[PEN-L:1574] Re: Unions win against RTZ/CRA
On Fri, 24 Nov 1995, Peter Colley wrote: * * * 2. It is often the case that some unions have left themselves vulnerable to attack through doggedly resisting all work place change. I am not saying this is/was necessarily the case at Tiwai. Actually it probably was not. The Tiwai Point disaster occurred in 1991. From about 1987, the main union, the Engineering Union, had been active in promoting a change to awards or other agreemetns which promoted industrial and workplace change. When they look around for causes they point to the issue of management's determination to deunionise and make use of the deregulated environment offered by the ECA's move to market based "collective" bargaining. They also blame themselves for failing to serve and connect with the members at Tiwai. Neglecting the membership left them very vulnerable. They were also helped by the economy which had unemployment in the low teens at this time, particularly bad in the region around Tiwai, with some notable companies not far away having gone under adding to workers' fears. ellen dannin
[PEN-L:1573] Re: Unions win against RTZ/CRA
peter responded: Bill Mitchell has been somewhat critical of my account of Australian unions' campaign against RTZ/CRA, and highly critical of the role of the Australian Labor Party and the Australian Council of Trade Unions over the last 10 years. At the obvious risk of starting a debate that I do not have the time to continue, and which may be of little interest to those in the northern hemisphere, my response follows. I should make it clear that I am not an employee of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, nor a member of the Australian Labor Party. [stacks followed - more than one half of which i disagreed with] interesting technique though. say you have no time and tell the list they won't be interested in the discussion anyway and then restate the position. peter negated my claim that the ACTU and the ALP govt was not in league at the expense of workers. the most obvious demonstration that the ALP is still th political arm of the TU movement (which has been emasculated in its power and intitiative by the centralisation under the ACTU) is the fact that the last three ACTU leaders (Hawke, Crean and now Ferguson) have been given privileged paths into federal parliament in safe ALP seats (in the latter case - he is not there yet but will be soon and trampled over a person who had been expecting the endorsement). there was no need to go down the enterprise bargaining route. it was a political judgement based on paranoia about the strength of the new right and what had happened in NZ. it was also to hide the fact that the ALP (with the ACTU has active partners) had delivered an unprecedented redistribution of national income away from wages to profits. the rhetoric of both groups in 1983-87 was that a realignment of factor shares was required. in return the govt would help out with higher social wages and that the private sector would create employment. the facts are now well known. the social wage increases were largely manifest in tax cuts for the top income earners with lower increases for the middle class. the move led to a stifling of macro policy b/c taxation was no longer seen as a discretionary instrument unless it was downwards. the private sector squandered the income redistribution in speculative ventures which largely came to a halt in oct. 87 when the stock market blew. many of the entrepreneurs who the ACTU/ALP helped to line their pockets through the real wage cuts are in or have been in prison for fraud inspired by their incredible greed. the economy was plunged into the worst recession since the 1930s as a reaction b/c all the profits rises meant little for investment in productive capacity. so when our terms of trade collapsed our current account blew and so a recession was induced. they relied on monetary policy b/c they had effectively hamstrung discretion over fiscal policy. so the real wages cuts were now accompanied by high unemployment and the boasts of the govet and the ACTU were very hollow indeed. to hide the fact that they had completely fucked the economy with their stupid policies "courting the financial markets" - we were told that we had to become globally competitive and that meant a zealous tariff cutting program (despite the fact that our principle trading partners maintained their own trade restrictions) - the govt/ACTU nexus decided to free up the labour market in a controlled manner. hence the IR ACT of 1993. a total disaster as a document and a vehicle for smart coys like CRA to further fuck the workers. now the ACTU is claiming a new era of collectivism. the problem is that the horse has already bolted. like in NZ, the ALP (labour govt) has merely pushed OZ so far to the right that it will be so easy when the conservatives win the next election to fully NZ us. that will be the legacy of the last 12 years of ALP/ACTU government. kind regards bill -- ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### +61 49 215027 Fax: +61 49 216919 ## WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
[PEN-L:1576] Re: help on comparison of wages, etc (fwd)
The best source for statistical data in Canada is Statistics Canada (federal agency). The web site is: http://www.statcan.ca/start.html They publish a daily issue and you can also search back issues. I'll forward more sites later
[PEN-L:1575] Re: Unions win against RTZ/CRA
On Fri, 24 Nov 1995, Peter Colley wrote: CRA cites Tiwai as an example of the success of its strategy, and claims that productivity and the like have improved enormously. There are two aspects to such claims: 1. They are never independently verified. We all know how shonky the OHS statistics are from transnationals operating in third world countries where such statistics are never independently scrutinised. CRA makes similar spurious claims with regard to producticity in mines in unionised mines here compared to non-unionised mines in the USA. This may well be true, at least in part, if productivity figures have wages as a component. The wages offered workers at Tiwai seemed higher but were not once overtime and other penal rates were lost under the new agreements. The result would have been lower cost of labor for each unit of production, whether or not anything was done to improve processes. ellen dannin
[PEN-L:1577] Jobless Future (Book Review) (fwd)
James L. Morrison [EMAIL PROTECTED] Editor, On the Horizon919 962-2517 (office) Professor of Educational Leadership919 962-1533 (fax) CB 3500 Peabody Hall UNC-CH Chapel Hill, NC 27599 Horizon Home Page http://sunsite.unc.edu/horizon -- Forwarded message -- Date: 24 Feb 1995 04:13:25 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Recipients of conference [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Jobless Future (Book Review) From: IN%"[EMAIL PROTECTED]" "D Shniad" BOOK REVIEW: THE FUTURELESS JOB Book Review: THE JOBLESS FUTURE by Stanley Aronowitz William DiFazio University of Minnesota Press, 1994 This book ain't about no pork-chop. Its serious stuff. The authors contend jobs -- work as we know it -- is going away. They cite the tendency of new jobs to be part-time and/or temporary, and often at minimum wage. Official unemployment figures fail to measure the state of partial employment and those who have given up looking for work. The authors mention the thousands of layoffs at GM, IBM, Boeing, Kodak and Sears and that even "the older and most prestigious professions of medicine, university teaching, law, and engineering are in trouble: doctors and lawyers and engineers are becoming like assembly-line clerks... proletarians" (p. 54). The authors comment ":... we have yet to feel the long- term effects on American living standards that will result from the elimination of well-paid professional, technical and production jobs" (p. xi). The mass of layoffs and the destruction of high-quality, well- paid, permanent jobs is produced by three closely related developments: "First in response to pervasive, long-term economic stagnation and to new scientifically based technologies, we are experiencing massive restructuring of patterns of ownership and investment in the global market. Fewer companies dominate larger portions of the world market in many sectors, and national boundaries are becoming progressively less relevant to how business is done, investment deployed and labor employed... Second, the relentless application of technology has destroyed jobs and, at the same time, reduced workers' living standards by enabling transnational corporations to deterritorialize production... " and thirdly, U.S. corporations are locating not only low-skilled jobs, but also design and development activities in other countries such as India and China where labor is both skilled and cheap (p 8-9). Their thesis may be synopsized: "All of the contradictory tendencies involved in the restructuring of global capital and computer-mediated work seem to lead to the same conclusion for workers of all collars -- that is, unemployment, underemployment, decreasingly skilled work, and relatively lower wages. These sci- tech transformations of the labor process have disrupted the workplace and worker's community and culture. High technology will destroy more jobs than it creates. The new technology has fewer parts and fewer workers and produces more product. This is not only in traditional production industries but for all workers, including managers and technical workers" (p. 3). Commenting particularly on computer programmers: "The specific character of computer-aided technologies is that they no longer discriminate between most categories of intellectual and manual labor. With the introduction of computer-aided software programming (CASP), the work of perhaps the most glamourous of the technical professions associated w/ computer technology -- programming -- is irreversibly threatened. Although the "real" job of creating new and basic approaches will go on, the ordinary occupation of computer programmer may disappear just like that of the drafter, whose tasks were incorporated by computer-aided design and drafting by the late 1980s. CASP is an example of a highly complex program whose development requires considerable knowledge, but when development costs have been paid and the price substantially reduced, much low-level, routine programming will be regulated to historical memory" (p. 21). Arguing the above is the meat ( potatoes) of the book but chapters are given over to exploring aspects of these developments, particularly the commercialization of science and the university (i.e. the subordination of knowledge to serve profit-motives to the detriment of any other determinant). Other chapters look at a city-planning office to study the effects CAD has had on the city-drafters and designers over the years; unions and their experience organizing "professionals" such as doctors, teachers and lawyers; the university tiered, tracked and tenure system; and recent writers on class (What!!! Class you
[PEN-L:1578] intrafirm trade
The October issue of the Survey of Current Business (just out, despite the date) takes apart the US current account, 1982-93, by ownership. Its findings have to call into question a lot of easy generalizations about the globalization of production, which rely heavily on a supposed increase in the amount of intrafirm trade, as putatively borderless multinationals supposedly transfer components from one branch to another located in another country. Specifically, the article reports that transactions within MNCs account for about a third of US goods and services trade. Intrafirm trade accounted for 37% of US goods services imports in 1993, up from 32% in 1982, reflecting the rise in inward FDI during the 1980s. "However," the authors, Obie G Whichard and Jeffrey H. Lowe, note, "much of this trade simply represented goods imported by U.S. wholesale trade affiliates established by foreign companies to facilitate the distribution of their goods, largely to unaffiliated customers, in the United States." The share of intrafirm trade in U.S. exports, 30%, was exactly the same as it was in 1982 - and these, too, are largely accounted for by the shipment of finished products to distribution affiliates - not components. The relatively unimportant role played by intrafirm procurement is confirmed by the fact that 88-92% of the content of the output of foreign affiliates originated abroad, and 80-84% of the output of U.S. affiliates originated in the U.S. That is, most components are procured locally. U.S. figures on MNCs are probably the best in the world, so this is the best big picture look at multinationalization we have. Doug -- Doug Henwood Left Business Observer 250 W 85 St New York NY 10024-3217 USA +1-212-874-4020 voice +1-212-874-3137 fax email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] web: http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/LBO_home.html
[PEN-L:1579] Ireland as example
Ireland is being held up by the IMF and OECD as a model country for the virtues of rapid and radical "fiscal consolidation." It's reduced its deficit from well over 10% of GDP in the early and mid-1980s to 2.5% today, with unemployment falling slightly (from around 17% to around 15%). Can anyone fill in the picture? Doug -- Doug Henwood Left Business Observer 250 W 85 St New York NY 10024-3217 USA +1-212-874-4020 voice +1-212-874-3137 fax email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] web: http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/LBO_home.html
[PEN-L:1580] Re: Jobless Future (Book Review) (fwd)
Sorry to violate my self-imposed posting quota, but this jobless future line really needs some critical examination. The U.S. employment-pop ratio is at a record high. The LFPR in the OECD ex-US has remained steady at around 67-68% for the last 20 years. In the so-called Third World, hundreds of millions have entered and will continue to enter the paid labor markets. The jobs may suck, and there certainly aren't as many supplied as there are jobs demanded, but they're still jobs. But isn't this as old as capitalism? Shouldn't polemics be more tuned to the facts than this? Doug -- Doug Henwood Left Business Observer 250 W 85 St New York NY 10024-3217 USA +1-212-874-4020 voice +1-212-874-3137 fax email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] web: http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/LBO_home.html
[PEN-L:1581] Federal Budget Game (fwd)
Check this out - it may be fun/educational and of interest. "Reinventing America" Game Launched Today, Mon., Nov. 6, Crossover Technoloy launched the "Reinventing America" game at: http://www.pathfinder.com/reinventing An interactive political simulation game, participants will spend 26 weeks debating various issues of national importance, from drug policy to environ- mental protection to defense conversion to arts funding and school prayer. Players can come and go (and join) at any time. Throughout the duration of the game, players will debate and vote on levels of federal spending related to these issues, and, at the end of the game, will propose a new federal budget that reflects the results of these discussions. The Markle Foundation, sponsor of the game, will then present this proposed budget to Congress at a press conference in May. 2 Reasons Why You Should Join the Game 1) This game is bound to get a lot of media attention, as it is a very inventive idea 2) The right wing is bound to be represented in force. I've joined already and I can definitely see a dearth of progressive opinions. PLEASE RE-POST, PLEASE RE-POST, PLEASE RE-POST Thanks, Leif Utne [EMAIL PROTECTED] Jen Steele LBJ School of Public Affairs University of Texas at Austin [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:1583] Re: Jobless Future
I second Doug's point about the jobless future/end of work hyperbole. The trends toward decreased job security, low pay and chronic un underemployment are disturbing enough. One danger of the "jobless future/end of work" line is that it can be readily dismissed as a doomsday scenario (which it is). It's worth mentioning, though, that both Aronowitz and DiFazios's and Rifkin's titles are meant to be plays on words, not literal predictions. In a way, what both of the titles refer to is an argument for moving away from traditionally defined "jobs" (40 hours a week, paycheck, etc. etc.) as the solution to the problem of income distribution and social participation. The analysis really is not that there won't be any jobs but that jobs can no longer be relied on to provide the "hinge" that connects people to the economy. I think there is merit in that analysis. I don't think that either Rifkin's or Aronowitz and DiFazio's prescriptions for moving beyond jobs are adequate to the task. Frankly, Andre Gorz did a much better job on the same theme seven years ago in his Critique of Economic Reason (IMHO). I might as well take this opportunity to plug my web pages related to the shorter work time issue: 1. design for policy study: http://mindlink.net/knowware/timework.htm 2. related web resources: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm 3. Bruce O'Hara essay "The Case for Shorter Work Time": http://mindlink.net/knowware/share.htm ^^^ The question was: "what's the story?" Tom Walker knoWWare Communications http://mindlink.net/knowware/
[PEN-L:1584] Labor Law Resources in Southern California?
Does anyone know of labor law information and referral resources available in Southern California? Thanks. ^^^ The question was: "what's the story?" Tom Walker knoWWare Communications http://mindlink.net/knowware/
