Hollywood Video goes through their second bankruptcy in two years.

 A sign on the local store:

Normally I'm not a big fan of "breaking news" stories on Open Salon.  In this case, the story hits a little closer to home.

In fact, living in my home is a young fellow who is -- or was -- or might still be -- employed at Hollywood Video.  Two days ago he received a phone call from his (former?) boss who told him not to come into work.  He explained that Hollywood declared bankruptcy for the second time in two years, and that the landlord, a large department store, had chained the doors shut after Hollywood didn't pay the rent:

His boss explained further that the store could reopen in anywhere from a few days to a week, if Hollywood Video and the landlord could agree on a rental price.

 These are grim days to be a video store employee.  The young fellow, the son of a friend, lives with me because he is paid so little at the store that he can't afford his own place.  But in a state with unemployment over 10 percent, even a part-time low-wage video store job is an accomplishment. 

Video store employees are exploited in all sorts of different ways.  For a while the young fellow in question worked at a store that was about a two hour commute away.  Often he would be scheduled for "floor care" duty, which meant that he had to commute two hours there and two hours back in order to put in two hours of work cleaning the floor.  

On a good week he'll get about 18 hours a week.  The company makes sure to schedule him so that he doesn't quality for benefits.   In addition, there have been promised small raises that didn't materialize.  For now, even the small salary is gone, and there's no guarantee that it will return.

Meanwhile, inside the department store, the landlord of this particular Hollywood Video, there is now a line in front of the Red Box video dispenser, a device that requires far less labor than even a video store -- perhaps a sign of things to come.