Worker Productivity Moves Sharply Higher

[Career Prole]

The strong gains in productivity, while laying the groundwork for rising living standards, do come with a cost. Businesses have obtained the productivity increases by getting more work from their current work force, rather than hiring new workers.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050303/ap_on_bi_go_ec_fi/economy

Of course the market moves up on this wonderful, wonderful news and lucky CEO's will be rewarded for squeezing yet more blood from a turnip.
I wonder just how much blood a turnip can lose before it dies?

Yesterday my boss told me not to bring a lunch because he was buying me lunch as a reward for my unpaid overtime this last weekend
(They took me off the clock and put me on salary thanks to shrub).
We worked through lunch, and I continued working until 8PM (12.5 hours, 8 paid).
While I was working my free meal at the service awards banquet last night (for 10 years of this shit) went uneaten, like my lunch.
I imagine they'll leave my pen-and-pencil set on my workbench sometime today while I'm on a job.
For this I get paid roughly half of what I was making 11 years ago.

Perhaps the market is cheered by this, but it is wearing thin with me.

[BlueEyedSon]

1. "Worker Productivity" must be another Luntz linguistic gem....

[KittyWampus]

16. Worker Productivity= Wage Slave

[Warpy]

2. Translation

Increased productivity = more work done by fewer people working more hours for less pay.

That's what it means.

[Career Prole]

4. Until the bleeding turnip is the anemic turnip.

Then they'll outsource the rest of it to keep productivity up.

[mhr]

5. Bingo - We Have A Winner In Aisle Three!

eom

[TahitiNut]

8. Yep. Galley slaves are rowing more and eating less.

Thin slaves means more cargo. :puke:

[hatrack]

3. Yeah, 100,000 net layoffs/firings/downsizings/whateverthehellitis

in February do kind of boost the productivity numbers. :eyes:

[Mari333]

6. Workers dont demand enough

Thanks to our new service-economy, workers are a dime a dozen and being paid shit wages ( shit wages are what Im paid)
they can be replaced in the blink of an eye and they know it
I still demand two 15 minute breaks on my shift, because thats the law. I hear other workers tell me they work thru the shift with no breaks..I ask them why>? They seem to think being a slave for the boss is SOP..15 min breaks, hell, thats the LAW
same thing with safety standards. The workers where I work climb on chairs to reach high places. I said I wouldnt stand on a chair, and demanded the supervisor bring me a stool, according to OSHA standards.
She did.
Its up to the workers to say enough is enough.?

[BiggJawn]

7. Guess the new HR morale initiatives are working. Praise Shrub!

And they'll continue until you people are doing the work of FIVE people for a FIFTH of the pay!

[Glenda]

9. "productivity — the amount of output per hour of work "

Now I wonder what they used as the number of hours in this calculation? Probably 40 hours/week even for people working 60-80.

I do notice more jobs opening up in my field lately. But after being burnt out by a job with a company that tried to squeeze blood out of a turnip, I think I'll stay will independent consulting for a while, where I can control my hours and environment.

[BlueEyedSon]

10. Really? I bet it's per worker, per dollar, or per PAID hour.

After 10 hours at the job in a given day, the work in the remaining 2 hours is not so good. YMMV!

[sweetheart]

15. So was thomas edison "infinitely" productive?

Surely there was 1 hour in time, where thomas edison made the light
bulb. Do we call that hour the most valuable hour in history.

What i'm gettin' at is that creative work, even engineering, is not
really done "by the hour" as "by the inspiration", and 1000 monkeys
typing on keyboards is no replacement for 1 shakespeare working part
time. But the idea that human beings are infinitely powerful, is an
empowerment of labour that our patriarchal system will not accept in to
its law of averages.. one that attempts to reduce us all to become
fast food workers, and measured like one.... beep beep beep time to
take out the french fries.

[bemildred]

11. Factory activity falls again in February

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Factory activity in the United States decelerated again in February, the Institute for Supply Management reported Tuesday.

The closely tracked ISM index has slipped for four straight months and now stands at its lowest level since September 2003. Read full survey....

http://cbs.marketwatch.com/news/archivedStory.asp?archive=true&dist=ArchiveSplash&siteid=google&guid=%7B5F3D5B01%2DF7ED%2D44E6%2D8768%2D9AA752E7DB37%7D&returnURL=%2Fnews%2Fstory%2Easp%3Fguid%3D%7B5F3D5B01%2DF7ED%2D44E6%2D8768%2D9AA752E7DB37%7D%26siteid%3Dgoogle%26dist%3Dmorenews%26archive%3Dtrue%26param%3Darchive%26garden%3D%26minisite%3D

[LiberalEsto]

12. More whips! more whips!

Your experience is outrageous.

What are the major unions doing these days to fight back again mistreatment of America's workers?

[asjr]

13. I see this as another way they want to ruin Social Security. All

those extra hours you put in and are not paid for lessens the amount of money paid into SS. Pretty soon any liberties we have left will disappear. This administration has never proposed anything that will benefit the country. They think all the taxes we pay in to guarantee a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is theirs to do with as they please. And they have done it.

[LiberalEsto]

17. Plus you could get a stroke or heart attack

from the work stress, and end up dying before you can claim Social Security and pension benefits. It's a win-win for the Corporate Masters.

[Robert Oak]

14. outsourcing

What drives me crazy is watching economists try to ignore outsourcing
on the equation productivity.

Below has a study which acknowledges it and proves outsourcing has a huge effect:

http://forum.noslaves.com/index.php?showtopic=102&hl=productivity


Here's another good one that shows American workers are being used
and abused (like the story on the post)

http://forum.noslaves.com/index.php?showtopic=259&hl=productivity

on forum.noslaves.com there is a search function, any date ...
I particularly like to find details on productivity calculations
because of the "politics" of the productivity terms and measurements
and even economic research...so there are a series of posts on productivity.

[MARALE]

18. We are feeling it here

My husband is expected to put in at least 50 hrs or more a week. He hasn't had a raise in 3 years because he is at the top of the "wage cap". I think that is crap, but he loves his job and the people he works with, so he won't quit. They better give him a raise this year, or I will be mad.

[Fovea]

19. at the exact same rate as

amphetamine production rises in Missouri.

It's like the redneck Dow Jones.
The more the pugs flog the worker, the more
crank they do.

Seeing how busy and brazen they are, I want to invest
in companies that make precursors.

Yeee Haw!

[Career Prole]

20. They've already put the Sudafed behind the counter here

and last I heard they were looking at outlawing it in Texas, as they already have in (I believe) Oklahoma.
Which means of course making an unnecessary trip to the doc to be told I have hayfever (I know that!) followed by a trip to the pharmacy for some high-dollar stuff that doesn't work as well (but has a nifty TV ad!)

[BiggJawn]

21. They're trying to make you SIGN for it here.

And I read today that since Illinois made laws restricting purchase of the "Precursors" (gawd, I hope I never forget and buy Lithium batteries and a Chore Boy and some Dristan in the same trip!) that all the Meth production is moving to Indiana.

Great...

[Skittles]

22. workers working through lunch , not taking vacations

that's how the CEO bastards are getting their "higher productivity"