Posted on 01/02/2006 4:19:44 AM PST by ventana
AP Middle-Class Job Losses Batter Workforce Sunday January 1, 8:53 pm ET By Kathy Barks Hoffman, Associated Press Writer Middle-Class Job Losses Batter Workforce As Companies Slash Payrolls, Send Jobs Overseas
LANSING, Mich. (AP) -- Thirty years ago, Dan Fairbanks looked at the jobs he could get with his college degree and what he could make working the line at General Motors Corp., and decided the GM job looked better.
He still thinks he made the right choice. But with GM planning to end production of the Chevrolet SSR and shut down the Lansing Craft Centre where he works sometime in mid-2006, Fairbanks faces an uncertain future.
"Back when I hired in at General Motors 30 years ago, it seemed like a good, secure job," said Fairbanks, president since June of UAW Local 1618. Since then, "I've seen good times and I've seen bad times. This qualifies as a bad time, in more ways than one."
Many of the country's manufacturing workers are caught in a worldwide economic shift that is forcing companies to slash payrolls or send jobs elsewhere, leaving workers to wonder if their way of life is disappearing.
The trend in the manufacturing sector toward lower pay, fewer benefits and fewer jobs is alarming many of them.
"They end up paying more of their health care and they end up with lousier pensions -- if they keep one at all," says Michigan AFL-CIO President Mark Gaffney. As wages and benefits drop, "it's the working class that's paying the price."
West Virginia steelworkers are all too familiar with the problem. The former Weirton Steel Corp., which 20 years ago had some 13,000 employees, today has just 1,300 union workers left on the job.
The steel mill has changed hands twice in two years, and just last month, Mittal Steel Co. told the Independent Steelworkers Union it would permanently cut the jobs of 800 people who'd been laid off since summer.
Larry Keister, 50, of Weirton, W.Va., has 31 years in the mill that his father and brothers all joined. His son tried, but got laid off quickly.
"I'm too old to go back to school. I've worked there all my life," says Keister, who drives a buggy in the tin mill. "I went there straight out of high school. It's all I know."
Though Keister is safe for now from layoffs, he wonders what will happen to the hundreds of friends and co-workers who will be jobless by the end of January.M
Gary Colflesh, 56, of Bloomingdale, Ohio, said there are few jobs in nearby Ohio or Pennsylvania for workers to move to.
"They're destroying the working class. Why can't people see this?" asked the 38-year veteran. "Anybody who works in manufacturing has no future in this country, unless you want to work for wages they get in China."
Abby Abdo, 52, of Weirton, said workers once believed that if they accepted pay cuts and shunned strikes, they would keep their jobs. Not anymore.
"Once they get what they want, they kick us to the curb," he said. "There's no guarantee anymore. No pensions. No health care. No job security. We have none of those things anymore."
Fairbanks of the Lansing GM plant said the changes are going to force a lot of people to retrench to deal with the new economic reality. For some, it will make it harder to send their children to college or be able to retire when they want. For others, it will mean giving up some of the trappings a comfortable income can bring.
"You're going to see lake property, you're going to see boats, you're going to see motorcycles hit the market," he said. "People get rid of the toys."
Economists agree the outlook is changing for workers who moved from high school to good-paying factory jobs two and three decades ago, or for those seeking that lifestyle now.
"It was possible for people with a high school education to get a job that paid $75,000 to $100,000 and six weeks of paid vacation. Those jobs are disappearing," says Patrick Anderson of Anderson Economic Group in East Lansing, Mich. "The ... low-skill, upper-middle-class way of life is in danger."
General Motors Corp. has announced that it plans to cut 30,000 hourly jobs by 2008. Ford Motor Co. is scheduled to announce plant closings and layoffs in January that could affect at least 15,000 workers in the United States and Mexico, analysts say, and is cutting thousands from its white-collar work force.
GM and Ford have won concessions from the United Auto Workers that will require active and retired workers to pick up more of their health care costs, and DaimlerChrysler AG is seeking similar concessions.
Thomas Klier, senior economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, says the transition for manufacturers toward leaner, lower-cost operations has been going on for some time. But the bankruptcy of the nation's largest auto supplier, Delphi Corp., pushed the issue into the headlines.
Its 34,000 hourly U.S. workers could see their pay cut from $27 an hour to less than half of that, although the company is still trying to work out a compromise unions will support. Workers also could have to pay health care deductibles for the first time and lose their dental and vision care coverage.
Delphi worker Michael Balls of Saginaw, Mich., hears the argument that U.S. companies' costs are too high to compete with plants that pay workers less overseas, but he doesn't buy it.
"I think if Delphi wins, they lose," he says. "If I'm making $9 an hour, I'm not making enough to buy vehicles."
Unfortunately for workers like Balls, the old rules no longer apply in the new global economy, says John Austin, a senior fellow with the Washington-based Brookings Institute.
"We're in a different ball game now," Austin says. "We're going to be shedding a lot of the low-education manufacturing jobs."
Some of those workers are likely to try to move into the growing service sector, Austin says. But he says the transition can be tough, even if the jobs pay as well as the ones they had -- and many don't.
"Pointing out a medical technician job is available if they go back and get a certificate doesn't solve the issue today for those 45-year-olds who are losing their jobs at Delphi," he said.
Dick Posthumus, a partner in an office furniture system manufacturing company in Grand Rapids, Mich., says that "basic, unskilled manufacturing is going to be done in China, India, places like that because we are in a global world, and there's nothing anyone can do about that."
His company, Compatico Inc., buys much of its basic parts from South Korea, Taiwan, Canada and China, where Posthumus has toured plants he says rival modern manufacturing plants in the U.S. But the company still saves its sophisticated parts-making and assembly for its Michigan plant.
"The manufacturing of tomorrow is going to look somewhat different from the manufacturing of yesterday," Posthumus says. "It doesn't mean that we no longer manufacture ... (But) it's going to be a painful adjustment."
Associated Press Writer Vicki Smith in Morgantown, W.Va., contributed to this story.
My, you seem as monomaniacal about unions as Jack Welch. And what precisely do you know about manufacturing skill?
Are all the Japanese (Nissan, Toyota, Mitsubishi and Honda),German (BMW, Mercedes, --Chrysler is now under Daimler-Chrysler ownership) and Korean (Hyundai, and KIA) American assembly plants unionized? Does this automatically make them 'better' than their U.S.-firm counterparts? Some objective numbers, please.
If not, then you have some 'splainen to do.
We have a word here: C A P I T A L I S M.
Use tariffs to balance the field as they are meant to and it's amazing how dumb and how big a waste of time it suddenly is to hire Chinese coders.
Translation: You can't make yourself a worthwhile value proposition.
And, no, I'm not the equivelant of an IT bolt tightener. Nor are coders. Coding takes substantial thought to do properly else you get the shlock that Microsoft puts out and thinks the best since peanut butter.
I have been coding for over 30 years. It is bolt-tightening. I enjoy it and still do it when I get a chance, but it is far and away the easiest thing in the world.
...Over what? Money. ...
Oh noo!!!! They want to make money!! Those scoundrels! Don't they know that the point is to keep people employed?? Havoc decides what is "best" NOT the marketpkace! What a bunch of schloes!
Personally, you may be in high demand. That doesn't protect your position. The moment someone in China comes available, you will be expendable no matter how valuable you think your position is.
How many people in China have 30 years in development, mainframes, Operating Systems Installation and Management, Computer Operations and Computer Operations Management, Database Administration, Large Project management, Network Administration, detailed knowledge of Financials, Human Resources, Payroll, CRM, can run a large project and can speak perfect English? How many people in the USA?
If for some reason they don't want me to be Manager, I just fall back to being an Oracle DBA or DB2 DBA (or Manager thereof). Or Ops Management. Or Network Administration.
If you think little guys are bolt turners and you aren't, you've got some learning to do. My job required problem solving skills and technical knowledge that not everyone has. I've talked to college grads who don't understand how windows really works but have it degrees.
Buahahahahaa!! Windows Support? You do Windows Support? No wonder you are so bitter. How in the world is Windows support and integral part of an entire strategic or tactical. Almost everyone outsources that anyway (not always offshore -- my company outsources to a USA company that puts people in our offices). I don't know of anyone that is calling for Windows people in a vacuum. Now if you knew applications such as SCM or ERP or Windows as part of an OS theory knowledge base, that might be saleable. But if you posess fewer than 5 technical skills than that is your problem.
You decide you want to be an auto mechanic, don't be upset when they stop using carbeurators.
No, he got in my getting the most votes. Sorry.
If there hadn't been a third option, he'd have never gotten there.
And if the queen had balls, she'd be king. There are at least 3 options EVERY year. If there hadn't been a 3rd option in 00, Gore would have won. So what?
Clinton didn't keep the sheep fat and happy, he kept them pretty perpetually po'd and disgusted. My memory ain't that short.
Your memory may not be short, but it's wrong. How about some DATA? Slickster had a higher rating at the end of his term then RR.
End-of Presidency Job Approval Ratings
ABC News Data
Bill Clinton (2001) 65%
Ronald Reagan (1989) 64
Dwight Eisenhower (1961) 59
John F. Kennedy (1963) 63
George Bush (1993) 56
Gerald Ford (1977) 53
Lyndon Johnson (1969) 49
Jimmy Carter (1981) 34
Richard Nixon (1974) 24
source: http://uspolitics.about.com/od/politicalcommentary/a/historical_prez.htm
That's what really cost him. If he'd stayed in, who knows? (Although his kookiness, which basically made him unfit, probably was bound to come out.)
Please don't misunderstand me - I'm no Democrat!! I'm just using the terms in the same way the tax code and Social Security Administration do.
The point is that when one has an investment in a productive asset, whether it be a stock portfolio or a manufacturing facility, that asset is what creates the wealth. Couldn't we say that the ongoing use of your friend's work in the product of the film was what created his stream of earnings?
Similarly, when the world was in upheaval from 1939 - 1945, everybody looked to the US and its productive capacity to be the the "arsenal of democracy". If we abandon "production" in favor of "services", we cannot fulfill this role and, with some limited exceptions like the one you pointed out, the wealth dries up.
"I am very disappointed in the lack of imagination and vision of union leadership."
I agree with you there. If the unions would guarantee the productivity of union members, and hence, their value to the business, they'd be an asset instead of a liability. That they aren't doing this this speaks to the last part of your post, I'm afraid
The concept of giving unions/members "ownership" in a company was a collossal failure with United Airlines. That's not to say there isn't a successful model for this somewhere.
ping
That is incorrect. I have a "Made in Ohio" Honda that has a higher US part content (80%)than the Ford I owned previously. I also worked (long ago) for a US steel company that produced steel body panels for Toyota, Mitsuibishi and Honda. All the shipments were to the US plants of those companies.
I apologise. The comment about social diseases was for the other fellow I was replying to in the same message. It in no way applies to you or your arguments.
I think of treason as taking up arms and attacking my country. I'm obviously not doing that. Treason could also be spying for another country, or giving away secrets to one. I'm not doing that, either.
If treason is buying imported products, how about my Apple PowerBook G4? I just got it and it cost over $2,000. It was designed by Apple in California, but made in China. So I've given money to the evil Communists. I didn't particularly intend to do this, but I don't think there's a laptop maker on the planet that isn't in China now.
Intel microprocessors are made in Singapore. Memory chips are made in Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea. Dell laptops are made in China, too, probably in the same plant as my new PowerBook.
So it looks like you should put everyone in the computer manufacturing business in the US straight in the electric chair, because they sure didn't hire many American assembly line workers.
Treason, bloody treason! Off to the electric chair with them all!
Yes?
And if not, why should I not be free to do the same thing they're doing?
D
"No, we need merely balance the playing field against those who have artificially lower labor costs."
merely? That's a big word in this context! We export quite a lot in goods and services. You need to be prepared to sacrifice export services and industries - that are forged in a global competitive environment - for non-competitive domestic industries - that will be ever more non-competitive with protectionism.
I'm not for that.
You also have static economic reasoning. I submit that if we did what you suggest - a 25% tariff on everything imported, that you'd end up with fewer manufacturing jobs in the US than we have without them.
If it's a matter of government interest, maybe so. I certainly wouldn't be in Iraq if it weren't for the fact that Saddam was after our blood, in one way or the other.
But when it comes to using my own private money, which can't go very far at all in the US, I just don't see how supporting 10 Filipinos isn't better than supporting a single American.
The extreme reactions to this that I'm seeing are surprising to say the least. The noose? Treason? Electrocution?
In your opinion, would hearing something like that make me want to hire more American workers, or head to some other country, which hopefully doesn't have workers inclined to bring nooses, electrocuation or other unpleasant methods to the workplace?
D
Right, but the Corporations are based on law, and that is 80% of the economy, Gummint being the remainder. No further amendment of the Constitution is necessary: they got all they needed from the Fourteenth Amendment and the rest is done in law.
You have some interesting points, well made.
BS, what is the unemployment rate (about 5%)?
No and yes.
Notice the level of debate that you initiated.
Havoc the dunce.
No, I was just highlighting the fact that many sleep in the beds that they make, and/or are unwilling to adapt to changes.
I am all for paying for your own way, and I have student loans to prove it.
My career path looks limited, so I have spent the last 2+ years developing my own business, which should provide for me financially as well as intellectually. If you don't like what your doing, change it!
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