Nothing has happened to ease the pressures on low-wage workers. On the contrary, if the old paradigm of a blue-collar job was forty hours a week, an annual two-week vacation, and benefits such as a pension and health insurance, the new expectation is that one will work on demand, as needed, without benefits or guarantees of any kind. Some surveys now find a majority of US retail workers working without regular schedules19—on call for when the employer wants them to come and unable to predict how much they will earn from week to week or even day to day. With the rise in “just in time”
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