Have a question for the labor unions....
Posted By: sam on 2009-04-03
In Reply to:
especially the UAW....how do you like him now that he has thrown you under the "let the automakers go bankrupt" bus. Be careful what you vote for.....
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Devaluing Labor
Devaluing Labor
By Harold Meyerson
Wednesday, August 30, 2006; A19
Labor Day is almost upon us, and like some of my fellow graybeards, I can, if I concentrate, actually remember what it was that this holiday once celebrated. Something about America being the land of broadly shared prosperity. Something about America being the first nation in human history that had a middle-class majority, where parents had every reason to think their children would fare even better than they had.
The young may be understandably incredulous, but the Great Compression, as economists call it, was the single most important social fact in our country in the decades after World War II. From 1947 through 1973, American productivity rose by a whopping 104 percent, and median family income rose by the very same 104 percent. More Americans bought homes and new cars and sent their kids to college than ever before. In ways more difficult to quantify, the mass prosperity fostered a generosity of spirit: The civil rights revolution and the Marshall Plan both emanated from an America in which most people were imbued with a sense of economic security.
That America is as dead as the dodo. Ours is the age of the Great Upward Redistribution. The median hourly wage for Americans has declined by 2 percent since 2003, though productivity has been rising handsomely. Last year, according to figures released just yesterday by the Census Bureau, wages for men declined by 1.8 percent and for women by 1.3 percent.
As a remarkable story by Steven Greenhouse and David Leonhardt in Monday's New York Times makes abundantly clear, wages and salaries now make up the lowest share of gross domestic product since 1947, when the government began measuring such things. Corporate profits, by contrast, have risen to their highest share of the GDP since the mid-'60s -- a gain that has come chiefly at the expense of American workers.
Don't take my word for it. According to a report by Goldman Sachs economists, the most important contributor to higher profit margins over the past five years has been a decline in labor's share of national income.
As the Times story notes, the share of GDP going to profits is also at near-record highs in Western Europe and Japan.
Clearly, globalization has weakened the power of workers and begun to erode the egalitarian policies of the New Deal and social democracy that characterized the advanced industrial world in the second half of the 20th century.
For those who profit from this redistribution, there's something comforting in being able to attribute this shift to the vast, impersonal forces of globalization. The stagnant incomes of most Americans can be depicted as the inevitable outcome of events over which we have no control, like the shifting of tectonic plates.
Problem is, the declining power of the American workforce antedates the integration of China and India into the global labor pool by several decades. Since 1973 productivity gains have outpaced median family income by 3 to 1. Clearly, the war of American employers on unions, which began around that time, is also substantially responsible for the decoupling of increased corporate revenue from employees' paychecks.
But finger a corporation for exploiting its workers and you're trafficking in class warfare. Of late a number of my fellow pundits have charged that Democratic politicians concerned about the further expansion of Wal-Mart are simply pandering to unions. Wal-Mart offers low prices and jobs to economically depressed communities, they argue. What's wrong with that?
Were that all that Wal-Mart did, of course, the answer would be nothing. But as business writer Barry Lynn demonstrated in a brilliant essay in the July issue of Harper's, Wal-Mart also exploits its position as the biggest retailer in human history -- 20 percent of all retail transactions in the United States take place at Wal-Marts, Lynn wrote -- to drive down wages and benefits all across the economy. The living standards of supermarket workers have been diminished in the process, but Wal-Mart's reach extends into manufacturing and shipping as well. Thousands of workers have been let go at Kraft, Lynn shows, due to the economies that Wal-Mart forced on the company. Of Wal-Mart's 10 top suppliers in 1994, four have filed bankruptcies.
For the bottom 90 percent of the American workforce, work just doesn't pay, or provide security, as it used to.
Devaluing labor is the very essence of our economy. I know that airlines are a particularly embattled industry, but my eye was recently caught by a story on Mesaba Airlines, an affiliate of Northwest, where the starting annual salary for pilots is $21,000 a year, and where the company is seeking a pay cut of 19 percent. Maybe Mesaba's plan is to have its pilots hit up passengers for tips.
Labor Day is almost upon us. What a joke.
meyersonh@washpost.com
© 2006 The Washington Post Company
Happy Labor Day!
Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country. Taken from http://www.dol.gov/opa/aboutdol/laborday.htm.
Tip your hat if you have worked hard in 2006!!!
Labor not held to same standard as
other parties in the negotiations, i.e., double standard. During the debates on TARP funds, aside from the parachutes, when were white collar salaries ever examined?
Tomatoes and Cheap Labor
CHEAP TOMATOES?
This should make everyone think, be you Democrat, Republican or Independent
From a California school teacher - - -
"As you listen to the news about the student protests over illegal immigration, there are some things that you should be aware of:
I am in charge of the English-as-a-second-language department at a large southern California high school which is designated a Title 1 school, meaning that its students average lower socioeconomic and income levels.
Most of the schools you are hearing about, South Gate High, Bell Gardens , Huntington Park , etc., where these students are protesting, are also Title 1 schools.
Title 1 schools are on the free breakfast and free lunch program. When I say free breakfast, I'm not talking a glass of milk and roll -- but a full breakfast and cereal bar with fruits and juices that would make a Marriott proud. The waste of this food is monumental, with trays and trays of it being dumped in the trash uneaten. (OUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK )
I estimate that well over 50% of these students are obese or at least moderately overweight. About 75% or more DO have cell phones. The school also provides day care centers for the unwed teenage pregnant girls (some as young as 13) so they can attend class without the inconvenience of having to arrange for babysitters or having family watch their kids. (OUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK)
I was ordered to spend $700,000 on my department or risk losing funding for the upcoming year even though there was little need for anything; my budget was already substantial. I ended up buying new computers for the computer learning center, half of which, one month later, have been carved with graffiti by the appreciative students who obviously feel humbled and grateful to have a free education in America . (OUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK)
I have had to intervene several times for young and substitute teachers whose classes consist of many illegal immigrant students here in the country less then 3 months who raised so much he*l with the female teachers, calling them "Putas" whores and throwing things that the teachers were in tears.
Free medical, free education, free food, day care etc., etc., etc. Is it any wonder they feel entitled to not only be in this country but to demand rights, privileges and entitlements ?
To those who want to point out how much these illegal immigrants contribute to our society because they LIKE their gardener and housekeeper and they like to pay less for tomatoes: spend some time in the real world of illegal immigration and see the TRUE costs.
Higher insurance, medical facilities closing, higher medical costs, more crime, lower standards of education in our schools, overcrowding, new diseases etc., etc, etc. For me, I'll pay more for tomatoes.
We need to wake up. The guest worker program will be a disaster because we won't have the guts to enforce it . Does anyone in their right mind really think they will voluntarily leave and return?
It does, however, have everything to do with culture: A third-world culture that does not value education, that accepts children getting pregnant and dropping out of school by 15 an d that refuses to assimilate , and an American culture that has become so weak and worried about " political Correctness " that we don't have the will to do anything about it.
If this makes your blood boil, as it did mine, forward this to everyone you know.
CHEAP LABOR? Isn't that what the whole immigration issue is about?
Business doesn't want to pay a decent wage.
Consumers don't want expensive produce.
Government will tell you Americans don't want the jobs.
But the bottom line is cheap labor. The phrase "cheap labor" is a myth , a farce, and a lie. There is no such thing as "cheap labor."
Take, for example, an illegal alien with a wife and five children. He takes a job for $5.00 or 6.00/hour. At that wage, with six dependents, he pays no income tax, yet at the end of the year, if he files an Income Tax Return, he gets an "earned income credit" of up to $3,200 free.
He qualifies for Section 8 housing and subsidized rent.
He qualifies for food stamps.
He qualifies for free (no deductible, no co-pay) health care.
His children get free breakfasts and lunches at school.
He requires bilingual teachers and books.
He qualifies for relief from high energy bills.
If they are, or become, aged, blind or disabled, they qualify for SSI. Once qualified for SSI they can qualify for Medicare . All of this is at (our) taxpayer's expense .
He doesn't worry about car insurance, life insurance, or homeowners insurance.
Taxpayers provide Spanish language signs, bulletins and printed material.
He and his family receive the equivalent of $20.00 to $30.00/hour in benefits.
Working Americans are lucky to have $5.00 or $6.00/hour left after paying their bills and his.
The American taxpayers also pay for increased crime, graffiti and trash clean-up.
Cheap labor? YEAH RIGHT! Wake up people!
THESE ARE THE QUESTIONS WE SHOULD BE ADDRESSING TO EITHER PARTY. 'AND WHEN THEY LIE TO US AND DON'T DO AS THEY SAY, WE SHOULD REPLACE THEM AT ONCE!'
THIS HAS GOT TO BE PASSED ALONG TO AS MANY AS POSSIBLE OR WE WILL ALL GO DOWN THE DRAIN BECAUSE A FEW DON'T CARE.
Overseas equals cheap labor
It is because labor is cheaper in third world countries, so corporations and their stock holders make more money with dirt cheap labor. Bush and his group do not care about the middle class, he has proved that over the last..how many years..feels like 40 to me..Right now we are seeing this happen in medical transcription. The company I work for sends out 30% of the work to India and they have a partnership with the Indian company. The other day I had to call American Express and could hardly understand the guy his Indian accent was so thick. They just care about making the rich richer. Greenspan when interviewed on 60 Minutes said America is becoming the rich and the working poor with no middle class and he said something needs to be done about it..But this is the way many corporations, who just so happen to mostly vote Republican, want it.
So businesses can use foreign labor for their products and services? nm
x
Why have we let this go on and grow for so long??? Did we need slave labor that badly?....nm
nm
Labor Department's report of 533,000 job losses in November — the biggest job loss in 34 years
Getting worse every day.
Unions
I am in total agreement with your synopsis of unions. Case in point: I work for one of the largest HMO's in the country as a MT, and our jobs are on the line. We belong to a 'union' (won't say which one), and without notice, the facility decided to use VR and guess what? The majority of our MT's are either jobless or working for dang near nothing. The union stood with management and let them take our jobs and then turned around and told us that 'there was nothing they could do about it'. Our country has gone to h#ll in a handbasket since deregulation (Reagan years). They deregulated every single job such as Gourdpainter pointed out, trucking. Look at the airlines and any other large company you can think of. The American worker is an and has been an endangered species and it saddens me that on the Repub and Dem sides that we are stuck in the middle and ultimatrly pay the price for their greed and neglect when it comes to their constituents. WE suffer - not them. They don't have to worry about what to do when they decide to retire, they don't have to worry about how to give their children a good education and certainly don't have to worry about how their families are fed. There was a time when unions did their best to protect the American worker but looking at what I personally deal with at this point in time - they are weak, useless and take your money and you can believe you get little or no representation when or if its needed. JMO.
those bad ol' unions
I love how the unions are always the secret cause of the problems. If demanding good pay and fair treatment can utterly destroy the economy, then maybe our economy is too unbalanced to be worth saving.
You're right, though. It's a lot easier to create a cheap job where workers are unprotected and uninsured, than it is to create a good job. And so the foreign car companies came flocking to the southern US to build their factories, and the US taxpayer, as always, picked up the cost of the uninsured. And now the business is bottoming out, and there's no safety net for the workers, because everybody was too busy trying to cut costs and complaining about those evil union workers up north.
What the unions have done lately
is negotiate bloated hourly pay rates and pension plans. The car manufacturers, of course, agreed. Couple that with executive pay and bonuses, the effect has been to kill the goose that laid the golden egg.
I believe it was a triad, the unions, executives, and government meddling that has killed the auto industry.
Let's not leave out the government's part in this - long before the bailouts, government mandates and standards for manufacturing cars other than what people wish to buy. And since the government could not ban SUVs and trucks (apparently what many consumer wanted and still want) it attacks them in a different way.
We've all read claims that SUVs are 'responsible for highway deaths.' Why? Because the SUV driver walked away and the family of four driving a roller skate did not? Look for gas prices to go back up to four bucks and stay there. That will be to force us to drive tiny death trap cars. People were actually buying them when gas prices were high, but sales dropped when the per-gallon price got back down to two dollars.
Maybe there will also be some kind of tax based on vehicle size or weight, either on purchase, or to scoop more of us into the governmentm maw, a federal surtax when we reregister our current cars.
Unions, etc.
1. I agree that I kind of mixed up two points here. I was sort of confused about you saying I needed to educate myself on percentages, though. And I was being kind enough not to mention that we might not need such a large part of our budget going to the DOD had Mr. Bush not gotten us into at least one, if not two unwinnable wars with the loss of over 4,000 young American lives, on the basis of, shall we say, fibbing, or making up "facts on the ground" that were totally false. But hey, Mission Accomplished!
2. I don't think a transcription union would work - especially right now. Too many people are worried about keeping their jobs to complain about how our pay rate has actually decreased over the years rather than increased. 30 years ago I was earning 5 cents per line for a 50-character line, straight typing, correcting mistakes with white-out (so happy when correcting selectrics arrived) and managing 100 dollars a day. That amount actually meant something back then. Nowadays people are under so much stress, not knowing when the "other shoe is going to fall" that they are happy to have scraps, as long as it means they have a job.
3. I'm not exactly sure what happened with the UAW, other than being put under incredible pressure to make concession after concession, all while being made to look like the bad guys who were the cause of all the trouble. For myself, I can't imagine how difficult it would be to work on the line day after day, as was the case for some of my relatives. My husband's union is a very strong union. Every year he has gotten a raise in pay, he has vacation pay, health insurance, and a pension plan. I don't really think I provided you with a "cache of union slogans", but I am very thankful for the Ironworkers Union.
I think probably the end of unions is not far away. Union-busting seems to be a favorite activity of certain people. All I can tell you is that for my family, my husband was able to earn a living wage in his very dangerous occupation.
As I alluded to previously, in our great country we are entitled to our opinions. I thank God for that.
I swear this is all because of the unions. They will
nm
want to talk about unions?
the places i've seen around our area who have unions are pathetic. i've seen unions protect employees who come to work intoxicated, who don't come to work at all, who PLAY CARDS on work time, do what they want because their "union will protect" them. so if you are suggesting the union is American... that's pretty pathetic. if they were actually protect HARD WORKING AMERICANS, then i'd be fine with it.
you wanna talk about "jabs" at obama? i guess "a bunch of losers" would not be a jab?
i believe the unions were meant to
maybe part of the downfall is because of the lazy ones who rode on the backs of the hard workers.
that is the only part of a union that i could say i'm against. if you are not pulling your weight, enough... ya know?
regarding these MTs who cherry pick, i wish these companies would call them on it, give them notice and get rid of them... there are plenty of good MTs who would gladly take their place.
actually i have seen norma rae.. lol... it has been YEARS go though...
I have seen unions do good and bad
Did anyone take note of what happened with the last grocery strikes in California. The employees certainly did not end up better off after months of striking for a corrupt union. I have also seen them do very good things. They do keep wages high--sometimes, perhaps too high. Checkers at your grocery stores used to have to memorize codes and prices and everything else. Now, it is so simple that you and I can do it with no training whatsoever, thus, the self checkout, so maybe, just maybe, $20/hour with really good benefits is more than that job is worth at this point. I think that unions are good and bad, but the sanctity of the secret ballot needs to be preserved. Of course, this is just my opinion and some of you out there might disagree 200%.
Deregulation of unions in US
Gourdie: I definitely agree, and I find it such a shame that the workers and consumers in this country cannot see what has happened. All this talk about OSHA, etc. has no meaning anymore because the backbone of these government offices have no backbone and don't give a gnat's tweeter how the American workers have and continue to suffer.
Profitable? Doing well? No unions?
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/oct2008/germ-o25.shtml
European Auto Industry in Crisis
http://www.emf-fem.org/Press/Press-release-archive/2007/EU-Automotive-Restructuring-Forum
EU Automotive Restructuring Forum - talks about working with trade unions
http://blog.lib.umn.edu/ashuster/nonviolence/2008/09/romanian_autoworkers_strike_against_rockbottom_wages.html
Romanian Autoworkers Strike Against Rock-Bottom Wages
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/german-autoworkers-threaten-strike/
German Autoworkers Threaten Strike
http://uk.oneworld.net/contact/company/view/18
Canadian Autoworkers Union Directory
http://www.just-auto.com/article.aspx?id=89621
UK: Car workers' Union Frustrated by Low Manufacturers Output
http://www.autonews24h.com/Auto-Industry/Peugeot-Citroen/741.html
UK Peugeot Workers Vote Against Strike to Protest Lay-Offs
http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=573
Swedish Auto Workers Campaign
http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/eiro/2002/10/feature/it0210303f.htm
Crisis at Fiat Worsens - name countless unions
Yet another reason we need unions...nm
x
This, along with the millions to the unions
help pay for Mr. O's presidency being bought. These 2 for sure, reckon how much more?
unions redux
The question that always comes to mind, when I hear how lazy and shiftless all those UAW workers are, is--who made all those millions and millions of cars on the road, all these years? It certainly couldn't be the union workers, right? They wouldn't lift a finger to make a car, they were too busy fanning themselves with hundred dollar bills. So who made the cars?
The austrian-school piece you quote is a good example of the thing that is most wrong with our country: Turning worker against worker, while the CEOs profit. Boiled down to its essentials, the article says: ''Workers shouldn't have any power to organize to defend their rights. Their pay should be determined by the free market--a market that is not so much free, as it is controlled by the corporate interests.''
That is the ideological foundation: Enrich the rich, at the expense of the worker. The pratical method: Keep workers from organizing so that their interests don't have to be considered. And the antiunion rhetoric that we've all heard, all our lives, is the propaganda technique that makes it seem reasonable.
I don't doubt that the foreign car companies who have based operations here in the non-unionized southern US have good production numbers. They have received massive government intervention in their own countries, enabling them to create better production methods (rather than simply enriching the CEOs and stockholders, as our domestic companies seem intent on). The fact that, in their own countries, they don't have to pay for insurance for their workers, because these benefits are provided by the government, helps them stay lean. Our own method, throwing workers to the wolves, also helps socialize costs, but with a more chilling, terrifying effect.
Anyway. My point: If you are against workers organizing to defend their rights, then you are on the side of the wealthy who have organized to defend their wealth. There is not a middle ground.
Well....civil unions would have
to be something we would do on a country wide basis. I mean...what is the point if you can't leave your state because other states don't accept them. I meant this as a country wide thing. If the whole country recognized civil unions with the same benefits as marriage kind of thing. I guess I wasn't specific enough.
As it goes, same sex marriage is only accepted in the states that allow it. I mean...you have to live in those states to have the rights of marriage...right? Please correct me if I'm wrong on that one because I really don't know.
Bringing up from below about taxes/unions
At first we were told the outsourcing was to cut labor costs. Only after this campaign rhetoric took hold did the issue of taxes come up. Now I ask you, if the reason for outsourcing is taxes, what the heck? Didn't Bush CUT taxes.
It seems that American people have lost the reasoning side of their collective brains. When I quit working a few months ago I was making LESS than I made in the 80s. How is that possible? The cost of medical care has not gone down. The cost of medical insurance has not gone down. I posted some time ago about a local hospital that laid off their most experienced nurses, not a few of them, ALL of them, and hired new graduate nurses to replace them at lesser wages. What was that about? They got away with it though. Anything to increase the bottom line profit.
This is true in every industry. They like to blame labor for everything. Well, how the heck can you buy a $2+ loaf of bread and $5 gallon of milk on minimum wage, ya know? Take gasoline for example. Sure it has gone down the last days but is it back where it was when oil was what? $86 a barrel or whatever? No and it never will be.
So that car you drive.........how much do you think of the price tag is labor?
These things are what really aggravates me. People just can't seem to use reasoning power any more. I'll give you an example: After my husband lost his job in the CF fiasco, he drove for awhile for a friend who owns a trucking company. I went with him on a trip. He picked up a load of beef in Boonesville, AR, hauled it to Chicago, no problem. Then they sent him somewhere in Ohio to pick up a load of vinegar to take to Florida. Got to Ohio and I forget the reason but he couldn't pick up the vinegar. Then he was sent (empty) to Logan (?), Kentucky where he picked up 40,000 pounds of chocolate covered doughnuts which he delivered to Phoenix. In Phoenix they told him that most of that load would be routed back to Atlanta. Now what kind of sense does that make? Taxes the problem? I would say poor management is a bigger problem than taxes OR labor.
I'm sorry about your dad's experience. People used to do things like that. I recall my late father-in-law, worked for the fire department in Fort Worth and he said during the depression they did the same thing, worked less so the ones with less seniority could keep a job. They all suffered but they suffered together and somehow they all made it as did your parents.
I am just horrified at the apparent digress of intelligence in this country. It seems people believe anything the news media or anyone else tells them. Seems they have totally lost the ability to reason and God forbid that anyone should think of anyone other than themself.
All that said, feel free to go ahead and believe that companies are outsourcing jobs because of labor costs or taxes. The unionized workers, under Reagan, started taking wage concessions, that is taking a DECREASE in pay to keep jobs. How did that work? Don't believe I've heard of any of the victims of outsourcing even being offered a pay cut to keep the jobs in this country. Certainly not the Rheem plant in Fort Smith that the other day laid off the last 600 workers. They sent most of their production to Mexico a few years ago. Fort Smith they say is dying because of outsourcing. Their reason? They say, it's "labor costs." Well, then, how is it that people can't afford to pay their bills with all the excessive wages they're supposedly receiving. Obviously the next in vogue EXCUSE will be that taxes are lower in other countries. B.S.!!!!!!!
Unions don't work anymore.
Some union members are afraid to vote for better benefits or strike because management threatens to move, like the other posters stated.
Case in point: A small manufacturing shop. Union wanted higher wages or strike, and health care benefits to stay the same, both in cost and care. The union wanted a $.25 an hour raise. Owner said No. Union asked for $.15. Owner said no. Union said strike. Workers said no. They were afraid the owner would shut down and they had their jobs for 30 years.
The union steward fought for better benefits but when the workers voted against the better benefits, the company won. Two weeks later, the steward was laid off, along with a member of my family just because he was friends with the union steward. That was 3 years ago. The workers are still working for the same hourly rate this year. How's that for being fair?
I was a member of the Teamster's. When we went on strike for better wages back in the ྂs, he company threatened to move out.. We also wanted (women) equal pay for equal work because we did the same work the men did, but got paid $.25 an hour less. They moved and 100 jobs were lost. So, you see, companies still have the upper hand, not unions. They only want your money anymore. They really don't care about the workers.
No, unions DO put them in a financial hole.
nm
The unions are killing companies, though. That is
nm
I think they should go bankrupt. Unions didn't cause it -
well, i guess the word has not gotten to the unions then...
at end of article they quoted one union leader as saying his members "would not tolerate" this. It was an article dated yesterday. But, it would not surprise me that he would exempt unions, which makes absolutely NO sense, because they are the best and most costly benefits to be had. So, probably so, it will be on the backs of folks like us. My question is...what are they going to do after they break our backs? Who is going to pay for all their cr*p then?? Why, whatever am I thinking? Soon it will be only the "poor" which will include all of us, and the government and those who kiss*d the government as* who prosper...hmmm. Kinda like Venezuela...kinda like Nazi Germany...hmmm.
Yeah, I'll talk about unions s/m
Two husbands who were union workers. One IBEW, one Teamster. BOTH said there were workers who didn't carry their share of the work load...not much different than MTs who cherry pick for instance.
#1 IBEW husband said at the time or Reganomics, when Ronald Reagan, himself a card-carrying member of the actor's union, said he would break the unions, it would be the downfall of the American workers.. Regan succeeded in breaking the backs of the unions. When union workers lost the ability to bargain, they had to start taking wage concessions......and guess what? Union wages went down, so did non-union wages follow suit. When union workers got better working conditions, better wages and better benefits, so did non-union workers.
#2 Teamster husband is a radical retired Teamster. While he also complained that there were lazy workers who rode on the backs of the hard-workers, he also said that the union does not support such and more times than not the union would uphold the firing of such a person. He has a Teamster retirement that is the envy of most people and he has retiree health care benefits even though we pay about $700 a month for that. While he was working, his union dues were around $35 a month and that covered our insurance. Teamster retirees today will not enjoy those benefits.
Do some research on the history of unions. Might not hurt to watch the movie Norma Rae as well.
You already posted this question. Civil unions are
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