Our Mission
Link to article
UP is a nonprofit, nonpartisan membership organization for white collar workers, regardless of profession or employment status. We reach out to all unemployed, underemployed and anxiously employed workers — people who bought the American dream that education and credentials could lead to a secure middle class life, but now find their lives disrupted by forces beyond their control.
Our mission is to protect and preserve the American middle class, now under attack from so many directions, from downsizing and outsourcing to the steady erosion of health and pension benefits. We believe that education, skills and experience should be rewarded with appropriate jobs, livable incomes, benefits and social supports.
UP fosters positive social change and delivers value to members through information, advocacy and service. UP also provides a wide range of unique benefits, including on-line support, employment and networking leads, community and regional networks, voluntary supplemental insurance, liaison with community groups and advocacy training.
UP celebrates the professional work we do, each of us singly, by creating a mutually protective support system, for all of us together.
July 24th, 2006 at 3:29 pm
Looking forward to our new chapters — momentum is building!
August 30th, 2006 at 6:25 pm
What about freelances? Fact is, many white collar and professional jobs are now outsourced as non-benefit paying freelance (ie, ’contracted’) jobs at lower wage rates. Many younger (and not so younger) w.c.p.’s are experiencing this.
all best, and in solidarity, Clancy Sigal
September 4th, 2006 at 9:43 am
This is a positive first step. Let’s see how we can use our collective power together to change the direction of employment in the U.S. I’d like to be able to tell my young adult daughters that everything their Dad and I taught them about “doing the right thing” - working hard, getting an education etc. wasn’t a lot of bovine fecal matter. It’s a little tricky given that their Mom & Dad have both been unemployed from IT for 4 years… Apparently we’re “over-qualified”. Oh yeah and I was told I’m “too up-market”… Great book Barbara - thanks! I’ll get around to reading the rest referenced here too.
September 6th, 2006 at 12:44 pm
For the past eight years I have worried that America would never catch on to the destruction our government has wrought upon this nation. Calling it “New Democracy” our government officials have created a “open source” country devoid of rules, regulations and controls for high profiting corporations and stock holders while imposing sanctions (travel, financial etc.) on the educated career directed and working, middle class. Our government has ignored, not failed to recognize, the plight of the working people of this nation who have supported the growth and security of this country since WW II.
It’s time for a new revolution and I hope this forum grows to make it a realization.. Our Congress must be made accountatble or new leaders from our ranks rise to take Congressional seats for change.. Our middle class must rise to this challenge or our next generation will no longer be able to call the United States a home..
September 30th, 2006 at 12:40 pm
Thank you, thank you, thank you for creating this organization! The wage and employment issue- despite laughable attempts by corporate hotshots to publish propaganda that “it’s all good” - IS a prevalent problem throughout the U.S., not only for us 50-to 60-somethings - but for future generations. I certainly see it in the small towns (low wages, “big fish, small pond” business owners).
Loved “Bait and Switch” -in fact, I’ve lived it -as have many people. Would like more information regarding how to start a branch in semi-rural Colorado.
October 3rd, 2006 at 7:28 pm
I am a 55 year old underemployed English teacher with a Masters degree and about 60 credits more. I worked as a high school English teacher from 1977 to 1999. Then I was promoted to high school administration, supervising all academic teachers at my high school.
In the second year of my position in administration, my mentor left to take a principalship in another state. The Director of Guidance became the new principal.
After two more years in administration, he decided to recommend that I not be rehired. After years of excellent reviews, this was a shock, but administrators had no union, and I had no recourse. The teachers supported me, and perhaps that was part of the problem.
The superintendent offered me a position teaching business, at the very end of August. I am licensed to teach English, reading and social studies, so I felt I would still be a target in that position.
I accepted a position teaching English in another high school, where the principal made no secret of how expensive it was to hire me. After two years, I was handed a lay off, along with other highly educated teachers who had experience and were as expensive as I was.I concluded that I had been hired as a place holder in the school system’s budget. More bodies were needed to populate the newly built high school. Two new teachers could be hired for my salary.
Unemployment would not hear of sending me to school to learn more about computers, as I was already too educated, but I could not find a job teaching in a high school, because the unions will not allow a teacher to earn less than the top of the pay scale.
After searching for some time, I discovered that
the only place to hire me was Securitas Security. So here I am for over a year, underemployed as a $10.50/hour security guard.
I cannot make my bills, although I stay home and rarely spend money. I am running out of savings. Substitute teaching is open to me, but I would only hope to earn 66 dollars a day, and only when I was needed, with no health benefits.
I continue to search for employment, to no avail.
I know many former white collar workers are in my position, but it does not make it any easier.
Sincerely, Mary Ann Costa
October 9th, 2006 at 5:26 pm
Mary Ann,
Geez, I guess your blog entry says it all. I’m 48 yrs. old, 2 1/2 yrs. unemployed, 2 yrs. “underemployed.” (Yes, $12.00/hr.)
A career counselor told me to go back to school to get my BA in English (since I have an art background.) I’ve been checking out requirements, costs, etc. I’d have to get a loan to pay for it. But these blogs, and a library book “So I have an English Degree: Now What?” makes me wonder if the investment would be worth it. I know I would enjoy it, but at this age, I shudder at the thought of going into so much debt.
jm
October 13th, 2006 at 9:41 am
To JM:
Please JM, take it from me, it is NOT worth the financial risk to go into debt for a college degree when, due to age discrimination, your chances of ever earning enough money to be able to live plus repay student loans are slim to none. Here in Erie, PA there are countless people in the 35+ age range who bought into the ” go get an education/re-trained” mantra - only to end up working for $8/hr or less ($16,000/yr IF full time!) The so-called “experts” are full of it. They will continue to collect their paychecks whether or not things work out for people like us. Believe it or not, if you’re making $12/hr, your doing pretty damn good compared to alot of us who are not so fortunate and for whom a long jobless stint plus age pretty much eliminated our chances for any kind of good job, or even a job that pays a living wage. Also, under the new laws, if you never get a chance to make a living so you can survive and repay your student loans without having to move into your parent’s basement, you are limited to 24 months of unemployment deferments (during which time the interest is capitalized and added onto the principlal balance of the loan amount). Furthermore, if you never get a chance to make enough to live and repay those loans, the government can now (and is already doing) garnish your social security in your old age, leaving you homeless without adequate income on which to live - even if you can get SOME government help. I know what I am talking about here regarding going back to school for a “marketable degree” - been there, done that.
October 13th, 2006 at 5:41 pm
Thanks for the info. It reinforced my doubts. Let’s pick a week for the “No Shopping” week! I’m ready!
October 13th, 2006 at 11:54 pm
For our “No Shopping” week, how about we begin it on Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving) when this day is traditionally the day that Xmas shoppers come out in droves to being their X-mas shopping. Retailers will certainly notice our absent dollars at the cash register! Of course, retailers will respond by slashing prices drastically right before X-mas Eve to tempt those with very little money to come out and buy but we must not cave in - even then. I say this because we need to drive the point home that it does not matter how cheap the goods are priced because if we have an entire class of people of significant proportion who have NO extra money due to lack of good jobs, we have NO money to pour back into corporate coffers of multinational corporations by buying their junk at X-mas (regardless how loud our grandkids or teenage kids might howl). The buck stops here, folks! If the media picks up on this, we should have a generalized prepared statement directly to the point along the lines of “Christmas has been off-shored and Santa Clause was forced into early retirement due to age discrimination and downsizing.”
October 13th, 2006 at 11:55 pm
Sorry for the typo above. Should read “begin their X-mas shopping”.
October 15th, 2006 at 10:50 am
Let’s do it!!!
October 18th, 2006 at 8:21 am
Three months after banishment at age 54 from a life-consuming IT job (now residing in India), I must admit to harboring a grudge against corporations who have voided our contract with society. A “no-shopping” week, or similar events affecting short term profits, might attract their “lofty” attentions. Count me in…
October 19th, 2006 at 5:06 pm
I have another question that I haven’t seen addressed anywhere.
Every time I go to an interview, I have to fill out an application. (Whether it’s a professional or other job.) They want me to agree to a credit check and sometimes a background check. While I dislike these intrusions into my privacy, what choice do I really have if I want to stay in the competition?
While I’ve never filed for bankruptcy, and pretty much wiped out my meager savings, I still have a good credit rating.
So every time one of these employers checks up on me, that goes to the credit bureau. As I understand it, if you have too many inquires on your credit report, that lowers your score, am I right? And if that’s the case, the more jobs I apply for, the less desirable I become?
I’m not a financial expert. Just wondering!?
October 19th, 2006 at 10:26 pm
JM:
The short answer to your question is YES. The only time an inquiry into your credit report does not hurt your FICO score is when you yourself make the inquiry.
Recall Barb’s blog under her topic “Pententiary or Pension” about the 62 yr old man who staged a minor bank robbery (he demanded $80 which he immediately turned over to the security guard and then sat down and waited for the police to arrive). I breifly touched on the issue of Classism which I believe is at the root of all the “isms” of job discrimination.
Employers have their HR managers, 3rd party recruiting firms, etc use the credit score as another means to discriminate against hopeful job candidates. That is because some elitist shmuck with a Harvard degree in economics thought up this brainchild based on the theory that anyone who is low-income - and thus has bad credit since their incomes are insufficient to meet even their most basic bills - is obviously an irresponsible person who can’t be a reliable eomployee and also their economic situation might tempt them to steal from the employer and as such, is undeserving of a chance for the job. I believe the newest catchy buzzword is “fit”. Being declared “not a good fit” allows employers to discriminate against worthy, capable job applicants based on age, race, sex etc without getting busted for what is defined as illegal discrimination according to Title VII, and also the ADA of 1990.
It also perpetuates the classism that has always seemed to allow for the middle-class and above to get favored for jobs before a struggling disenfranchized person from “the wrong side of the tracks” ever gets a chance (which is why the crap about “meritcracy” is just that - a load of crap).
The use of credit checking by large employers serves to ensure that those at the bottom, those who are poor - even those who are middle-class but were wiped out by medical bills - get short-shrifted and kept on the outside looking in.
So not only are we made poor by losing a job and not getting a chance for another job, but we are then penalized by employers for our poor credit after we have been reduced to poverty because of job loss or age discrimination keeping us from even being able to re-enter the workforce and get a job in the first place. Then adding insult to injury, we are charged higher rates for our mandatory auto insurance based on a poor credit score.(Anyone whose credit score is under 700 is pretty much screwed job-wise and insurance rate wise, even though you only need a credit score above 580 to qualify for a mortgage to buy a house - go figure!)
October 21st, 2006 at 12:06 pm
JM and Jacqueline. You should take a look at myfico.com to understand how the fico score works. They offer a handbook with lots of information to educate consumers about how credit works and how the score is compiled. The answer to your question is NO. The FICO distinguishes between a soft inquiry and the types of credit applications to buy goods (cars, houses, department stores, etc,)Those affect your credit everytime you apply for credit.
Consumer Credit Counseling Services is a non-profit organization that could provide a free analysis of your credit report and tell you what things you’re doing wrong that really have a negative impact on your score. I’m a certified consumer credit counselor.
October 21st, 2006 at 2:05 pm
This is a great initiative! Something like this is long overdue. I went to check out this website right away after I watched an interview with Barbara Erenrich on CNN. I was, however, slightly disapointed that the group targeted by this organization does not seem to include all the lower level service employees that are struggling every day to make ends meat all over America. As service workers this group, which I’m currently trying to educate my way out of, is considered White Collar, though they are clearly not fitting the description of the traditional professional, educated White Collar worker. But, god knows, that all the cashiers, sales people, customer service reps, etc., is very much in need of being organized and could surely use an organization like this one to look after their interests, of which many are the same as for the “higher up” White Collar workers.
As someone who’s worked these low level, dead end, close to minimum wage jobs for years I believe that United Professionals should be more inclusive and welcome all workers that have been the victims of big business interests in this country. There is no one out there fighting for the rights of low level employees. The pledge of those below middle class is obviously not the concern of any of our political representatives as it is never even mentioned as one of the groups whose rights they claim to want to fight for when they campaign.
The expressed inclusion of all so called White Collar workers by United Professionals can only make the organization stronger as it would increase the membership. After all, our needs and wants are the same. I believe that it would serve us all if all of us that are not getting the wages, security and respect that we deserve should unite as one large group, fighting against those that are robbing us of these basics.
I will definitely join UP, but I ask UP to reformulate their mission statement to include the low level White Collar workers as well.
Thank You,
Josefine M.
October 21st, 2006 at 3:10 pm
I’m a 45 year old professional engineer and engineering manager. In 2003 I was laid off from Cypress Semiconductor in the third wave of reductions they were forced to make in the aftermath of the 2000 recession.
Although it looks like I may end up on my feet (assuming my startup continues to prosper), it has been a *very* difficult three years, and I witnessed first hand the lack of a safety net, and the tremendous downward pressure professional wages have suffered over the last few years.
I like a lot about what I hear in the UP Mission Statement especially that an educated, experienced, skilled professional should expect and should demand compensation that can provide for a full and healthy life for themselves and their family. What I would call a living wage.
One thing that occurs to me (and that I haven’t seen anyone comment on so far) is that I sense this effort might be vulnerable to being perceived as an elitist clique with an overdeveloped sense of self entitlement. If UP is primarily designed to help over-aged, degreed professionals that have been laid off, it will certainly have a difficult time building up a critical mass. And, it will be extremely vulnerable to attack by organizations with a vested interest in undermining the success of UP’s stated mission.
On the other hand, if UP is targeting and representing the middle class, young and old alike, then it will be far less vulnerable. As an example, even the CNN anchor had to ask whether UP’s mission overlapped somewhat with AARP.
I’ve got other thoughts on how UP can be vigilant against its own elitism or perceived gentrification, but what do you other blog lurkers think about this potential problem?
October 23rd, 2006 at 1:03 pm
Thanks for starting this up. I’m 58, left a HUGE company because of what might be construed as harassment and really need a job. Not having much success. I have twenty-five years oil/gas drafting but recent ten year Internet support and customer service.
Just saw the segment on CNBC and signed up. Where to go from here?
October 28th, 2006 at 9:25 pm
UP may be non-partisan, but I’m not. From my very first job to my present one is a span of over 41 years, three Democratic administrations accounting for 16 of them, and 5 economically, socially, and constitutionally oppressive Republican ones. It’s easy to see which party paints socialism with the same “godless” brush they used on the Soviets (while rivaling or outdoing the Soviets in their efforts to rewrite the history and science textbooks and control the news), and it’s equally easy to see that the “god” that is lacking in alternatives to their holy capitalistic grail is the Almighty USD/EUD/GBP/JPY/etc.
Has there ever been a good Republican president? Yes, Abe Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt come to mind. Lincoln was shot and Roosevelt had to start his own party after running afoul of the Robber Barons. In our (or at least my) lifetime(s)? Well, Eisenhower was relatively harmless, even if he did inspire J.B. Lenoir to write the “Eisenhower Blues,” and the only time my father ever had to strike Bethlehem Steel was during the Eisenhower administration. I still remember the powdered milk and eggs from government surplus. I will say with certainty that Eisenhower was the last honest Republican president, in that he warned us of the military-industrial complex that is ripping us off, mainly under the name Halliburton, to this very day. Today, there is still plenty of money for these parasites to “earn” and steal, but there is no longer enough to provide for (i.e., “support”) the troops on the part of those who came up with this meaningless drivel of a slogan.
October 28th, 2006 at 9:56 pm
Mark Moore wrote, in part:
> One thing that occurs to me (and that I haven’t seen anyone comment on so far)
> is that I sense this effort might be vulnerable to being perceived as an elitist
> clique with an overdeveloped sense of self entitlement. If UP is primarily
> designed to help over-aged, degreed professionals that have been laid off,
> it will certainly have a difficult time building up a critical mass. And, it
> will be extremely vulnerable to attack by organizations with a vested interest
> in undermining the success of UP’s stated mission.
Absolutely! There is a class war, but not the bogus one we’ve heard propagandized by disingenuous pundits for the past several years. The middle class needs solidarity among all its members and with those below the poverty line against the greedy oppressor class of banking, insurance, and other corporate scammers. One of my first suggestions upon joining UP was to promote such solidarity through cooperative efforts with SEIU’s Purple Ocean and USWA’s “Fight Back America” associate membership program that I recently joined.
Although I haven’t been a member of any union since the Teamsters (IBT) in 1967, American Bakery and Confectionery Workers (ABC) 1968-69, and Lithographers and Photoengravers (LPIU) in 1972, my father was a steelworker for over 30 years and I was the recipient of a USWA partial scholarship, 1966-69. Having a Ph.D. does not make me “better” than those who may have to put up with more abuse and less freedom in the kinds of jobs open to them. And at least one kind of abuse—age discrimination—is one that impacts us more or less equally.
The Soviets and the Chinese may have looked like the pots calling the kettle black in their use of the term “capitalist pigs,” but given what we’ve seen recently from the likes of Enron, not to mention the corporate control whose pro-fascist threat encroches to some extent on all three branches of our government, if the shoe fits, let them wear it.
October 28th, 2006 at 10:52 pm
David wrote, in part:
> … I must admit to harboring a grudge against corporations who have voided our contract
> with society.
I too admit to a grudge, but I question whether corporations ever paid more than lip service—if that—to the idea of a “contract” with (as opposed to on) society. The Robber Barons of the late 19th and early 20th century had no ethical qualms about squeezing out more honest competitors, as Wal-Mart is doing even as we speak, only to turn around and jack up prices to extortive levels, as Exxon and its partners in terror financing have been doing, once the competition is dead and the monopoly can count on laissez-faire Corruplicans and conservative “New (or ‘Reagan’) Democrats” to look the other way.
It is we, the gullible middle class, who look at corporations as having forsaken their former sense of fair play and community responsibility, when in fact, it was the all-but-extinct Mom & Pop stores that had the attitude that “the customer is always right,” which one never sees these days. It is also we who see the ability of a corporate “entity” to conduct business as a privilege. They see it as their inalienable right, and so do conservative politicians and those whose better judgment can be purchased by the likes of MBNA.
Speaking of banks, the worst offenders and the least honest of all these thieves, the author of the book “Your Bank Is Ripping You Off” is himself a proponent of free-market capitalism, yet he sees the rigged game of banking, and especially the Federal Reserve scam, as immune to the ups and downs of the free market. His ingrained conservative prejudices prevent him from seeing that protecting banking entities from the whims of the marketplace is nothing more than the perversion and complete opposite of the moral duty to protect human-being entities from the scam of the “free market” foisted on us by those who control the legal (but neither moral, ethical, nor human, and certainly not citizen) “entities” that make capitalism the inherently abusive system it is and was, even when it was under the regulations that were tossed away under the scam of Reaganomics and kinder, gentler S&L looting.
October 28th, 2006 at 11:23 pm
NA wrote:
> Consumer Credit Counseling Services is a non-profit organization that could provide
> a free analysis of your credit report and tell you what things you’re doing wrong
> that really have a negative impact on your score. I’m a certified consumer credit
> counselor.
I don’t mean to sound like I’m belittling your occupation, but at the same time, I need to state my impression, right or wrong, that, profit or non-, Consumer Credit Counseling is a shill for the creditor industry invented to indoctrinate helpless debtors into “recognizing” their “responsibility” to pay back money borrowed from those who are virtually able to print it at will and designed to be as creative as possible when it comes to squeezing blood from a stone—or from its hapless victims whose credit will be destroyed one way or another.
October 28th, 2006 at 11:55 pm
One more comment about solidarity, and then I’ll shut up for the night! Just as unions have discovered, unfortunately too late to nip it in the bud, the awesome power of organizing is all but lost when the organizing is national—or even international but not universal—at a time when the capitalist oppressors have gone global. This is one of the consequences of falling for a jingoistic/xenophobic “us vs them” pseudo-patriotic mentality indoctrinated into us by our gutless leaders, rather than the “us vs them” philosophy of revolutionaries who recognize their true enemy.
We can represent all the professionals in the US, but as long as we don’t represent the ones being exploitively underpaid in cross-border outsourcing scams, our power to change the atrocious status quo is going to be severely limited at best.
October 31st, 2006 at 1:10 am
Jerry, you hit the nail right on the head.
November 21st, 2006 at 2:13 am
I contributed 365 days times ten cents to UP. 5 more cents a day and a book written by one of the founders/directors could have been mine. No thanks. I don’t want more academic verbiage, nor do i want to support authors of such.
I was laid off, went back to work at about 60% of previous wage for an ostensibly pro bono state university where i continue to be appreciated as long as i agree to be exploited without complaint. I check the salary surveys and note that I get paid less than the average for my region, field and experience.
What’s my problem? I’m better off than so many billion unfortunates in the undeveloped, developing, and industrialized world; better off in terms of life-expectancy. So i got nothing to complain about.
So i change the focus and ask what can i generate? I’d like to start local in my region and change the way the system functions. For example so much wasted energy for transportation and consumerism could be reclaimed if the geographic layout of the residential, urban, industrial, commercial, agricultural landscape could be changed. That requires capital. I wonder how much i could get by setting up a website that accepts credit card payments and also bills those in cyberspace. I’d really like to separate the fools and their money. Kind of like Marjoe Gortner who made a few millions evangelizing. If a few of you out there would join me in raising money this way, we’d soon have enough to start a charter school (for all ages), integrate that school with local farmers and even provide free lunch to students, and furthermore construct some energy production infrastructure. It would be a collective. If any of you are good at day-trading, your talents would certainly be of use in the spirit of separating fools from their money and investing that money in the collective. Like Gaviotas in Colombia (Google that). Why not start a Gaviotas in the midst of the United States? What have you got to lose now that you’ve already lost so much?
June 18th, 2007 at 1:35 am
I don’t still understand why everybody is so angry about the fact that employers check the people’s credit reports. I wouldn’t like neither working with nor paying to the man who is so unwise and careless as to file for bankruptcy. If you are a wise adult, you’ll never be careless with credit.