Companies realized they could avoid a lot of costs by making peoples temps and contractors. Unions won't stop them, government won't stop them. People just need

Companies realized they could avoid a lot of costs by making peoples temps and contractors. Unions won't stop them, government won't stop them. People just need to get a job, so they can't really stand up and say screw you. Oh, and that whole "it's hard to fire people" idea. You keep someone as a temp for a few months and then hire them if they can do the job. THat's not the worst thing in the world if you do it right. My first job in tech I was a "casual" position. So non-union, and not full time. I was working 40 hours a week, but it didn't really count. No benefits (health, pension, etc...), no vacation, my boss told me one day he was slashing my hours in half. It sucked. I didn't go to the dentist for about 2 years (that was real fun when I did go back, fortuantely nothing bad happened) because I didn't have coverage. Taking a day off for a trip with my friends meant either losing a days pay or having to make it up (my boss was real big on flex time). When he slashed my hours I went from making decent money to borrowing from my parents for bills. On the other hand, the union people had health benefits (this was canada, so not as big a deal as the states), pension, vacation, etc... Government job. OT and on-call pay too. The nice thing was when I got my hours cut I smartened up and applied for a much better job, which I got.