A large & unknown group of the WTC missing: temp workers.
September 28, 2001 11:07 AM   Subscribe

A large & unknown group of the WTC missing: temp workers. (more inside) (via not my desk)
posted by epersonae (10 comments total)
 
I was visiting my favorite temping humor site (I love it & I'm not even a temp) - he copied the whole article from the wall street journal ('cause you have to register, otherwise, dont'cha know).

man, this just gives me the creeps.

I'm wishing this angle of the story were getting a little more play than a short article in the wsj. have had many friends who temp....

(I'm also wishing there was a generic wtc link thread.)
posted by epersonae at 11:10 AM on September 28, 2001


As someone who's temped for longer than I cared to admit, I'm saddened but not surprised. The whole economy runs off us contingent laborers. On a related topic, I saw an ad placed by the ASPCA in the New York Times that brought up the pets of those still missing. As a lot of those people were single, and, boy, I bet it's doubly true of the temps, chances are they owned a pet. And those pets have been home alone ever since...It's not a pretty thought.
posted by y2karl at 11:20 AM on September 28, 2001


If you hit an office building, the working class is going to hit hardest—the type of folks that have to be on the job 9-6 or get reprimanded. Notice how many owners and top executives made it out alive or weren’t at work at all?
posted by raaka at 12:02 PM on September 28, 2001


I'm not sure how being a top exec makes it any easier to escape a burning skyscraper.
posted by jpoulos at 12:47 PM on September 28, 2001


If you’re not in it, you don’t have to leave it.
posted by raaka at 1:12 PM on September 28, 2001


Another forgotten group: about half a dozen Irish labourers were "discovered" yesterday, alive and (more or less) well in a Manhattan hospital. They'd refused to give their names, or notify the relevant authorities, because they were working illegally on tourist visas. Fortunately, the INS is adopting a decent attitude (for once) with illegal immigrants injured in the attacks, and letting the consulates handle this (i.e. by shipping them home or providing other assistance) rather than coming in with the big stick.
posted by holgate at 4:48 PM on September 28, 2001


epersonae, y2karl: logic suggests that some of the missing, probably most, if not the vast majority, have family who miss them and have come looking for them. Though the employers themselves may have no way of finding the information about temp workers, since the people who arranged for them to work there are themselves dead, the temp agencies ought to have records of where people were assigned -- and the article indicates that some have gone to exhaustive lengths to find their workers and determine their status.

So, there may be a few single, hermitic temp workers of whom nobody has any knowledge and for whom no family, friends, or neighbors will come looking, but I don't know that it amounts to that many in toto. Perhaps your eeriest, disturbing thoughts are true in a few cases.
posted by dhartung at 5:02 PM on September 28, 2001


epersonae, what is that temp humor link?
posted by rushmc at 5:09 PM on September 28, 2001


rushmc,

I believe that Not My Desk is the site epersonae is referring to; it's linked in the topic post.

Also, for a possibly lighter view of temp work, you may be interested in Haiku Tunnel.
posted by JDC8 at 7:28 PM on September 28, 2001


Thanks.
posted by rushmc at 8:27 AM on September 29, 2001


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