The company store.

[Anna]

" I owe my soul to the company store " Remenisant of the days when hundreds of Chinese and
Irish immigrants died in sub human working conditions for the railroads and bridge building .
Here we have again where some company's instead of offering bonuses or raises, are giving their
employees little coins or certificates that are only good in places that are on company property .
Little stores or cafeterias, places that sell work clothes, or venders that are approved by the company
where the company owns a controlling interest in.

Yes this is really going on, even though they are masking it in how nice the company is being.
It isn't nice its a form of a sweat shop mentality that's returning to this country. OSHA is getting very
lax anymore in its enforcement of safety regulations . Leaving it to lawyers that capitalize on work
related injurys at times taking up to 70% of any settlements . So a company that acts like its concerned about your safety, is really only worried about a law suite. This country really is going downhill and real wadges are shrinking by alarming rates . At this rate you will owe your life and
soul to the company or starve . 

[Gatofeo]

I haven't heard of any tokens or certificates being offered by companies, instead of monetary raises or bonuses.
Care to name one, or a few?
As for OSHA being lackadaisical, I haven't seen that at my workplace. You even mention OSHA, related to a problem, and management ensures that the safety problem is fixed.
As for lawyers taking 70% of the settlement. When folks go to an attorney, it's their responsibility to determine what their "cut" will be. If they don't, they're fools. And no, I'm not an attorney. I'm not a fan of them, but if you go to the Devil for help, don't complain later that He didn't play fair!
There are many things going downhill in this country: personal responsibility, wages for laborious jobs, political participation or even awareness by the common person, compassion, innovation, the proper use of English, spelling, etc.
What have not gone downhill are greed and the sense of, "I'm in America, therefore I'm entitled" to whatever the person desires. You can thank runaway welfare programs and unions for this attitude.

[Anna]

The odd factor in this is we haven't seem this since the 1930s .You have to remember NM is nearly
as large as Texas and not 15% of the population. It isn't uncommon for towns here to be 50 and even
100 miles apart in all directions and that ratio was much greater back before WW2.
Company's back then mostly oil field related would have camps that were small homes for higher up
employees where the transients as they were called lived in tent city's.

Gas plants were a prime example of this and the company pretty much would build a town around its
facility. Roads and the vehicles of that day that the workers could afford did not allow for much unnecessary travel. And we are seeing a return to this in some areas. Unless you have or do work
around some of these new company's then you don't know how they can be about mentioning their
names with anything negative . Like the old Cattle Barron's in the old west they pretty much control
everything that goes on around them. And their retribution can be hard on those who need the job
and go around informing people about things like this.

Once more this is NM, and the company's know that the lines for work right now are long and they can
lay off the entire crew and replace them within hours. It's been done before things here do not work
like they do anywhere else. Then with our open borders and being an amnesty state with very few
unions around you can see in what direction that could take real fast. That doesn't mean these people
are not talking in town, but they still have family members and friends that work there so its not a
good idea to stir the pot . Even the local media knows this they only report how wonderful things are
and how these company's are such a huge influence on the state economy. Like the saying about Los
Vegas what happens here stays here. And I have not even scratched the surface about what is going on.

If you want to see greed in action one example is when gas is $2.60 in Lubbock Texas why is it $3.50
here in the heart of the oil field production right now ? Car dealers if you dig far enough have some connection to one of these company's . Land owners, ranches, grocery stores, the list goes on.
As I said this is an amnisty state, and that is why I have been telling you about illegals getting most
of the jobs around here because they will work for peanuts and never say a word . Live in shacks and
run down mobile homes like the type that were banned in the 1970s for being unsafe fire has hassards. The only Federal agency that has even showed up is the EPA. And that was only because
the open sewers and the human waist from them was flowing off onto the state roads .

And that was a vast improvement from what we saw when this first started. Back then they were just
going in the bushes and you would find used toilet paper in your tress after a good wind came along.
Back on topic, so why of you think this us all happening ? Because all of this is because of the way these company's are operating within this state of very cheap labor and they are getting away with it.
Coming soon to a town near you.

[SHOOTALL]

" I owe my soul to the company store " Remenisant of the days when hundreds of Chinese and
Irish immigrants died in sub human working conditions for the railroads and bridge building .
Here we have again where some company's instead of offering bonuses or raises, are giving their
employees little coins or certificates that are only good in places that are on company property .
Little stores or cafeterias, places that sell work clothes, or venders that are approved by the company
where the company owns a controlling interest in. We have a deal with a safety boot store but have no arrangement for kick back and do not have an intrest in the store . Our employees seem to really like it as we give a card for $150.00 and if they want a more expensive pair they can add the extra and get what they want. As for raises how do you give raises when the company is working for less than it did 5 years ago ? Why do people think companies are still making high profits when they are not ?

Yes this is really going on, even though they are masking it in how nice the company is being.
It isn't nice its a form of a sweat shop mentality that's returning to this country. OSHA is getting very
lax anymore in its enforcement of safety regulations Sorry but this just is not true . I have been in construction since 1972 OSHA started in 1971 and I can assure you every year OSHA has created more standards and enforced them better each year. The reality is with less construction and the same number of inspectors a higher percentage of jobs are being inspected than at any other time. As for lax forget it we had a fiels inspection on a jobsite where we were in compliance so the inspector came to the shop and found we did not have a MSDS sheet for white out and we got written up. You do realize that accidents are listed in computer programs and the computer is used to pick types of jobs that need closer inspection due to accident records ? so if an industry is not seeing as many inspections it is because they are experincing less accidents. . Leaving it to lawyers that capitalize on work
related injurys at times taking up to 70% of any settlements . So a company that acts like its concerned about your safety, is really only worried about a law suite. This country really is going downhill and real wadges are shrinking by alarming rates . At this rate you will owe your life and
soul to the company or starve . Or just change jobs .

[oldandslow]

Well, New Mexico may be the fifth largest state but it's kind of small compared to Texas. New Mexico consists of 121,589 sq. miles of area and Texas has an area of 268,581 sq. miles making it twice the size of New Mexico with 25,403 sq. miles to spare.

I can tell you that things are going quite well on the work front over here in the southeast corner of the state where the heart of the oil production is.  Signs in front of most businesses saying "help wanted" or "now hiring" and it's not just oil related companies. Three of my family work for oil related businesses and each got a very substantial bonus this year end and it was genuine greenbacks, not tokens, etc.

I agree that fuel is higher here than in other places like Lubbock, Midland, Odessa, and the towns around them. I think the amount of competition might just have something to do with that. I was in Roswell which is on the very edge of the oil field last Friday and found gas to be $2..99 all over town. Here it Lea County it has dropped to $3.19. I've lived here since 1956 and it's always been higher priced here.

I was born and raised 65 miles south of Lubbock, TX and moved here after finishing school. Lubbock (pronounced Lub-bock, not Lub-bick as many do) Has ALWAYS had the cheapest gas anywhere around this part of the world.