Bob Herbert has an excellent column in Tuesday's NY Times. More on that in a moment, further down, below. First, some background...
On November 20th, 2010, I posted this diary, "Democrats In Denial: On Forsaking Our Feud w/Neofeudalism," which featured Louis Uchitelle's wrenching article in the NY Times, entitled: "Unions Yield on Pay Scales to Keep Jobs." It was all about organized labor losing ground during the Great Recession. Uchitelle's piece presciently focused upon three examples of this middle class tragedy in, of all places, Wisconsin. Here's a small part of my diary, with an excerpt from Uchitelle's article within it...
Unions Yield on Pay Scales to Keep Jobs
By LOUIS UCHITELLE
New York Times
November 20, 2010
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 story references the reality that this 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."
Uchitelle takes us to three large, successful manufacturers in southeastern Wisconsin: Harley-Davidson, Mercury Marine and Kohler, where management has successfully implemented semi-permanent, "two-tier systems that could last well into a recovery."
"This is absolutely a surrender for labor," said Mike Masik Sr., the union leader at Harley-Davidson, the motorcycle maker, not even trying to paper over the defeat.
Last Wednesday, NY Times Economics Editor Catherine Rampell reminded me of my late November post in her piece from the NY Times Economix blog: "Higher-Paying Jobs Lost, but Lower-Paying Jobs Gained."
Higher-Paying Jobs Lost, but Lower-Paying Jobs Gained
By CATHERINE RAMPELL
NY Times Economix Blog
Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011
While the country’s recessionary job losses skewed to middle- and higher-paying jobs, its job gains since then have skewed to lower-paying jobs.
That is the conclusion of an unsettling report from the National Employment Law Project.
America’s private payrolls shrank from January 2008 through February 2010, losing 8.84 million jobs on net. They have been growing every month since that nadir, adding 1.26 million jobs on net. (Public payrolls are another story — they’ve been falling over the last year.)
All this means, of course, that the private sector job market still has a long way to go before it returns to its previous peak. Worse, those jobs that have been created in the last year typically pay less than the jobs they’re replaced.
Ms. Rampell notes that, according to NELP, in our current Great Recession:
-- 23% of all jobs lost since December 2007 were in lower-wage industries (those paying $9.03 -$12.91 per hour) but they have accounted for 49% of recent job "growth."
-- 36% of all jobs lost during this same period were in midwage industriues ($12.92 -$19.04 per hour) and this piece of the jobs' pie, this time around, accounts for 37% of recent "growth."
-- 40% of all jobs lost over the past 37 months were in higher-wage industries ($19.05 -$31.40 per hour), but this piece of the labor market has only witnessed 14% of the recession's abysmal jobs growth.
Making the understatement of the month, Rampell states: "These trends compare unfavorably to the last 'jobless recovery' after the 2001 recession."
She also points out that half of all jobs lost in the 2001 downturn returned in the first year of that recovery. This time around, only 14% of private payroll jobs were recaptured in the first year of our "recovery."
Adding insult to injury, in 2001, higher-wage industries contributed 31% to first-year job growth. This time around, it's only 14%.
Without providing any links, exacerbating the the situation, we're told by some fellow Democrats, promoting the great job everyone's doing in D.C. bringing jobs back to Main Street, that this isn't a flaw with the implementation of current economic policy. It's a feature!
IMHO, I have to ask: How does this supposedly-Democratic meme not undercut any union organizing attempts to the contrary?
Does not this approach, inherently, as Elizabeth Warren noted in December 2009, directly contribute to the ongoing and complete destruction of the American middle class?
Enter Bob Herbert, from his column in today's NY Times: "Unintended, but Sound Advice."
Unintended, but Sound Advice
By BOB HERBERT
NY Times
March 1, 2011
In Lewis Powell’s now-famous memo to America’s business community, which felt beleaguered in the political environment of 1971, the future Supreme Court justice stressed the importance of organizing.
“Strength lies in organization,” he wrote, “in careful long-range planning and implementation, in consistency of action over an indefinite period of years, in the scale of financing available only through joint effort, and in the political power available only through united action and national organizations.”
Powell’s memo points to the reason why there is such an effort now not just to extract concessions from public employee unions to help balance state budgets, but to actually crush those unions, to deprive them once and for all of the crucial and fundamental right to bargain collectively.
When you talk to the workers who are hurting most in this epic downturn, they are overwhelmingly out there on their own. No one has their back. The corporate community and the politicians who do their bidding know better than anyone else that workers who are not organized are most often helpless. They have no leverage...
He righteously notes...
...This most recent assault on labor is part of an anti-worker movement that has been on the march for decades. Jobs have been shipped overseas. Workers have been denied their rightful share of productivity gains. Wages have been depressed and benefits in many, many instances have disappeared...
Herbert, stating the obvious, reminds us that our middle and lower classes are suffering worse than they have in many generations.
He provides some advice for those looking for help, too. I strongly urge you to read his entire piece. Herbert's been on a real roll these past few months. He's better than ever.
In the meantime, I would suggest that folks in this community think twice before they start parrotting those D.C. memes about how much better things are getting in the workforce. The truth is: That's nowhere near the truth.
And, taking it one step further, I have to ask: Isn't the "things-aren't-so-bad" meme the very antithesis to social action?
The middle and lower classes in this country are getting crushed, more and more with every passing day. IMHO, "accentuating the positive" and parrotting "Mr. In-between" is disingenuous at best in this environment. At its worst, it is the very essence of the corporatist meme writ large.
If we've learned anything from events in Wisconsin, and elsewhere, in the past few weeks, it's what President Obama told us in the weeks and month after he was first elected to office: The status quo will not do anything righteous for Main Street without the rest of us kicking and shoving them into doing it. "We have to make them do it!"
There is power in numbers.
As Herbert closes out his column this Tuesday morning, he references Powell one more time, and reminds us of "...the best advice I can think of for workers today who are fighting to hold off the tide of lower living standards. It is not a struggle that can possibly be won alone."