The Tactics of Talx
Yes, jobs are hard to come by these days, but don’t despair, for here’s a company that’s hiring – if you can stomach the work.
It’s Talx, and what it does is help major outfits (from AT&T to Wal-Mart) prevent their fired employees from getting unemployment benefits. Sound like fun?
You see, when a corporation’s former workers are denied jobless benefits, the corporation pays less in taxes to our nation’s unemployment fund. However, denying benefits is a messy process, and it’s not a plus for the corporate image. So – voilà! – Talx comes in to do the dirty chore.
Talx has become notorious in state unemployment offices across the country, for it routinely flings tons of paper at the process in order to clog it and game it, thus denying or stalling benefits that laid-off people are due. Stalling works to Talx’s advantage, because jobless folks often don’t have the resources or time to battle a deep-pocket opponent like Talx, so they give up.
A recent New York Times report cites several examples of Talx’s dirty tricks, including the case of a man with mental disabilities who was fired from his job as a night janitor in a New Hampshire Wal-Mart. Talx stalled for three months before the fellow could even get a hearing. The hearing officer granted benefits to the jobless janitor, but Talx appealed, claiming that Wal-Mart had requested to testify by phone but was not allowed to. There was, however, no such request. Finally, the janitor won the appeal – but, thanks to the Talx long stall, he had no money for rent and lost his apartment. “That was a nightmare,” he said of his experience.
Talx officials say the company improves the “efficiency” of the unemployment system. Actually, it doesn’t – but worse, Talx strips human decency from the system.
Wall Street’s Slap on the Wrist
President Barack Obama marched boldly up to Wall Street and scolded those narcissistic banksters who crashed our economy and looted our public treasury. And what did the banksters do? They applauded!
Were they acknowledging their naughtiness and promising to play nice? Of course not! Theirs was the applause of relief, for the president of the United States – who really could punish these thieves and rein them in – had merely chastised them. Can you imagine how Wall Street bankers respond to being scolded? Right, they shrug and go right back to their profiteering.
Obama declared that his proposed financial reforms are “in the best interest of the financial sector.” Honchos from Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and the other giants broke out in big grins at this, because they knew it meant that Obama was merely going to regulate excess, not restructure the financial oligopolies that inevitably produce the excesses. Bankers hire scads of lawyers and lobbyists so they can easily slip out of regulations, but restructuring actually limits the harm they can do to us.
Not that Obama’s regulatory steps are bad – most are obviously needed and long overdue. But the reform that really matters is to cut these behemoths down to size. Banks should not also be in the casino gambling business, houses of global speculation should not be in insurance, and insurance giants should not be tied to banks. More fundamentally, financial outfits that are too big to fail are too big. Period. They should be broken up so they don’t threaten our economy, and their assets should be decentralized into community banks, credit unions, and other lending institutions that actually serve our economy.
To do more than scold Wall Street, join the grassroots campaign of Americans for Financial Reform: www.ourfinancialsecurity.org.
This article appears in May 14 • 2010.