'Work'ers or 'No-Work'ers

I have been observing this for the past couple of months now. Today an incident marked the tipping point for me writing this.
The incident that happened was a boy at office happened to vent out his frustration to me. This boy who has been contracted to do some particular work at office is asked everyday to do a variety of jobs – the real responsibility of which lies with the ‘staff’ of the company. (Graduates and Post graduates join at the Officer level. The staff level is the one below them). What led to this boy’s vent of frustration was that not only was he told to do jobs which were not his, but also he was scolded, threatened to do them.

After having seen the attitude of majority of workers or staff people, it is no wonder that pressure (and responsibility) is put on a person who is not an employee of the company and who has no “associations/unions" to support or back him up. The rest of the junta is happy munching peanuts in the warm winter sun – a typical picture which comes to mind when you think of a government owned or run organisation. A mere 4 months in the organization and I have been witness to people openly saying that they don’t know the work. You can’t force things as the threats to go to the union can be issued at the drop of the hat. There is no propensity to learn because without that too the monthly cheque is coming to the bank account and joining a “Government company” has already allayed all their ambitions.
Bland refusal to follow orders does affect the ego of the officers, who then vent it out all on the contracted guy who cannot reply back in fear of getting his contract cancelled.

There were talks that the organization is trying to move away from hiring people at the staff level instead outsourcing those works.
The benefits are many.
First, there will be no union, hence no complacency. A negative point can be that who does the contractor go to in case of any injustice. Well, I guess the answer to that is that if he is good, the organization would not like to let go of him and his concerns will be addressed.
Secondly, the thing they call – job security won’t be there. The staff level knows that even if they don’t do any work, they cannot be fired. This problem takes a colossal shape in case of state owned enterprises.
Third - the cost. By outsourcing, we are changing the fixed cost to a variable cost component making the organization leaner and flexible.
Fourth – safety. Recently we have seen a major disaster due to negligence. If a contracted labor, whose work is that of a sweeper, is asked to operate those huge, deadly things called oil tanks or may be the complex machinery like oil pumps, a disaster is waiting to happen!!