The Financial disaster of 2007 which was followed by a deep recession in the world economy has produced many changes to the work place. High unemployment numbers hit the developed world especially in the U.S and Europe. The job market became highly competitive and the high supply of workers encouraged employers to go to the extreme of what they expect from their current and future employees. A new working class of people has emerged and expanded, that group of workers are the underemployed, over worked and under payed.

The incident that happened in the Bank of America’s branch in London and was first aired on CNN, where a German intern died at the age of 21 due to high stress and long hours at work is a great reminder of the harsh reality of the post recession work place. In the U.S the class of underemployed underpaid workers are in the millions. The history of the struggle of the working class since the start of the industrialize revolution is long, it is filled with many achievements to improve the conditions of the working class. Sadly, It is known that during financial disasters workers lose some of their rights to the rich and powerful due to the law of supply and demand. When there are few jobs and many workers those who are lucky enough to find work will not negotiate better working hours and better pay. During economic hardship governments loosen restrictions in enforcing labor laws in favor of employers to help create more jobs as it is happening in the U.S.

There have been spikes of work place violations which resulted in major accidents where employees got hurt or died in companies that produce or manufacture chemicals such as those took place in Texas an Florida recently. What if the employee got hurt from other work related stress and from being over worked? Given the unfortunate incident of the German intern, it is hard to prove wrong doing by the employer and that is Bank of America in this case.