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| My Route to work - Reading - Hersham, Hersham - Reading |
This has prompted me to write about what it is like to be one of the lucky ones who still have a job. I have worked since 1989, with only 6 months off in 2010 when I was at Uni doing my MA. I have never known a period of such insecurity and fear for the average worker.
I ended my fulltime studies in 2011 and since starting work again in June I have been made redundant once already. When I started working again, in the teeth of the recession, the only full time job that matched my qualifications, 20 years of Sales and Marketing experience, 2 degrees in German and lots of business courses, was an hour away. As a family man this creates problems when my wife doesn't get home until 7pm. I got made redundant in December and after losing this job I found one which was between 1 1/2 to 2 hours away. It is a nightmare drive and as well as being an ecological nightmare, it also sends me round the bend.
My boss hasn't seen fit to give me any kind of contract or even assurance that my role is a permanent one. I see that many of those employed are working part time in insecure low skilled jobs. I would also argue that there are also a large number of workers, like me, who are not on contracts and who effectively their bosses can get rid off at no cost and with little conscience at any time.
Where I work everyone is on a short or weak or temp contract, this has had the effect of keeping the staff on a short leash and robbing them of any sense of solidarity with those, like public sector workers, who at least would qualify for redundancy or a pension. We are all just hanging on with our finger tips in Cameron's "everyone for themselves" economy.
My job is unstable and insecure, but this doesn't just effect me. I am married and have to lovely (ish) children. This job insecurity means we can't plan, can't think of the future and things can only be replaced if absolutely necessary.
The insecurity also weighs heavily on my wife. She is a teacher and thank heaven her job is moderately stable. But the pressure, my lack of a secure job puts on her is immense. So she works till 9pm most evenings, she gets out of bed at 5am and gets the 6.20am train to get to work. She is abused by parents and pressurised by management. She could be the sole McKenzie bread winner at any moment and she must over perform to make sure that we can always and still pay the mortgage.
The economy is dire, and even if you believe like cabinet ministers seem to, the jobs market might be stablising, ask yourself what are the jobs being made like.
The jobs being made seem, weak, insecure, and designed to stifle creativity and productivity. The so called stability which Cameron, Clegg and their Lib-Con colleagues have built has been made at the cost of splitting the ordinary workers, potentially wrecking family life and making ordinary men and women live in fear.
