I made a print copy of this one - don't want to lose it or forget about it. Canadians too need to hear this, loud and clear. Sally >Mime-Version: 1.0 >Date: Thu, 8 Jan 1998 22:17:07 -0800 >Reply-To: Caspar Davis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Sender: The Other Economic Summit USA 1997 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >From: Caspar Davis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Subject: Employment and the Economic Miracle >X-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Status: U > >Dear friends, > >Brian Grant sent me the following article, which I thought you might like >to see. It has finally begun to explain for me the US "economic miracle" of >low unemployment: they have rolled back 150 years of social progress and >made wage slaves cheaper than machines (or actual slaves, who have to be >cared for and supported even in old age) would be. Also the 1.8 million >people in jail* >are not considered unemployed, nor are the 1.5 million in the military. > >Simon Legree is alive and well in South Carolina. > > >Caspar Davis > >* This is the highest per capita incarceration rate in history. > > >[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Progressive Economists' Network) >Subject: AUT: AMERICA All work, low pay (fwd) > >For those unfamiliar with Australian industrial relations history, "the awards" >referred to at the end of the article are industry-wide standards of pay and >working conditions (I gather something similar once held in New Zealand also). >Traditionally these awards were ratified (and often arbitrated) by State-level >or Federal-level industrial courts after negotiations between employer and >union bodies - more and more, they are being pared back to very minimum >criteria, with the emphasis being shifted to workplace and/or individual >contracts . . . > >Steve > > >Subject: Sydney Morning Herald: AMERICA All work, low pay From: Paul >Canning <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Sun, 28 Dec 1997 23:22:20 +1100 >(EST) > >AMERICA > >Saturday, December 27, 1997 > >All work, low pay > >The deregulated, no-union, zero-employment economy of the United States is >seen by some Australian employers and politicians as a model for this >country. But as ADELE HORIN travelled America, she found the downside - an >army of worn-out, exploited working poor. > >"GETTING a job is easy," says Rose Scott. "It's getting the pay you want >that's hard - $7 an hour is the most I've ever made." A small, blonde, shy >woman in her 30s, Scott is talking in the office of the Adecco Employment >Agency in Greenville, South Carolina, where she has come to get a job. > >In Greenville, population 65,000, a Bible-thumping, anti-union town, the >jobless rate is 3.8per cent, even less than the US national rate of 4.9 per >cent. > >As Scott says, getting a job is easy. In the booming US economy, where >unemployment is at a 25-year low, crack addicts have jobs, alcoholics have >jobs, and single mothers of newborn babies have jobs. For an Australian, >accustomed to more than a decade's bad news on the jobs front, the >atmosphere is electric. > >South Carolina, which only four years ago recorded Australian-style >unemployment rates, has achieved what economists loosely define as full >employment - and other States such as Nebraska, South Dakota and Wisconsin >boast even lower jobless figures. > >But having a job in the US does not mean having a living wage. > >When Scott's husband left her with three children under eight to support, >she found a job in a convenience store, working the midnight to 8 am shift. > >"It paid $6 an hour and I could barely support myself let alone my >children," she says as we wait in Adecco's over-bright, no-frills office. > >Unable to find overnight child care or feed her children, Scott was forced >to send them to live with her mother in a town 50 kilometres away. > >But relinquishing her children was not the only trauma for Scott. An armed >robber held up the convenience store when she was on duty. Terrified, she >resigned the next day, which is what has brought her, still shell-shocked, >into the Adecco employment office. > >It isn't long before Adecco's placement officer calls Scott to the desk, >having scanned the computer and found her another job - just like that. >This time, she will be making boxes for a packaging company at $US7 (about >$10.50) an hour, starting at 7am. > >"I should be able to have my children back in a few months," Scott says >happily as she leaves, clutching complicated directions to her new >workplace. > >But who, I wonder, will mind her children when she leaves for work at 6.30 >am, and how will she afford child care? > >AS I travelled around the US, wondering whether Australia should emulate or >beware the US economic model, Rose Scott's pale face stayed with me. She >came to embody the contradictions of this "economic miracle." America has >put its underclass to work. Virtually everyone not incarcerated - and there >are 1.7 million of those - can get a job. But the workers are exhausted. >They are suffering from too much work - 12-hour shifts, seven-day weeks, >60-hour weeks. Compulsory overtime is common. Mothers drag infants on a >succession of early-morning buses for the sake of a minimum-wage job. Rose >Scott works through the night for a pittance. American families have >suffered falling or stagnant incomes > - - and declining hourly wages - for more than 20 years. That's the >underside of the US economic miracle - an army of worn-out, exploited >working poor and an embattled middle class puzzled at the gap between their >living standards and the enviable unemployment rate. > >Compared with Australia's, other US indicators look less impressive. The US >has much greater inequality, twice the proportion of working poor, seven >times as many men in jail and a much higher divorce rate. And US workers >are much more likely than Australians to be retrenched, while feelings of >job insecurity, as measured by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation >and Development, are much more widespread. > >Shelters for the homeless are filled with people who have jobs. "Sixty to >70 per cent of the people we serve are working," Anne Burke tells me later >when I visit Urban Ministries, a charity for Carolina's homeless and >medically uninsured. > >"The work is there," she says, "but work is not the solution to the problem >of poverty." > >On average, Americans work about a month longer per year than they used to >20 years ago. But the typical family is still worse off than its >counterpart in 1979. As well, fewer workers in the 1990's are covered by >health insurance and aged pension plans. > >And while jobs are easy enough to get, millions are on the road to downward >mobility if they get retrenched. Few are as lucky as Rose Scott: on average >a new job will pay 15 per cent less than the previous one. > >Recently, families have begun to reverse the long decline in median >household income. But since hourly wages have continued to fall, the only >way people have caught up has been through working longer hours or at >multiple jobs or through putting more family members to work. > >When President Bill Clinton boasted at a rally that he had created 11 >million jobs, a worker called out, "Yes, and I've got three of them." > >When he boasted that most of the new jobs were relatively well paid, the >Economic Policy Institute, a Washington think tank, showed that 30 per cent >of America's full-time workers earn poverty-level wages. > >When the minimum wage shot up to $US5.15 an hour, or $US10,700 a year, on >September 1, it meant minimum-wage workers were still $US2,000 a year worse >off in real terms than their counterparts 30 years ago. > >High-tech jobs are increasing. But the five occupations with the best >prospects over the next 10 years, according to the US Department of Labor, >are cashier, janitor, shop assistant and waiter. Also, America can't get >enough prison guards. And it seems any American can get work at Wal-Mart, >the downmarket retail colossus that provides one in every 200 civilian >jobs. "About 75 per cent of American families are caught in an >Alice-in-Wonderland world, working enormous hours but not getting >anywhere," says Professor Barry Bluestone, of the University of >Massachusetts, when I meet him in Boston. > >In the mid-1980s Bluestone alerted the nation to its "disappearing" middle >class as the rich grew hugely rich, and the poor grew poorer and more >numerous. In the '90s, he is warning about its overworked and underpaid. At >a time when labour should have the upper hand, the willingness of incumbent >workers to work harder and longer has kept a brake on wage increases. It >has also contributed to the highest rates of after-tax corporate profits in >36 years. > >In a sprawling car parts factory outside Raleigh, North Carolina, I meet >some of the conscripts to the 70-hour week - the tiredest workers I have >ever encountered. Many are required to work bizarre shifts - 3am to 3pm, >for example. Here they are not clamouring for overtime - they are too >frightened to refuse. When I meet Ron, Lillian, Beth, Stella and the union >president, Iris (this is a union plant, a rare entity in the Carolinas), at >the end of their 12-hour shift, they flop into chairs in the meeting room >as if they will never move again. > >Ron has worked 60- to 70-hour weeks for almost three years and clears >$US450. He had worked for the past three weeks without a single day off - >12 hours on weekdays, 10 hours on Saturday, and eight on Sunday. On Sunday >morning he preaches in church. > >"There's no choice," says Ron, a grandfather, hitting 60. "I do it because >the company says we have to. If the supplier goes, we go." > >It occurs to me that 130 years ago Ron's forebears were slaves, and under >slavery everyone had a job, too. > >But these workers have known worse conditions, and worse employers. Two of >the women previously worked in textile and apparel factories that have shut >down and migrated to Mexico. They have seen 250,000 textile jobs in North >Carolina alone disappear in a decade. > >Many workers live in fear of getting sick. They have jobs but increasingly >no health insurance, sick pay or other benefits. US corporations have found >ways to evade their traditional obligations. They get someone else to hire >the workers for them. > >Employment agencies, like Adecco, where I met Rose Scott, or the giant >Manpower, have become huge hirers of labour on behalf of the corporations - >but with none of the usual obligations. For some workers their "temporary" >status lasts for months or years. > >"The perception among workers is that you can't get a job without starting >as a temp through the agencies," says Charles Taylor, of the Carolina >Alliance for Fair Employment. > >In the small city of Greenville, alone, he says, the number of employment >agencies specialising in "temporary" workers has increased from 12 to 60 in >less than a decade. > >Taylor tells me about a worker called Patricia who used to have a permanent >job as a weaver in a textile mill. When that job ended, she worked as a >"temporary" for two years at the Fluor-Daniel construction company in >Greenville. > >Finally Fluor-Daniel put her on permanent staff, gave her a pay increase, a >pension program and health insurance. That arrangement lasted 18 months >before she was laid off. > >"Then they hired her back as a temp," Taylor says. "Same desk, same phone >but less hourly pay, no health insurance, no benefits..." > >The Tupperware company in Hemingway, South Carolina, laid off most of its >workers and hired them back as temporaries, minus benefits, through an >agency. > >Harry Payne, the Labor Commissioner who oversees North Carolina's >employment regulations, had said to me: "If America is so prosperous, why >are its workers so anxious?" > >I'm beginning to see why. > >Corporations, however, are showered with benefits. In a bidding war that >has been likened to the arms race, States have extended extraordinary >subsidies and tax breaks to some of the world's biggest companies. > >Alabama even renamed a freeway the Mercedes-Benz Autobahn in honour of the >German car maker, which had deigned to build a plant. The Government put up >more than $US300 million in tax breaks and subsidies for a plant that would >employ only 1,500 people - that is, $US200,000 per job. The deal almost >bankrupted the State. Here in the South Carolina woods, you can find dozens >of foreign companies. Near Spartanburg, the German car maker BMW has >established what is believed to be its first non-union plant in the world. >It employs 2,000 workers - under a deal that cost the State Government at >least $US79,000 a job. > >A Greenville Chamber of Commerce document highlights the State's >attractions to business: South Carolina has the "second lowest union >representation in the nation", and boasts some of "the nation's leading >[anti] labour law firms". > >About 25 per cent of the area's workers earned the minimum wage, and would >gratefully "respond to more rewarding job opportunities". > >There are a host of tax credits and subsidies for job-creating companies. >As well, the State will bear the total cost of training company workers, >"even when it involve[s] training in a foreign country". > >What can Australia learn from the American experience in creating a >low-unemployment economy? The lessons are not obvious nor easily >transferable. Low wages play a part in the low unemployment rate. But if >low wages were the main reason, Britain, which lacks any minimum wage, >should have even more impressive figures. The UK's unemployment rate, >however, is much higher than the US's, at about 7per cent (using comparable >figures). > >Nor does faster economic growth provide the explanation for low >unemployment. Until recently the Australian economy has grown faster than >that of the US - at 3.5 per cent compared with the sluggish US performance >of 2.5 per cent. > >Elaine Bernard knows Australia and the US well. She is executive director >of Harvard University's Trade Union Program. "Australians say, 'If only we >could have America's job machine plus Australia's safety ne.' I always >caution people to be careful about what they wish for - they could end up >with the failings of the US and Australia." > >If Australia cut wages, it would have to cut its social security payments, >and put time limits on them, too. It might get "good" unemployment rates. >But "bad" poverty. And then again, it might just get the poverty. > >IT'S ALREADY HAPPENING HERE > >AUSTRALIANS, too, are working longer and harder as competitive pressures, a >hard-nosed management style, and Government policy push us towards the US >model. > >Employers and Canberra have run aggressive campaigns against the ACTU's >claim for a "living wage" and against all but minimal safety-net >adjustments to awards for low-waged workers. As well, awards are being >stripped back to cover only 20 basic conditions of work. > >Despite the introduction of the 38-hour week, full-time employees in >Australia work more hours than they did a decade ago - on average 41 hours. >And compared with 20 years ago, a lot more Australians work very long >hours. In 1996 just under half of male full-time workers clocked up 45 >hours a week or more, compared with 37 per cent in 1980. > >As well, Australians endure more stress, work faster and more intensively, >and put more effort into their jobs than they used to, according to a >Government survey released this year. A quarter of the workforce feels the >balance between work and family has deteriorated. > >The American trend towards replacing staff labour with contract workers has >also accelerated here in the first half of the 1990s. And like Americans, >Australians are turning their backs on unions, with coverage falling from >50 per cent of employees in the 1980's to 31 per cent now. In the US, >however, coverage has fallen to 13 per cent. > >Also, there has been a fundamental shift in attitude to sacking people. In >1990, 39 per cent of big Australian workplaces had sacked workers; in 1995 >the figure was 60 per cent. > >Real wages have fallen for some Australian workers over the past 20 years - >the poorest 30 per cent of male workers have gone backwards. But most other >Australian workers, unlike the Americans, have enjoyed wage increases. > >The fundamental difference between Australia and the US has been our award >system. It has meant even the poorest Australian workers are better off >than their American counterparts - getting the equivalent of $US7.50 to >$US8 an hour. Until the recent rise to $US5.15 an hour, America's low-wage >workers received $US4.25. > >[end of article] > > oo=oo=oo=oo=oo=oo=oo=oo=oo=oo=oo=oo=oo=oo=oo=oo=oo=oo=oo=oo=oo > >LEFTLINK - Victoria's Broad Left Mailing List > >http://www.alexia.net.au/~www/mhutton/ > >Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop >Publication of a message on this list does not indicate > >endorsement by either LEFTLINK or the New International Bookshop. > oo=oo=oo=oo=oo=oo=oo=oo=oo=oo=oo=oo=oo=oo=oo=oo=oo=oo=oo=oo=oo >
