Temp Quotes

“While the media looked for a few evil geniuses to blame, the real cause was amoral bizspeak. Corporate common sense regarding how to run a business had shifted over the years from long-term reinvestment and worker obligations to short-term returns. The ex-McKinsey men of Enron were cleverer, but not different from those at Andersen. While McKinsey or Andersen might have helped lead any one company astray, the real culprit was more insidious: the erosion of honest investment.”
― Louis Hyman, Temp: The Real Story of What Happened to Your Salary, Benefits, and Job Security

“Managers began to hop from firm to firm, focusing less on climbing the ladder (i.e., investing for the long-term) than on garnering the biggest bonuses. Even for founders, getting acquired, rather than building the firm, became the new goal. No one at the top was committed to the long haul, so why would they be committed to job security for anyone else?”
― Louis Hyman, Temp: How American Work, American Business, and the American Dream Became Temporary

“With the end of the bracero, or agricultural guest worker, program in 1964, the 20 million Mexicans who had, since World War II, annually migrated to work in the U.S. fields found themselves without jobs. Some- as historians have well documented- continued to work in the fields illegally, but just as many- as historians have largely ignored- began to work on construction sites, on factory floors,and in chemical shops. Although Americans may not have wanted to work in the fields, they did want to work in industrial jobs. Migrant labor, unprotected from the state, created an alternative to the American worker. This cheap labor made key parts of the 1980s boom possible, whether in Houston's strip malls or Silicon Valley's electronics factories.”
― Louis Hyman, Temp: How American Work, American Business, and the American Dream Became Temporary

“The key features of the postwar corporation-stable workforce, retained earnings, and minimized risk-became liabilities rather than assets.”
― Louis Hyman, Temp: How American Work, American Business, and the American Dream Became Temporary