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.
Oh, absolutely! And that's a mighty fine use of Reynold's Wrap, in your picture. :-)
Believe me honey, the LAST thing I want to do is "attract" you!
I've noticed your arrogance sloshing all over your posts on this thread. Seems to me that you were suspended not too long ago for invoking a special relationship with the mods that you did not actually have.
Shall we revisit it?
It is a conflatist argument.
I take a $20 gold coin from your pocket and replace it with two pennies. You claim I cheated you out of your wealth; I claim that you now have more change in your pocket than before I made the transaction.
Who is accurate?
Answer: we are both accurate, but one of us is conflating a numeric increase with an increase in personal wealth.
Look carefully at statistics and look carefully at how statistics are interpreted. You will find conflatists, if you choose to look.
An increase in jobs is not necessarily an increase in wealth or quality of life. Those who unilaterally claim otherwise-- I would not recommend buying used cars from any of them.
NOT on a first date!
SOME of us have standards, LOL!
hedgey is a SHE?
well that explains all the emotional ranting....that made no sense.... what did Jack say in that movie..."As Good As It Gets"? something about taking away all rational thought... something like that....
LOL! See now that is FUNNY!
I didn't realize we were dating though.....I would have brought flowers, candy, and a leash...
Secondly, bringing old fights, from thread to thread, is a punishable offense here. Would you like to try it out? Got a suspension wish going; having you? ;^)
Thirdly, you don't know what you're talking about and attempting to bait me, is a sure and certain way of not obtaining your heart's desire.
"Arrogance"? MY "arrogance"? ROTFLMSO
GOT IT!
"First, I imagine a man, and then I take away accountability and reason." -- Jack
Nicholson's secret for understanding women.....
That doesn't hold true for all women; especially not all FREEPER women. But I still question that that poster is a she. There are far more emotional male posters here, than female ones. :-)
Haven't you ever seen a domestic content label on a car?
Hi Mr. Redwoods. I enjoy your little-l logic. Let's take it a step further shall we.
If I can get human organs cheaper from Red China than from the US and other first-world countries, why should I and other pay more for the latter?
Let's take it one step further. Let's say *you* are living in Red China, that *you* are in a political prison, and it's *your* organs I am talking about getting for cheap.
Mr. Redwoods, by your little-l logic, why indeed should I pay more for domestic human organs when I can buy *your* organs for less?
Likewise, if *your* job is offshored to a Red Chinese political prison for pennies on your former wage dollar, give me a reason why I should care using your little-l logic.
Yes, I know the movie...LOL
LOL! Being a female I TOTALLY AGREE! but in this case- it seems to fit so well!
I like being able to live both worlds! As far as women FReepers go-- HECK! look at the LIB women....and the LIB men! LOL!
FREEPERS in general are usually less emotionally charged to the point of losing reason! But we are PASSIONATE- a huge difference.... watching Dowd fall apart on the public print pages is pathetic....poor thing is a mess.....
but we have Coulter, Malkin, etc.... WE ROCK!
I don't worry about calories when automobile shopping....
Given where we live, and with two youngsters, it couldn't possibly have have been any better. Hope yours was the same!
That quote of mine, was questioning your ridiculous supposition that my rights had been taken away. It read: "THEY TOOK AWAY MY RIGHT AND ABILITY TO VOTE?"
Thanks it was, but I could really have done without the snow. Perhaps, one day, I too will share your kind of Christmas. :-)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.