A long time ago, it was decided that the work week was 40 hours long and 2 weeks of vacation was enough to keep workers refreshed and motivated. We accepted the fact that some of our compensation package would be in benefits rather than money (health care, life insurance, vacation days, etc).
Then, we started automating. And downsizing. And offshoring. And then automation got really good.
We still work a 40 hour work week. Where did all the “labor saving” go? It went into putting American out of work because if you aren’t working 40 hours, you are gone.
We kept the benefits, so it is cheaper to pay your existing workers overtime than it is to hire more people.
So, as more Americans forcibly leave the workforce each year due to efficiency of the machinery, they are left with nothing to depend on but government handouts. Every worker who is laid off is a prime candidate to join the Democrats.
The globalists like the Bush family and Bill Clinton and the Marxists like Obama and Hillary know this fact.
We could put all Americans back to work by simply outlawing overtime. I do a job that was done by three a few years ago (I design and program industrial automation), so I get an obscene amount of OT, but in the interests of the nation I’d give it up right now.
Reducing the work week to 36 hours would also help. Lets give the working Americans some free time and create some jobs for those who are welfare-dependent.
But, this requires sacrifice and in today’s America, sacrifice is what you demand from the Other Guy.
‘You thinketh too much. Such men are dangerous’. You are not supposed to say that layoffs create Democrats when the spinners claim layoffs create Republicans. This election blew their minds. But victims of really bad economies, vote for government. FDR figured that out.
Actually when people start making good money again working for private industry, they will vote Republican. I like Ike. He figured it out. Create jobs, Boehner, be a hero.
Why not go to the source and smash the machines? Surely if we don’t they shall rise and crush us all!/s
I worked in private industry for over 35 years. I never experienced 40 hour work week. Management employees who put in only 40 hours in a “right to work” state did not last long. Offshoring, downsizing and technology advancements resulted in longer workweeks as the work of 5 became the work of 4, became the work of three and eventually the work of 1.
Companies expect non-exempt workers at all levels to accept heavier workloads and work whatever hours it takes to get the job done. Once they reach their 50’s they’ll be let go to be replaced by younger, lower paid, and more energetic workers whose benefit costs are also lower. This is the nature of free trade capitalism in an open market where employees compete globally while the elites live by different rules.
One of my young family members went to work for county government three years ago. This public servant will not work one second more than eight hours per day. At 5:00 pm she and her coworkers are out the door no matter what the work situation.
I have two questions. How long can a dwindling number of producers in the private sector with declining disposable incomes continue to support marginally productive government bureaucrats and non productive welfare recipients before the system collapses? At what point will declining wages and benefits in the private sector reach the point where employees in mass give up and join the public sector dole?