I know, I know but this is Salon. You won't even see this headline in the NYT before next fall. If then. At least Salon has noticed it mere months after this blog.
Yes, Mr Eshelman, there is a "war on workers" but it didn't start with the economic crisis, it started 30 years ago with Reagan and the rise of so-called "conservatism", and it has been with increasing success putting us on the street for all that time. Not that you noticed. And yes, US corporations are using the economic crisis as an excuse to get rid of workers. They routinely use whatever excuses come to hand to do that and have been - without much govt interference even when the methods they used were illegal - for decades. Why should this be any different? It isn't.
The mainstream media has generally sketched a picture of a labor market in which, under the pressure of an economic meltdown, workers succumb to two types of downsizing. In one, a fierce recession forces businesses, desperate to cut costs in terrible times, to lay off workers. They, in turn, face grim prospects for gainful employment elsewhere. In a kinder, gentler version of the same, employers, desperate to cut costs in terrible times, offer -- or sometimes force workers to take -- "furloughs," salary cuts, union givebacks, four-day work weeks, or unpaid holidays rather than axing large numbers of them.
***
In some cases, under the guise of "recession" pressure, they may be waging a secret war against their own workers, using even the most innocuous transgressions of workplace rules as the trigger for firings -- and so, of course, putting the fear of God into those who remain. In this way, company payrolls are not only being reduced by mass layoffs, but workers are being squeezed for ever greater productivity in return for lower wages, worse hours and fewer benefits. The weapon of choice is the specter of unemployment, a kind of death by a thousand (or a million) cuts.
(emphasis added)
Mr Eshelman's sense of breathless discovery is somewhat offensive however welcome it may be. Offensive to me and to everyone else who has been writing about it for the past decade. Look at the bolded section again. What is there in that sentence that is in any way different from what corporations have been doing for 30 years? Even the threat is the same.
For almost 30 years Corporate America's ownership of the govt has made it possible to keep wages flat, move good-paying jobs into low-wage countries, cut back salaries, cut back benefits, increase hours (we now work more hours per week than the Japanese and for less money than the Italians), and raise productivity without having to pay a penny in extra wages. The increases have all been at the top of the scale.
Corporate America has kept workers down and obedient with threats, intimidation, illegal firings, unsafe work environments, bribery and tricks, and they have done so with little or no (mostly NO) objections coming from the govt that passed the laws the corporations violated every goddam day.
But never mind all that. Robert Eshelman has noticed on behalf of Salon that, well, you know what? Things aren't exactly kosher for workers in America!! Son of a gun. Who could have seen that coming?
Oh well. Better late than never I suppose. Welcome to the party, pal.
Comments