David Leonhardt's column in the business section of today's New York Times ("In
The Wreckage of Lost Jobs, Lost Power") is essential reading for
everyone concerned about the direction of the U.S. economy. He notes
that the disparity of bargaining power between employees and employers
in the U.S. - in contrast to E.U. countries and Japan - has exacerbated
our economy's jobless recovery and that, as a consequence, the United
States now has an unemployment rate that is higher than Britain, Japan,
Germany and Russia. Only the depressed economies of Ireland, Greece and
Spain have unemployment rates comparable to the U.S. Loenhardt observes
that, "For corporate America the great recession is over. For the
American work force it is not.'"
According to the U.S. Department of Labor [Union Member Summary, January 22, 2010], as of 2010, only 12.3 per cent of employed wage and salary workers were union members. Not surprisingly, many of the non-union employees did not seem to understand that their ability to influence working conditions and wages, as solitary individuals who lacked comparable bargaining power with managers and owners of business, was virtually nil. Apparently, however, the myth of the autonomous, self-made individual who can receive recognition, remuneration and advancement solely by dint of one's own hard work continues to resonate in the workplace to the present, notwithstanding all of the evidence to the contrary.
In a Huffington Post article (Unions, Progressives Blast Administration For Pay-Freeze Proposal,"11/29/10), Sam Stein quotes AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka:"Today's announcement of a two-year pay freeze for federal workers is bad for the middle class, bad for the economy and bad for business...No one is served by our government participating in a 'race to the bottom' in wages. We need to invest in creating jobs, not undermining the ones we have. The president talked about the need for shared sacrifice, but there's nothing shared about Wall Street and CEOs making record profits and bonuses while working people bear the brunt. It is time to get our nation back on track, but we should not do so by placing an even greater burden on the middle class."
In 2008, at the beginning of the Great Recession, in 2008, Bob Moser wrote an article that appeared in the Nation magazine,[ "Mill Hill Populism: Meet The New Face of Populism in Post-NAFTA North Carolina," May 12, 2008] "North Carolina, first in the South for its share of jobs in manufacturing, long benefited from out-sourcing. Decades ago Northern manufacturers shifted jobs to low-wage, Southern states with severe restrictions on organized labor. Now the 'old economy' parts of all these states were reeling from post-NAFTA version of out-sourcing. Since 1993, North Carolina has bled more than 200,000 manufacturing jobs...The pace of closures isn't slacking, either. Last year, 10% of the state's textile jobs were lost...."
Even among the few unionized workers still employed in manufacturing, a two-tier pay system has been imposed by management to which unions were forced to acquiesce because of downward economic pressures: younger workers now make substantially less per hour than more senior employees who perform the same work. The effect of this two-tier system denies younger workers upward mobility and divides workers based solely upon dates of hire: "The changing job market is undercutting entry-level wages for those who do not go to college. 'In the 1960s and 1970s, you saw high school graduates getting good jobs at Ford and AT&T, jobs that in inflation-adjusted terms were paying $20 or $25 in today's wages," said Sheldon Danziger, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan. "Nowadays most kids with just high school degrees will work in service-sector jobs for $10 or less..."
Perhaps as worrisome are the long-term trends which suggest that, absent substantive structural reform, unemployment will remain even more intractable long after the economic meltdown which began in 2008. Between 1975 and 2005, entry-level wages for male high school graduates who did not graduate from college declined 19% after adjustment for inflation while the incomes of their female counterparts fell 9%. Lastly, men who were in their thirties in 2004 are reported to have had a median income of 12% less, after adjusting for inflation, than did their fathers' generation when the latter were in their thirties.
Yet in the midst of all of this disturbing data, Americans, almost to a person, remain fixated upon the myth of Horatio Alger and seem to share a delusional belief in the ability of each self, by dint of hard work, to enjoy the American Dream. At the same time, a Pew Research study reports that favorable views of labor unions have plummeted since 2007, amid growing public skepticism about unions' purpose and power. Currently, 41% of the respondents surveyed say they have a favorable opinion of labor unions while about as many (42%) express an unfavorable opinion. In January 2007, a clear majority (58%) had a favorable view of unions while just 31% had an unfavorable impression.
In response to this antipathy, a number of states, at the behest of the U.S.Chamber of Commerce and their corporate supporters, have passed legislation to make it even more difficult for American employees to unionize. What those who oppose unions fail to recognize is that, in our collective race to the bottom, all of us, even the wealthy, are in danger of becoming road kill.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor [Union Member Summary, January 22, 2010], as of 2010, only 12.3 per cent of employed wage and salary workers were union members. Not surprisingly, many of the non-union employees did not seem to understand that their ability to influence working conditions and wages, as solitary individuals who lacked comparable bargaining power with managers and owners of business, was virtually nil. Apparently, however, the myth of the autonomous, self-made individual who can receive recognition, remuneration and advancement solely by dint of one's own hard work continues to resonate in the workplace to the present, notwithstanding all of the evidence to the contrary.
In a Huffington Post article (Unions, Progressives Blast Administration For Pay-Freeze Proposal,"11/29/10), Sam Stein quotes AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka:"Today's announcement of a two-year pay freeze for federal workers is bad for the middle class, bad for the economy and bad for business...No one is served by our government participating in a 'race to the bottom' in wages. We need to invest in creating jobs, not undermining the ones we have. The president talked about the need for shared sacrifice, but there's nothing shared about Wall Street and CEOs making record profits and bonuses while working people bear the brunt. It is time to get our nation back on track, but we should not do so by placing an even greater burden on the middle class."
In 2008, at the beginning of the Great Recession, in 2008, Bob Moser wrote an article that appeared in the Nation magazine,[ "Mill Hill Populism: Meet The New Face of Populism in Post-NAFTA North Carolina," May 12, 2008] "North Carolina, first in the South for its share of jobs in manufacturing, long benefited from out-sourcing. Decades ago Northern manufacturers shifted jobs to low-wage, Southern states with severe restrictions on organized labor. Now the 'old economy' parts of all these states were reeling from post-NAFTA version of out-sourcing. Since 1993, North Carolina has bled more than 200,000 manufacturing jobs...The pace of closures isn't slacking, either. Last year, 10% of the state's textile jobs were lost...."
Even among the few unionized workers still employed in manufacturing, a two-tier pay system has been imposed by management to which unions were forced to acquiesce because of downward economic pressures: younger workers now make substantially less per hour than more senior employees who perform the same work. The effect of this two-tier system denies younger workers upward mobility and divides workers based solely upon dates of hire: "The changing job market is undercutting entry-level wages for those who do not go to college. 'In the 1960s and 1970s, you saw high school graduates getting good jobs at Ford and AT&T, jobs that in inflation-adjusted terms were paying $20 or $25 in today's wages," said Sheldon Danziger, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan. "Nowadays most kids with just high school degrees will work in service-sector jobs for $10 or less..."
Perhaps as worrisome are the long-term trends which suggest that, absent substantive structural reform, unemployment will remain even more intractable long after the economic meltdown which began in 2008. Between 1975 and 2005, entry-level wages for male high school graduates who did not graduate from college declined 19% after adjustment for inflation while the incomes of their female counterparts fell 9%. Lastly, men who were in their thirties in 2004 are reported to have had a median income of 12% less, after adjusting for inflation, than did their fathers' generation when the latter were in their thirties.
Yet in the midst of all of this disturbing data, Americans, almost to a person, remain fixated upon the myth of Horatio Alger and seem to share a delusional belief in the ability of each self, by dint of hard work, to enjoy the American Dream. At the same time, a Pew Research study reports that favorable views of labor unions have plummeted since 2007, amid growing public skepticism about unions' purpose and power. Currently, 41% of the respondents surveyed say they have a favorable opinion of labor unions while about as many (42%) express an unfavorable opinion. In January 2007, a clear majority (58%) had a favorable view of unions while just 31% had an unfavorable impression.
In response to this antipathy, a number of states, at the behest of the U.S.Chamber of Commerce and their corporate supporters, have passed legislation to make it even more difficult for American employees to unionize. What those who oppose unions fail to recognize is that, in our collective race to the bottom, all of us, even the wealthy, are in danger of becoming road kill.