LAT: U.S. Labor in Retreat as Global Forces Squeeze Pay and Benefits

[DeepModem Mom]

U.S. Labor Is in Retreat as Global Forces Squeeze Pay and Benefits
By David Streitfeld, Times Staff Writer


....The forces affecting Delphi and GM workers are extreme versions of what's occurring across the American labor market, where such economic risks as unemployment and health costs once broadly shared by business and government are being shifted directly onto the backs of American working families.

Four years into an economic recovery, workers across America should be riding high. Instead, they're facing new demands to surrender hard-won benefits and agree to wage concessions. Companies say these cutbacks are essential to stay competitive in an increasingly globalized economy....

***

Grocery workers at the 71-store Farmer Jack chain in Michigan agreed to take a 10% wage cut to make their operation more palatable to a new owner. Hundreds of workers at a hose plant in Auburn, Ind., approved a $2 cut in their $18-an-hour pay to keep the plant open. Police officers in Wyandotte, Mich., agreed to a three-year wage freeze and to pay more for healthcare.

Jerry Jasinowski, president of the Manufacturing Institute at the National Assn. of Manufacturers, said such givebacks would simply become a fact of life.

"From airline pilots to auto assembly workers, employees need to help reduce their costs," he said. "We can't afford to live with the very generous benefits we provided 10, 15 years ago."...


http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-workers18oct18,0,7671153.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[Demit]

1. And what will happen when workers can't afford to fly on their airplanes,

and buy their automobiles? What will they do then, when their products have no consumers? Are there enough buyers in the global economy to make up for the loss of the middle class consumer here?

[Nickster]

2. Funny how you don't hear anything about CEO wage freezes huh?

[rodeodance]

3. this country HAS to do something about health care, yet we throw away

$$ on wars!!!! Few are listening in Congress!!

....where such economic risks as unemployment and health costs once broadly shared by business and government are being shifted directly onto the backs of American working families.

[oneighty]

4. Well part B (destruction of organized labor)

of the GHW Bush New world Order (Drum roll and trumpets) is working. Part A invasion and occupation (Explosions and screaming children) of the middle east 'Lands-of-oil' is slow in developing but most likely will also come to pass.

Joy joy.

180

[Liberal Veteran]

5. The healthcare part may be a good thing.

Seems to me the main reason we don't have universal healthcare is because so many people who actually vote never actually had to bear the brunt of paying for their medical expenses, therefore think that everything is just hunky-dory with our current system, never thinking of the tens of millions who don't even have basic healthcare access.

Maybe if they realize they can pay for it out of their own pockets or share the costs across the spectrum through basically the biggest group medical plan ever in the country through a universal healthcare plan, they might actually go for the latter because they will save money.

[brokensymmetry]

6. Exactly. Furthermore -

this is just the beginning. Forget getting health care insurance - that will end. Oh, you can buy your own, if you can afford it - but it will cease to be part of your compensation.

The term "employment benefit" will mean "you have a job, for now."

As time passes, the wage structure will decline to meet the global wage structure. Unfortunately, the PRICE structure will not decline. This will effectively end the middle class.

We will then have two classes - the poor and the rich. The gains obtained by FDR will have been drowned in the bathtub.

Kicked, nominated.

[joefree1]

7. 67 % import tax in India.

When I worked in India we couldn't import any equipment because of the high import tax. How is that free trade?

Free trade means we give our jobs away and they freely take them. Wake up middle class America.

[gulfcoastliberal]

8. Yay for NAFTA, GATT, CAFTA!

Thanks DLC for supporting these great policies! Thanks President Clinton for turning on the vacuum and revving up the "sucking sound". Boy did Perot know what he was talking about, at least regarding "free trade" aka commoditization of labor!