The New Debt Bondage

A new story in the New York Times brings light to the exploitation of young workers in magazine subscription sales.

In interviews over seven months, more than 50 current and former members from almost as many crews painted a similar picture of life on the road.

With striking uniformity, they told of violence, drug use, indebtedness and cheating of customers during their cross-country travels, often in unsafe vehicles and with drivers who lacked proper licenses.

Hat Tip to Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo who says that it is a "a mix of Fight Club, Urban Cowboy and pretty much any other dark, sex, violence and drug drenched movie or cultural phenomenon you can think of."

From the story:

In Collinsville, Ill., Daniel Burrus scrolled through digital photographs of bloodied faces as he described how, on a crew he helped manage for several years, men who missed their sales quota were forced to fight each other.

In Flagstaff, Ariz., Isaac James sat with his wife and newborn daughter as he told how he and others on his mag crew — as they are typically called — stole checkbooks, jewelry, medicine-cabinet drugs and even shoes from customers’ homes.

When I first started practicing law, I received a call from a distressed father whose son was severely injured in an auto accident from an unsafe van crash in Oklahoma. Here is one from 1999. I don't think it is the same one as the one I got called about, but the facts are very similar. The one I was called about would have been in 1995 or 1996 (I think), which is when I first started practicing.

I remember when I investigated the corporation that was involved, I found that the owners (I am pretty sure it was the same ones in the story from 1999) were creating a new corporation almost every week -- or at least month -- to hide who the real owners were. There were corporations within corporations and addresses were changed frequently. I didn't have the capital to handle such a complex case, so I didn't get the chance to work on it. But I am glad some attention is being brought to the problem now.

This is just a small part of the big picture of what is wrong with our business values today.