We (the middle class) are being held hostage by a health insurance system that gives the best plans to those who are employed in large corporations If UP figures out a way to address the health insurance crisis, membership will skyrocket, and you will do serious damage to the current “corporate” system because people will have real choices about work.

All the other issues are just distractions…

Start cutting back on your expenses, and saving $$. If you can, find out the company’s unemployment/cobra/severance policy, find a local unemployment office (just in case), and start looking elsewhere! Look in your local newspaper for networking groups. (They didn’t help me, but I don’t know what field you’re in.)

Prepare yourself, so that one morning you’re not sitting in front of a 26 yr. HR rep, in shock, and signing forms, just so you can get a month or two of severance/insurance pay!

Good Luck, and let us know how you’re doing.

Lately, though, I’ve come much closer to the decision that a good salary alone is not worth it if it comes at the expense of every other aspect of my life. As the sole breadwinner for my family, that’s a difficult choice to make. I wonder, though, if many of us aren’t getting very close to the quitting/collapsing point whether we want that or not - and whether there isn’t a limit to how much extra companies can squeeze out of their employees before things just start breaking down because they can’t move up from a 120% effort to 130%.

1. Rid our own souls of ignorance and poison. The extent of career troubles Americans face is NOT due to poor job performance or a lack of will, nor to an influx of immigrants who look or think differently than we. The causes are much more insidious than that.

2. Feed daily on truth rather than disinformation that is dumbed-down, biased or even deliberately distorted. That means reading books, including those in the UP Web site and selected others. It means getting daily news from public radio and Amy Goodman and selected Internet sources rather than from the major commercial networks who speak for big business because their management is interlocked with other big business management.

3. Reevaluate personal and lifestyle “needs” (see the superb book “Affluenza”). For example, 3 months ago I decided I no longer needed my car, and what I have saved since then just from not caring for the car has bought holiday gifts for all the kids in our large extended family. Buying a car might help support some laborers, but it even more supports managers who indulge regularly in ethnic slurs and contests to see which among them can hire a female secretary with the largest breasts. I know of what I speak from having worked in that industry. Similar analyses might be performed for other material goods.

4. Be willing to discard the truths of our youth for those that stand today. For many, a trade education makes much more dollar sense today than 6+ years of college. Having hit 50 and recently relocated to be near family, I was ready to go back to junior college to take beginner courses in my field for which local industry has open requisitions for anyone who successfully completes them. And in general, the better staff at the better junior colleges are very familiar with the realities of career and life transitions, and can advise in many ways providing one is ready to listen and act. (Does it surprise you to hear this from someone with an MBA from back East? It shouldn’t.)

5. Refuse to abide a cheat. When there is no more reasonable doubt that someone is trying to victimize the innocent, be very clear with them on where they can go and what they can do when they get there. Where possible, publicize the incident to forewarn others.

6. Embrace and support our young people every chance we get. As hard and cold as the world was when we came of age, it is infinitely more dysfunctional now. The array of forces marshalled against them is uncountable and surreal. Predictions from several sources are that many of them may die from other than old age, due to the direction the world is heading. And it is not clear what career avenues are open to them, given how many doors have slammed shut in recent years. They will need steady guidance from those who mean them well to have any chance of launching their careers.

7. Pick the right friends, who are truly the “gifts one gives oneself”. Those supportive make an enormous positive difference even to the point of lengthening lifespan. Those with more limited perspectives can be toxic and have no place in the equation until they clean up their own acts.

Glad to hear from others on practical survival tactics.

Absolutely every response I have received has been
completely negative: “we will always insist on
[highly specific] HANDS-ON experience,” they all say.

The only way to get into most fields is through an
internship, while you are in your 20s.

I’ve seen many middle aged people take various
courses, even earn a four year degree, and it have
no effect on their employability.

Government programs like WIA are or more or
less fraudulent: symbolic gestures only, intended
merely to enable politicians to say they are doing
something.

The complaint that Americans are poorly educated
in technical subjects—“science and
mathematics”—is largely disingenuous: part of
the propaganda put out to urge for expanded and
extended foreign guestworker programs.

Never retrain or take a course without first
getting a positive indication from some employers,
that it will make a difference to them.

My wife’s employer (an importer) is not doing well, and my employer (an ad agency) froze raises for 3 years ni a row before giving them again last year. The raises were inadequate to make up for the increased cost of living in the ensuing years without raises.

We never thought we’d be one of those families that could be a couple of paychecks away from being out on the street, but now we’re scared and nervous. I am in my mid-40s, and despite my lengthy resume, as I get older I fear for my ability to be rehired if I am laid off, as younger employees paid half my salary are hired to replace us experienced people.

I hope that UP will grow (quickly) into a strong organization that will not only advocate for the middle class with our elected officials and try to advance legislation that will prevent the exploitation of employees by those in the executive suites; but will also help those of us who have worked hard and tried to get ahead to not just survive, but to thrive by creating new opportunities, sharing resources, offering leads, and helping one another unselfishly to succeed.

I’m tired of worrying about my family’s security. What’s our next step? Let’s go!

I’ve just had my salary cut by a third, and that’s just a “phony”, part-time job.

You GO, UP!