Re: OT: The Fear Merchants

rruff wrote:
On Apr 5, 9:14 am, Peter Cole <peter_c...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
After watching the video on their web site, I'd put the Cannondale job
of standing in a bunny suit grinding welds all day with a pneumatic belt
sander even lower. Maybe moving that job to Taiwan is a loss for US
workers, but I wouldn't lose sleep over it.

You'd likely be amazed at the number of people in the US who would
love to do that job for decent pay (as in >$10/hr). Most of the
checkers out my local Walmart make $7/hr... no benefits. And there are
plenty of jobs that are worse than that and pay no better.

No, I wouldn't be amazed at all.


It was a real eye-opener for me and my wife when we worked at a
national park a few years ago. Figured it would be a "fun" job... boy
was I wrong! Could have been and should have been... but the
management went out of their way to abuse the employees. Stupid rules,
firing for minor infractions, and mostly minimum-wage pay with no
benefits. Most of the people fired were excellent workers that I
wouldn't hesitate to hire for my business.

If you've read "Nickle and Dimed",

http://www.amazon.com/Nickel-Dimed-Not-Getting-America/dp/0805063897

Barbara Ehrenreich makes the point explicitly that there are low pay jobs but that rarely means those jobs are easy. That agrees with my experience.


The other thing I think you might be missing, is that *if* we actually
build the things we use and *if* the workers have viable and decent
options, then the "crappy" jobs will in fact pay well and employers
will also have an incentive to make them as pleasant as possible.

Wages and unemployment are complex issues, often counter-intuitive.

A guy who has done the math and know the politics and history, Paul Krugman, writes about it:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/12699486/paul_krugman_on_the_great_wealth_transfer/print

At the same time, there has been a concerted attack on the institutions that have helped moderate inequality — in particular, unions. During the Great Compression, the rate of unionization nearly tripled; by 1945, more than one in three American workers belonged to a union. A lot of what made General Motors the relatively egalitarian institution it was in the 1960s had to do with its powerful union, which was able to demand high wages for its members. Those wages, in turn, set a standard that elevated the income of workers who didn't belong to unions. But today, in the era of Wal-Mart, fewer than one in eleven workers in the private sector is organized — effectively preventing hundreds of thousands of working Americans from joining the middle class.

Why isn't Wal-Mart unionized? The answer is simple and brutal: Business interests went on the offensive against unions. And we're not talking about gentle persuasion; we're talking about hardball tactics. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, at least one in every twenty workers who voted for a union was illegally fired; some estimates put the number as high as one in eight. And once Ronald Reagan took office, the anti-union campaign was aided and abetted by political support at the highest levels.

Unions weren't the only institution that fostered income equality during the generation that followed the Great Compression. The creation of a national minimum wage also set a benchmark for the entire economy, boosting the bargaining position of workers. But under Reagan, Congress failed to raise the minimum wage, allowing its value to be eroded by inflation. Between 1981 and 1989, the minimum wage remained the same in dollar terms — but inflation shrank its purchasing power by twenty-five percent, reducing it to the lowest level since the 1950s.
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Relevant Pages

  • Re: Something for nothing: GM and the unions
    ... idea labor unions can get their members something for nothing. ... Workers themselves increasingly recognize there is no free lunch ... through unionization and increasingly vote to be non-union. ... than, unionized workers for the same jobs, just to be free of red tape ...
    (rec.autos.makers.chrysler)
  • Something for nothing: GM and the unions
    ... idea labor unions can get their members something for nothing. ... Workers themselves increasingly recognize there is no free lunch ... through unionization and increasingly vote to be non-union. ... than, unionized workers for the same jobs, just to be free of red tape ...
    (rec.autos.makers.chrysler)
  • Re: Something for nothing: GM and the unions
    ... idea labor unions can get their members something for nothing. ... If you are working at a non-union company along with 10 other workers, ... than, unionized workers for the same jobs, just to be free of red tape ... employees who aren't doing their jobs right. ...
    (rec.autos.makers.chrysler)
  • Thanks Ted for injecting some sane balance .........
    ... idea labor unions can get their members something for nothing. ... If you are working at a non-union company along with 10 other workers, ... than, unionized workers for the same jobs, just to be free of red tape ... employees who aren't doing their jobs right. ...
    (rec.autos.makers.chrysler)
  • Re: OT 2 great lies in our society
    ... the Unions elected Socialists and Rabid Radicals ... While there are lots of jobs to be found, ... You do realize that 2x minimum wage is still considered pverty class ...
    (rec.outdoors.rv-travel)