was in another state at a location about an hour or hour and a half away. A couple of people from that group came down every week. This one week one of the higher-ups was there as well, someone who maybe showed up once a month. It so happened that he and I happened to be alone in a little area for a few minutes and just started chatting.
He made the comment that he felt sorry for young guys like me who had so much of their careers in front of them. I found that puzzling but he continued. He said he had been in meetings and at seminars and it was a whole new attitude in the corporate world and management. He called it a hard-edged attitude toward workers. A "what have you done for me lately?" attitude. Workers were seen as nothing more than interchangeable expenses.
For some reason that conversation stayed with me during the years. I think at first because it seemed so weird and to have come out of nowhere. Especially when I had started my professional career being told I had it made (see Travels of McMammah Part 3). Now it stays with me because I see how prescient it was. All the changes that were going to happen to the average American workers and families were foreshadowed in that grim assessment.
America was changing and not for the better.