Sally wrote (see below line):
Sally, I enjoy your posts. This one is particularly good, and I've saved it.
Keep them coming
Harry
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>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
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>
