Workers lose jobs in economic "recovery"

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SOCIALIST ACTION FEBRUARY 1987 3 2.5 million factory jobs have disappeared in the last decade.

Steel is one of America's oldest in -dustries. But electronics, one of the newest, is also offering dwindling job oppor -tunities. With few exceptions televisions, radios, and tape recorders are no longer manufactured in the United States.

White-collar layoffs

Even clerical work has been transferred to low-wage countries. Instant satellite communication has made this possible. American Airlines sends its passenger tickets to be processed in Barbados. Computations from the West Indies are fed into a master computer in Tulsa, Okla.

As one manager remarked, it does not make any difference if the computer is around the corner or around the world. A data processor might make $250 a week in the United States. In Barbados the weekly wage is $50.

For the first time since the Great Depression, middle-management and white-collar workers-who expected lifetime careers-are finding themselves out on the street.

General Motors has 142,000 white-collar workers. They expect to lay off 35,000 of SoCiALise Closing date: Jan. 24, 1987 Editor: ALAN BENJAMIN Asst. Editor: MICHAEL SCHREIBER Staff: Paul Colvin, Suzanne Forsyth, May May Gong, David Kirschner, Hayden Perry, Joe Ryan, Carole Seligman, Kwame M.A. Somburu, Sylvia Weinstein.

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Signed articles by contributors do not necessarily represent the views of So -cialist Action. These are expressed in editorials. them by 1989 as divisions are consolidated and office automation shrinks the clerical staff. AT&T has eliminated 45,000 jobs in the last two years. As for lifetime careers, as one manager put it: "We have to reassess our commitment to our workers."

Not all the unemployed are in the cities. Out in the country working farmers are losing their land and livelihood as they struggle under a mountain of debt. Foreign buyers are fading away as other countries foodstuffs than it sold abroad.

The prices American farmers get for their crops won't pay the interest on their debts, and they get sold out by the bank. As displaced farmers move off the land, businesses in farm towns close and more workers lose their jobs. The farmequipment industry has laid off thousands of workers—who have little prospect of being rehired.

"Restructuring" America

Not all layoffs are due to the flight of capital to low-wage countries. With the end of the post-war economic boom, cor -porations have had to slim down and cut costs. In the process middle management, white collar, and production workers are laid off.

If management fails to restructure the corporation, the dreaded raider will do it even more ruthlessly. These pirates seize control of a company by buying its stock-usually with borrowed money. This is debt that the captive company must repay by superexploitation of its work force and sale of its assets.

When the raiders come aboard, everybody's job is at risk. The old management is soon out, but often with golden parachutes-pensions and bonuses that put them on easy street. The rest of the crew is left to fend for themselves.

There are few reports of new jobs being created through a takeover, but plenty of horror stories of mass layoffs as the new management moves in. Wells Fargo laid off 2000 employees when it merged with Crocker Bank in California.

One group of workers learned they were out of a job when their discount cards were no longer honored at the company cafeteria. At another company, locks were changed on certain doors employees lunch.

It was explained that morale often sank so low when layoffs were announced that computer programs might be threatened. Better to avoid the low morale and bitterness until the jobless workers are out on the street.

Restructuring corporations is often a means of eliminating union contracts and union jobs. Lucky Stores in California has closed its Gemco chain of discount stores, laying off 2300 union employees. The chain will reopen soon with a new name but none of the old employees.

Dayton Hudson Corp., which bought the Lucky chain, will hire an entirely new non-union crew. Local 1100 of the Retail Clerks union has lost 41 percent of its members through stores in the San Francisco Bay Area closing down and reopening as non-union discount houses.

Even if a firm is making money, higherpaid workers can lose their jobs when two-tier contracts are signed. These permit the employer to pay a lower wage to newly hired workers. Older workers may be conned into thinking this would not affect them. But soon subtle pressure, or not-sosubtle pressure, is exerted to ease them out so lower-paid workers can replace them.

Economists estimate that over 13 million jobs have been lost in the last five years. Yet the official unemployment rate (which is greatly understated) has remained close to 7 percent.

This is because some 9 million new jobs have been created-nearly all service jobs such as fast foods, fitness salons, express mail companies, instant printers, and video rental stores. About 67 percent of those laid off find low-paid unorganized jobs of this type.

Nearly three-fifths of the new jobs created between 1979 and 1984 paid less than $7000 a year. A steel worker often earns less than half the wage he or she made in the mill.

Earnings are also reduced by the tendency of employers to offer only part-time and temporary jobs. About 25 percent of the workforce work at home, for outside contractors, or part time. The percentage of these "contingent" workers has doubled since 1980.

In retail trade, 40 percent of the work force is part time. Airlines employ nearly 50,000 part timers. Wages average $4.17 an hour vs. $7.05 for full timers.

Employers also cut costs by contracting out some of their work. A pipe fitter at the USX Gary Works steel plant—earning $13 an hour-was laid off when the company contracted out that part of their production. The laid-off worker was rehired by the contractor to do exactly the same work—but for $5 an hour and no insurance or other benefits.

Restructuring corporate America means restructuring workers into two tiers. A thin layer of better paid union workers remains at the top. But these workers are in constant fear of being pushed into the lower tier of unorganized "contingent" workers and service workers who often live only slightly above the poverty line.

Below the poverty line are the unemployed. The many homeless and hungry are becoming more and more visible on our city streets.

T'he capıtalıst establishment has gıven up on the unemployed. They say a 7 percent official rate—-or 8 million unemployed-is equivalent to full employment since workers are moving from job to job. Up to now, an unemployment rate of 4 percent was considered cause for concern.

Union bureaucrats have also ignored the unemployed and unorganized. They have sought only to preserve their own jobs by giving concessions to ever rapacious bosses. This has not stopped the precipi -tous decline in union membership.

Calling for "Buy American" campaigns is counterproductive. What is an "Amer -ican" car? Parts for a car made in Detroit come from a dozen countries around the world.

A better slogan for the labor movement would be "Thirty for Forty"-cut the workweek to 30 hours with no reduction in pay in order to create new jobs.

A major task of the labor movement is to extend protection to the impoverished service workers. This calls for an organizing drive with all the power and enthusiasm generated by the rise of the CIO in the 1930s.

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increase their food production. In 1986, the United States actually imported more