The One-Sided Class War Against Workers

[Itsthetruth]

CounterPunch
April 22, 2005

Working Wages Slide, While Business Lines Its Pockets
The One-Sided Class War
By LEE SUSTAR

Once inflation is taken into account, compensation for nonsupervisory workers in the private sector--about 80 percent of the workforce--dropped 0.4 percent in 2004. Analyses in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times blamed the usual suspects: globalization and the outsourcing of jobs overseas, a slack labor market and weak unionization rates. (Source: State of Working America, 2004-05)
These developments are, in fact, symptoms of the underlying cause: a systematic shift of wealth from labor to capital through free-market policies--known internationally as “neoliberalism”--that began more than three decades ago. Today’s economic picture--in which profits are taking a greater share of the national income in an economic recovery than at any time since the Second World War--reflects the consolidation of the neoliberal economic order internationally.

The pattern of wage stagnation and decline has worsened the precarious situation of U.S. workers. While overall real pay last declined in the early 1990s, hourly wages either declined or stagnated throughout the period between 1973 and 1995. Beginning in the mid-1990s, tight labor markets finally pushed up pay, particularly among low-wage workers. Unions were able to reverse some of the downward trends--workers went on strike at UPS in 1997 and General Motors to win more full-time jobs; at Bell Atlantic/Verizon, workers struck twice to win better pay and benefits.

But the recession of 2001 and the weak recovery since unraveled many of these gains. Although real wages continued to grow slowly during the recession, the economy shed large numbers of jobs, particularly in manufacturing, which saw 41 straight months of employment decline.

At the same time, productivity gains that emerged in the late 1990s continued to accelerate, which meant that fewer workers could produce more. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the 4.3 percent average annual increase in productivity for 2001 to 2004 was last matched in 1948 to 1951.

The result is that while the U.S. economy in 2004 generated 2.2 million jobs, that total is 1.4 million less than expected, based on averages from previous economic recoveries. About 20 percent of the jobless today are among the long-term unemployed--people who have been 27 weeks without a job--“an unprecedented development in the post- period,” according to the EPI.


http://www.counterpunch.org/sustar04222005.html

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

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[ComerPerro]

2. Yeah, those teachers sure do have it easy don't they

:sarcasm:

[MichiganVote]

3. So let's see the articles b/c the teachers I know aren't

getting anymore than a 1% raise (If that) with a 25% increase in health care costs.

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

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[MichiganVote]

9. Well honey, schools have never been known for high salaries

as for the drama with which you express your opinion---its teachers who are facing a workplace with guns pointed at them, not you. Your posts reflect an agenda that I have heard before and it sounds remarkably like boo hoo voucher flu.

[earth mom]

4. Are you serious?!

Teachers don't make enough by far considering what they have to do and how much education they need to be teaching in the first place! So, they've managed to hang on to some of their pay raises-unlike other workers out there and that's because they have a UNION-whereas the majority of workers in this country have gotten the shaft and been totally exploited over the years by NOT having Union protection or laws in place that protect them! :grr:

[Warpy]

5. Better read that a little more carefully

Yes, teacher pay is rising in most locations at 1%-2% per year. However, index it to inflation and you'll see that their compensation is falling as fast or faster than yours is.

Teacher pay is still shit, and they're falling farther behind because this country doesn't give a SHIT about its children.

[Lindacooks]

6. You're so, so wrong.

CEO pay is now 300-500 TIMES what the average worker gets paid. THAT, along with obscene profits, especially among the insurance industry, banks, credit card companies, and oil companies, are what is causing the problem.

If anything, teachers should be paid 10 times what they are now, considering their important role in society and all their responsibilities.

[K-W]

10. Teachers remain massively underpaid and are not remotely the problem.

What a joke.

[solinvictus]

11. There's no connection between this and teacher pay..

When one considers that teachers take work home, stay late, and often take on extracurricular activities, they aren't paid much. The blame for stagnant wages lies with corporations for paying CEO's over 400-500 times the earnings of their average worker. When you consider executive pay, think of how many raises could be given with just their salary.

[DBoon]

7. A one sided war is called "slaughter"

fell better now?

[Disturbed]

12. The RW agenda.

Turn the Middle Class into the Working Poor without Health Care, Unions, Social Security, Worker's Comp., Overtime Pay etc. The Bush Junta is "working hard" to decimate the Middle Class. When a women told the Silverspoon Sociopath that she was working three jobs his reply was: "Fantastic".

The Amerikan Plutocracy is in full War On Amerika, The Middle Class, The Working Poor and The Poor. Serfdoom is the goal.

The New World Order is Globalization and Multi-Corp. Domination of Workers to grind into the Capitalist Mill.

[AmandaRuth]

13. you know what the

Working Poor without Health Care, Unions, Social Security, Worker's Comp., Overtime Pay do? They come to Jesus. This is all part of the plan to transfer power to the churches, imho.