American Workers Are Scared - They Should Be

The GOP's vision for American workers

As noted before, income and wealth inequality in America now exceeds that in former banana republics and "Old Europe" now provides more opportunity for upward social mobility than in America.  Yes, one still hears stories of dramatic success, but the likelihood of such success for most of us has dimmed markedly.  And a present, things do not look to be getting any better.  The once thriving and prosperous middle class is under siege.  For the under class, things are even worse.  A column in the Washington Post looks at the bleak prospects for so many Americans and looks at how we got to the present situation.  Wall Street greed, of course, plays a role.  It's not a pretty picture but it is what happens under today's vulture capitalism.  Here are excerpts:

On this Labor Day, American workers face a buyers’ market. Employers have the upper hand and, given today’s languid pace of hiring, the advantage shows few signs of ending. What looms, at best, is a sluggish descent from high unemployment (7.4 percent in July) and a prolonged period of stagnant or slow-growing wages. Since 2007, there has been no gain in average inflation-adjusted wages and total compensation, including fringes, notes the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank.

The weak job market has a semi-permanence unlike anything seen since World War II, and the effects on public opinion extend beyond the unemployed. “People’s expectations have been really ratcheted down for what they can expect for themselves and their children,” says EPI economist Lawrence Mishel. There’s a sense “that the economy just doesn’t produce good jobs anymore.” Possible job loss becomes more threatening because finding a new job is harder. Says Paul Taylor of the Pew Research Center: “Security is valued more than money because it’s so fragile.”

Over the past century, we’ve had three broad labor regimes. The first, in the early 1900s, featured “unfettered labor markets,” as economic historian Price Fishback of the University of Arizona puts it. Competition set wages and working conditions. There was no federal unemployment insurance or union protection. Workers were fired if they offended bosses or the economy slumped; they quit if they thought they could do better. Turnover was high:Fewer than a third of manufacturing workers in 1913 had been at their current jobs for more than five years.

After World War II, labor relations became more regulated and administered — the second regime. The Wagner Act of 1935 gave workers the right to organize; decisions of the National War Labor Board also favored unions. By 1945, unions represented about a third of private workers, up from 10 percent in 1929. Health insurance, pensions and job protections proliferated. Factory workers laid off during recessions could expect to be recalled when the economy recovered. Job security improved. By 1973, half of manufacturing workers had been at the same job for more than five years.

To avoid unionization and retain skilled workers, large nonunion companies emulated these practices. Career jobs were often the norm. If you went to work for IBM at 25, you could expect to retire from IBM at 65. Fringe benefits expanded. Corporate America, unionized or not, created a private welfare state to protect millions from job and income loss.

As time passed, companies faced increasing competition from imports and new technologies. Pressure mounted from Wall Street for higher profits. In some industries, labor became uncompetitive. Career jobs slowly vanished as a norm; managers fired workers to cut costs. Unions provided diminishing protection.

Now comes the third labor regime: a confusing mix of old and new. The private safety net is shredding, though the public safety net (unemployment insurance, Social Security, anti-poverty programs, anti-discrimination laws) remains. Economist Fishback suggests we may be drifting back toward “unfettered labor markets” . . .

An article in the Harvard Business Review argues that lifetime employment at one company is dead and proposes the following compact: Companies invest in workers’ skills to make them more employable when they inevitably leave; workers reciprocate by devoting those skills to improving corporate profitability.

“The new compact isn’t about being nice,” the article says. “It’s based on an understanding that a company is its talent, that low performers will be cut, and that the way to attract talent is to offer appealing opportunities.”

Workers can’t be too picky, because their power has eroded. . . . Workers do best when strong growth and tight markets raise real wages. On Labor Day 2013, this prospect is nowhere in sight.

The column notes that the public safety net still exists.  But the GOP would like to shred that as well.  It's a very scary picture.  I worry about the prospects of my children and grand children in this increasing brutal employment reality.