This surge has been accompanied by the collapse of the lifetime-employment systems in Japanese and South Korean firms, which used to ensure that a single (male) worker's income could support a middle-class family.

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It was not always thus: Boyle, 55, was born into a working-class family in Manchester, northern England, the son of a power plant worker and a cafeteria employee, and as a child had hoped to become a Catholic priest.

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We're also considered middle class and it seems like they keep constantly wanting to take it away from the auto worker and prosecuting us, instead of the corporate that brought us to this.

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