will the stimulus fix this? what stimulus? it looks like both Obama's & Bernanke's stimuli (efforts to raise real GDP and employment rates) are pretty weak, so that unemployment is going to stay high for quite awhile (years), it it doesn't go higher. If there is actually a stimulus, of course, this kind of concession is very hard to reverse. so Gene's subject line is right on target.
On Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 9:30 PM, Eugene Coyle <[email protected]> wrote: > Krugman, Obama, Summers and the rest of the liberals, thinking big thoughts, > believe that the stimulus will fix things for workers. It won't. > Gene Coyle > > > > November 19, 2010 > > Unions Yield on Two-Tier Wage Scales to Preserve Jobs > > By LOUIS UCHITELLE > > MILWAUKEE — Organized labor appears to be losing an important battle in the > Great Recession. > > Even at manufacturing companies that are profitable, union workers are > reluctantly agreeing to tiered contracts that create two levels of pay. > > In years past, two-tiered systems were used to drive down costs in hard > times, but mainly at companies already in trouble. And those arrangements, > at the insistence of the unions, were designed, in most cases, to expire in > a few years. > > Now, the managers of some marquee companies are aiming to make this > concession permanent. If they are successful, their contracts could become > blueprints for other companies in other cities, extending a wage system that > would be a startling retreat for labor. > > Though union officials said they could not readily supply data on the > practice, managers have been trying to achieve this for 30 years, with > limited results. The recent auto crisis brought a two-tier system to General > Motors and Chrysler. Delphi, the big parts maker, also has one now. > Caterpillar, back in 2006, signed such a contract with the United Automobile > Workers. > > The arrangement was a fairly common means of shrinking labor costs in the > recession of the early 1980s. At the end of the contracts, however, wages > generally snapped back up to a single tier. At G.M., Chrysler, Delphi and > Caterpillar, the wages will not be snapping back. > > full at: > http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/20/business/20wages.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > > -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
