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.
Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesh...it's FRAUD when you mess with someone else's post.
oh Paaahhhleeeze!
that is ridiculous....
when I shop for a car- I worry about safety, I worry about gas mileage, I worry about how many seatbelts it has- since I have 3 kids- and we like to take friends camping with us, etc...
It is NOT THE GOVERNMENT'S JOB to tell corporations how to make thier products. The government is the most inefficient part of this country. They vote twice on weather or not to vote on a resolution that ends up with a vote of over 200 to THREE!
Make your case- don't throw out ridiculous questions that insinuate you KNOW something and then throw out pathetic things like...
"you don't pay attention.........very unconservative of you"
How old are you, 12?
I have run 2 political campaigns, have lobbied my state legislators, been escorted out of my state capitol by 2 state police officers, spent Saturday afternoon with Herman Cain in his studio while he did his show... don't you talk down to me about not paying attention...LOL!
stop with hyperbole and make your point. I am not opposed to learning anything you may know that I don't. I am not arrogant and all knowing. My original post here was asking questions- you were the one that went lunatic about welfare, illegal immigration and neighbors.....
LOL!
I agree with the several replies that you posted. Yes sir, stick to the topic. The topic is economics. The fact that we stray from the individuals in the posted article matters little to me. It's still economics, in particular jobs and the availability of jobs for citizens.
Well, the government-estimated population of ILLEGAL immigrants is somewhere around ten million. That affect jobs -- that's a a fact not tinfoil hat stuff.
So here is the connection to ILLEGAL and legal immigrants all included in what the study calls "recent immigrants," citizens and jobs:
"The number of new immigrant employed who came into the U.S. between 2001 and 2003 was estimated to be somewhere between 1.7 and 1.9 million in 2003 while the number of employed native born and established immigrants fell by more than one million between 2000 and 2003."
The study is by the Center for Labor Market Studies Northeastern University Boston, Massachusetts. Similar studies were releases over the past couple of years by Pew Hispanic Center and the Center for Immigration Studies.
This one, "New Immigrants in the Labor Force and the Number of Employed New Immigrants in the U.S. from 2000 through 2003: Continued Growth Amidst Declining Employment Among the Native Born Population", is at
http://www.nupr.neu.edu/01-04/immigration_jan.pdf
Any comments?
are you trying to refer to the fact that Ford and Mazda are the same thing nowadays? I worked on cars- ran a shop for a few years in the mid 90's- so I know all about the fact that much of the Fords are NOT 100% made here in America- especially the parts....
Are you suggesting that the gov't try to force companies to keep all operations within the country? That's REAL conservative.....oy!
this may not be what you are trying to say-- but at this point I am left to guessing because you are not being clear or making any points.....
What alternative universe would that be, aha now I see, the one that features the motto "IN FREE TRADE WE TRUST" on all the coinage; heck, by the same token we ought to do away with standing armies, jails and prisons, police, and criminal and admiralty courts... more enlightened economic policies should make all of that evil government overhead unnecessary too...
Lecture me all you wish.....or pretend to. I live it every day in a Fortune 10 corporation. I know how it works, friend.
You are deluded. QtQ results are not related to 'liquidity' in the slightest. That's just a joke. Get out from behind that computer and come play in the real world and see how it's REALLY played.
Hedgetrimmer believes that GATT, which established the WTO, was unconstitutional even though it was approved by a two-thirds vote in each house of congress. Of course, now the assumption is that the WTO, along with their cohorts at the UN, dictate how we must conduct all trade, effectively usurping congress and, therefore, all American citizens. The Canadian softwood debate notwithstanding.
Next thing you know, thugs from the OAS will be showing up at our front door demanding our vitamin supplements, chlorophyll tablets and St. John's Wort.
You can take my vitamins when you pry them from my cold dead fingers!!
THANK YOU!
LOL! I am well aware that the illegal immigration is effecting our economy. I am sick of the lies that they only do jobs no one else wants to do- that's a flat out LIE!
But in this story- I tend to think the REAL problem for Ford has been the UNIONS- not illegal immigrants....
am I wrong?
And it was you, who had claimed that I no longer had any representation in government.
You really DO need to read your own posts and at least try to remember what you have written. :-)
LOL! well- you have yet to tell me what the heck you are talking about! LOL!
WHAT DOES WELFARE AND ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS HAVE TO DO WITH THIS UAW Pres not having a secure job? I submit to you- this man has already stated he was at the same place for over 30 yrs!!!!! LOL! How many Americans have had THAT kind of JOB SECURITY? Not to mention- it is his UAW ACTIVITIES that have lead to the BULK of this man's problems...LOL!
My remark you just re-posted is VERY SILLY-- lol-- because it was following YOUR TRAIN OF THOUGHT!!! LOL! Thank you for making my case!
this is just too much fun.....
I'm waiting for the next crop of culprits to be inveighed against...you know, the buildyourownburgers and the Masons and the Jooooooooooos. LOL
Gosh, you're lucky to have an LOL key. It must save you scads of time typing.
Prior to the end of WW II, almost NO businesses/companies/corporations gave their employees free health insurance. You got sick, YOU took care of it! After WW II, the unions forced some companies to include free health insurance to their employees and the cost and coverage has now escalated to gigantic proportions. So has the cost of being ill or injured.
Add to that, the salaries and pensions which the unions squeezed out of companies and early retirements, at full or almost full pay, including health care and that is what has REALLY brought Ford to the brink.
The great and glorious American steel industry was brought down, way back in the early '60s, by outrageous demands, a sitting president ( JFK ) who has less than no idea how to govern, let alone handle the strikes, and now, we have posters here, ranting about foreign steel.
wow- and I just got here today.... LOL!
(here meaning the whole economics thing....)
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