okiemama
10-19-2005, 04:06 AM
Thought I would share this most interesting article with y'all that was shared with me:
October 18, 2005
latimes.com
U.S. Labor Is in Retreat as Global Forces Squeeze Pay and Benefits
By David Streitfeld, Times Staff Writer
Workers at auto parts maker Delphi Corp. will be asked this week to take a two-thirds pay cut. It's one of the most drastic wage concessions ever sought from unionized employees.
Workers at General Motors Corp., meanwhile, tentatively agreed on Monday to absorb billions of dollars in healthcare costs. Ford Motor Co. and DaimlerChrysler employees are certain to face similar demands.
The forces affecting Delphi and GM workers are extreme versions of what's occurring across the American labor market, where such economic risks as unemployment and health costs once broadly shared by business and government are being shifted directly onto the backs of American working families.
Four years into an economic recovery, workers across America should be riding high. Instead, they're facing new demands to surrender hard-won benefits and agree to wage concessions. Companies say these cutbacks are essential to stay competitive in an increasingly globalized economy.
In recent weeks, there have been numerous examples — and they aren't limited to manufacturers.
Jerry Jasinowski, president of the Manufacturing Institute at the National Assn. of Manufacturers, said such givebacks would simply become a fact of life.
"From airline pilots to auto assembly workers, employees need to help reduce their costs," he said. "We can't afford to live with the very generous benefits we provided 10, 15 years ago."
Workers' reduced leverage has many origins, including a slack labor market and the offshoring of jobs to low-cost countries such as China and India.
Some companies, challenged by low-cost rivals, say they can't afford more than minimal raises. And even at firms doing well, high premiums for healthcare insurance take away from the pool of funds that could be used to provide raises.
Only 60% of businesses offer health insurance to their workers, down from 66% in 2003 and 69% in 2000, according to a new survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust.
Companies also are asking workers to produce more for the same pay.
The result is that the cost of living has been outpacing wage increases for most workers all year. Driven by high energy costs, inflation rose twice as fast as wages in September, the government reported last week. The liberal Economic Policy Institute called it "the largest decline in real earnings in decades."
The proposed givebacks are "extraordinary sacrifices," especially in light of Delphi's "disgusting" decision to sweeten retention packages for executives, United Auto Workers union officials said in statements.
Critics say that Delphi employees, who earn an average of $27 an hour in addition to generous medical and retirement benefits, make too much to allow the company to compete. By contrast, workers at Delphi's profitable China operations earn about $3 an hour.
The auto industry has been a weather vane for wage trends almost since it began. Henry Ford's 1914 announcement of the Five Dollar Day, doubling at once the pay packages of his 15,000 assembly line workers, inaugurated what the Detroit Free Press called a "new industrial era."
Then, factory workers were leading the way. Now they're seen as doomed.
"There's a widespread view that the old-line industries are just going to go away," said Steve Szakaly, an economist with the Center for Automotive Research. "In the global economy, we're all supposed to become service employees. And Delphi is as old-line as one could get."
"As a world-class employer," the company proclaims on its website, "Delphi offers its full-time employees world-class benefits." In recent days, that proud statement has acquired another meaning: Delphi workers in the United States, management says, must earn something closer to what the rest of the world gets.
Vacations reportedly will be slashed from six weeks to four weeks. Healthcare premiums will be higher. The company's pension contributions will be lower. Paid holidays will shrink from 17 a year to as few as 10. And wages will fall sharply, to as low as $10 or $12 an hour. Those levels would make it unlikely that Delphi workers would be able to afford the cars they're helping to build.
."How do U.S. firms compete in the global economy?" asked UC Berkeley economist Harley Shaiken. "If the only way to compete is with $10 wages, we have a problem that is much larger than just Delphi. We're looking at a society where people exit rather than enter the middle class."
"There used to be a kind of floor for worker welfare," said Leon Fink, editor of the journal Labor: Studies in Working-Class History of the Americas. "But we're now living in an age in which all those old standards have come unglued."
FROM: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-workers18oct18,0,7671153.story?coll=la-home-headlines
October 18, 2005
latimes.com
U.S. Labor Is in Retreat as Global Forces Squeeze Pay and Benefits
By David Streitfeld, Times Staff Writer
Workers at auto parts maker Delphi Corp. will be asked this week to take a two-thirds pay cut. It's one of the most drastic wage concessions ever sought from unionized employees.
Workers at General Motors Corp., meanwhile, tentatively agreed on Monday to absorb billions of dollars in healthcare costs. Ford Motor Co. and DaimlerChrysler employees are certain to face similar demands.
The forces affecting Delphi and GM workers are extreme versions of what's occurring across the American labor market, where such economic risks as unemployment and health costs once broadly shared by business and government are being shifted directly onto the backs of American working families.
Four years into an economic recovery, workers across America should be riding high. Instead, they're facing new demands to surrender hard-won benefits and agree to wage concessions. Companies say these cutbacks are essential to stay competitive in an increasingly globalized economy.
In recent weeks, there have been numerous examples — and they aren't limited to manufacturers.
Jerry Jasinowski, president of the Manufacturing Institute at the National Assn. of Manufacturers, said such givebacks would simply become a fact of life.
"From airline pilots to auto assembly workers, employees need to help reduce their costs," he said. "We can't afford to live with the very generous benefits we provided 10, 15 years ago."
Workers' reduced leverage has many origins, including a slack labor market and the offshoring of jobs to low-cost countries such as China and India.
Some companies, challenged by low-cost rivals, say they can't afford more than minimal raises. And even at firms doing well, high premiums for healthcare insurance take away from the pool of funds that could be used to provide raises.
Only 60% of businesses offer health insurance to their workers, down from 66% in 2003 and 69% in 2000, according to a new survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust.
Companies also are asking workers to produce more for the same pay.
The result is that the cost of living has been outpacing wage increases for most workers all year. Driven by high energy costs, inflation rose twice as fast as wages in September, the government reported last week. The liberal Economic Policy Institute called it "the largest decline in real earnings in decades."
The proposed givebacks are "extraordinary sacrifices," especially in light of Delphi's "disgusting" decision to sweeten retention packages for executives, United Auto Workers union officials said in statements.
Critics say that Delphi employees, who earn an average of $27 an hour in addition to generous medical and retirement benefits, make too much to allow the company to compete. By contrast, workers at Delphi's profitable China operations earn about $3 an hour.
The auto industry has been a weather vane for wage trends almost since it began. Henry Ford's 1914 announcement of the Five Dollar Day, doubling at once the pay packages of his 15,000 assembly line workers, inaugurated what the Detroit Free Press called a "new industrial era."
Then, factory workers were leading the way. Now they're seen as doomed.
"There's a widespread view that the old-line industries are just going to go away," said Steve Szakaly, an economist with the Center for Automotive Research. "In the global economy, we're all supposed to become service employees. And Delphi is as old-line as one could get."
"As a world-class employer," the company proclaims on its website, "Delphi offers its full-time employees world-class benefits." In recent days, that proud statement has acquired another meaning: Delphi workers in the United States, management says, must earn something closer to what the rest of the world gets.
Vacations reportedly will be slashed from six weeks to four weeks. Healthcare premiums will be higher. The company's pension contributions will be lower. Paid holidays will shrink from 17 a year to as few as 10. And wages will fall sharply, to as low as $10 or $12 an hour. Those levels would make it unlikely that Delphi workers would be able to afford the cars they're helping to build.
."How do U.S. firms compete in the global economy?" asked UC Berkeley economist Harley Shaiken. "If the only way to compete is with $10 wages, we have a problem that is much larger than just Delphi. We're looking at a society where people exit rather than enter the middle class."
"There used to be a kind of floor for worker welfare," said Leon Fink, editor of the journal Labor: Studies in Working-Class History of the Americas. "But we're now living in an age in which all those old standards have come unglued."
FROM: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-workers18oct18,0,7671153.story?coll=la-home-headlines