Not that anyone -- least of all American factory workers over the last three decades -- needs to be reminded that corporations have little regard for the private lives of working people, the recent International Association of Machinists (IAM) strike against the Caterpillar plant in Joliet, Illinois, removes any lingering doubts.
Apparently, Caterpillar saw these negotiations as an opportunity to stick it to their workers, once and for all. What Caterpillar effectively said to the IAM was this: No matter how healthy we are as a company, no matter how profitable we become, and no matter how much cold, hard cash we manage to rake in, we never, ever, under any conditions, will share one more nickel with the hourly workforce than is absolutely, positively necessary.
It was announced Wednesday (Aug. 15)http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/18/business/striking-caterpillar-workers-ratify-contract-offer.html that IAM district leadership (as opposed to local leadership, directly answerable to the rank-and-file) had reached a tentative agreement with Caterpillar management which, if ratified, would have ended the 15-week strike (approximately 780 workers went out on May 1).
According to reports, the company's LBF (last, best and final offer) was very close to the concession-laden LBF that precipitated the strike in the first place and resulted in the membership spending 15 long, agonizing weeks on the bricks, drawing only $150 a week in strike benefits. Among other things, the contract called for a staggering six-year freeze on wages and benefits -- this from a company making billions of dollars in profits.
Not only was the wage freeze being offered with a straight face, it was being presented as one of those "If you don't like it, you can rot in Hell" propositions. It's true. The company indicated that if the union didn't play ball, they were prepared to fire everybody and take their chances with a brand new workforce. Although there was widespread resentment of the offer, the membership, by a narrow margin, voted on Friday to accept it. In truth, they had little choice. You can only remain on bricks so long. Any longer, and a "strike" turns into a "siege."
Last winter, Caterpillar revealed its dark side. Appealing to that wildly misleading wage statistic known as "fair market," Caterpillar insisted that the 450 workers at its London, Ontario, plant take a whopping 55-percent wage cut. When the workers balked (and who wouldn't?), the company locked them out. And when the membership, who viewed these tactics as a form of economic extortion, demonstrated that they were unwilling to roll over, Caterpillar shut down the entire factory and moved away. Period. No more jobs.
Caterpillar is doing spectacularly well financially. Profits are at a record high and forecasts for the future are rosy. Moreover, management is so confident and comfortable being in the driver's seat, they didn't even try cosmetically to cook the books for negotiating purposes. Caterpillar executives were more than willing to admit that business is booming. In fact, they bragged about it.
Last year the company earned a record $4.9 billion in profits, and expects to come in even higher this year. But, alas, they also vowed that none of that increase -- none of that marvelous windfall - -was going to end up in the pockets of the people who actually did the work. The way they see it, why would you give people more money than you have to? Only a fool would pay more than necessary.
Adding insult to injury, Caterpillar executives are clinging to the fiction that they have no choice but to freeze wages because their pay scale is already higher than the "fair market." Of course, the insanely bitter irony here is that today's "fair market" wage is a grossly misleading statistic -- the tragic result of a concerted, two-decades long assault on American earnings.
Which is why the middle-class is shrinking so alarmingly. It's not unemployment that is killing the middle-class; it's the depletion of jobs that pay a decent wage. While bottom-line fundamentalists like Caterpillar proudly see themselves as benefactors to their stockholders, what they are, in fact, is subverters of the American Dream. And if labor unions can't put the brakes on this thing, who can?
David Macaray, a Los Angeles playwright and author ("It's Never Been Easy: Essays on Modern Labor"), was a former labor union rep. He can be reached at dmacaray@earthlink.net
Corwin.Cruel.Kind.But,for you
The US middle class and working class didn't care when Dollar Diplomacy destroyed workers in various nations. They comfortably rested under the umbrella of Empire. Well, the tides have changed.
Now, many developing societies can produce skilled, semi-skilled, and unskilled workers which are globally competitive.
The western laborer better wake up. As they watch 35 hours of TV per week, and live obese, others around the world are competing for their jobs.
The USA and most of the European PIIGS nations are living by spending money borrowed back from individuals in the industrialized nations in order to have sufficient government funds to pay their government employees, government contracts, and pensions for their retirees, instead of re-industrializing to create new national wealth through manufacturing and exporting products to foreign nations in return or exchange for foreign gold, or the equivalent in currencies that still have value.
1. plant, grow and/or harvest something of commercial value from the earth;
2. extract something of commercial value from the earth;
3. manufacture something of commercial value that is consumable
4. construct a building that is permanently useful for rental income;
5. provide professional services (medical, legal, dental, engineering, architecture, land surveying, technology, accounting, etc.);
6. collect payment for patent and copyright uses;
and if they then trade, sell, lease or rent these items and/or services to parties outside of their family, in return for a net transfer of gold, currency or commodities from other parties outside of their family into their own family, then that family is enriched.
The members of that family (tribe, city, state, nation) can then reflect the amount of their real NATIONAL WEALTH and financial security with their net positive accumulation of privately owned grain, gold, cattle, jewels, land, buildings, hotels, casinos, factories, commodities and/or other marketable products that are then available to be used for economic security, to construct infrastructure, for reserve use in times of emergency, and/or as value to redeem any printed paper bonds or currency that they might issue.
(same as the old Aristocracy)
Oh! And by the way, Teapers, Freepers, Fundies and Foamers, Don't complain when you get what you asked for......
The buying power of your paper US dollars will go to zero if/when the US government starts printing US dollars like Mexico prints Pesos to pay their federally employed bureaucrats.
Even the Billionaires assets will only support them for a few months!
Your life savings might only buy food for a week for your family!
Your local city police, firemen, sewer workers, water plant operators, and others will certainly walk off of the job!
The privately employed Electrical, TV and Telephone workers will also walk off of the job.
The more that I think about it, US corporations and other US businesses did not just ship their jobs overseas, they just started buying the same products, parts, subassemblies and services from foreign overseas industrial and manufacturing companies, and then stopped buying products made by US manufacturers who then closed their own US located factories and fired all of their US employees as allowed, encouraged and ECONOMICALLY REQUIRED by the US "FREE TRADE AGREEMENTS" (that were created in the last 20 years by the Republican and Democrat presidents and members of the US congress that the US citizens elected) instead of going bankrupt.
US Retail Businesses did not benefit from the US "FREE TRADE AGREEMENTS " that were created in the last 20 years because these US retail businesses still have to compete with each other on an equal product cost footing as before (with US made products) to supply the US consumer's demand for the very lowest price possible for each product purchase, but US businesses most now compete at the lower price/costs of imported foreign manufactured products because US consumers will not pay anything extra for US made products.
1. US labor costs are many many times as much as Foreign Labor according to the DOL website:
ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/ForeignLabor/ichccpwsuppt01.txt
2. US Labor costs are in addition to the recently added cost of Extended Unemployment Benefits, National Healthcare Reform, existing and proposed new environmental laws, plus multiple fold increased cost of electrical energy that is generated in the USA in compliance with US EPA regulations makes doing business in the USA less competitive in the Market place for jobs as those costs are added to US company payroll costs. Those costs are hindering US businesses that are competing for manufacturing jobs for US citizens in the USA instead of businesses relocating or creating those jobs to foreign nations.
3. The National Healthcare Reform cost is going to make the USA even less competitive in the Market place as that costs is added to US company payroll costs and preventing the location of any new manufacturing jobs into the USA, and/or preventing the keeping of existing US jobs in the USA.
4. The increasing cost of compliance with existing and proposed new environmental laws is making the USA even less competitive in the Market place that is competing for locating new manufacturing jobs into the USA, and/or keeping existing US jobs in the USA.
6. Existing environmental laws, and the anticipated costs of future environmental legislation that will be "piled onto" our remaining US located industries (that might elect to stay in the USA) are another factor causing the remainder of our US industries and US jobs to relocate to overseas locations. Foreign environmental manufacturing costs are generally known.
7. I live in Houston and we are afraid that the proposed "Cap and Trade" will eventually be passed by the US congress, and then our remaining petrochemical industries will relocate to foreign countries and then they will lay off most all of their thousands of Houston employees as they close down their refinery businesses.
Apparently you believe that the USA should adopt some type of socialist/communist big government like Russia (had) where everybody has a job working for the government (at union wages), the government owns everything, and the government collects everything that the people produce.
And then some politically appointed family connected government elite bureaucrat doles out the food, shelter, and clothing required to sustain our lives according to the bureaucrat’s whim, desire, or other subjective criteria?
Most of the individuals in any future communist USA would want to work at something other than producing the basic food, shelter, clothing and other products required to sustain life.
The producers would strive to become members the a non-producing greedy government elite bureaucratic society, demanding and wanting the disgruntled producers to produce more and more so that privileged individuals of the government elite bureaucratic society class can keep themselves busy as musicians, poets, actors, social workers, philosophers, historians, politicians, bureaucrats, administrators, police, firemen, judges, military, school teachers, and other endeavors that do not create any of the food, shelter and clothing necessary for maintaining the lives of the population.
Under the communist system, some citizens (the non-producing greedy elite family connected government bureaucrats) are "MORE EQUAL" than other citizens (the lower class citizens that make the things that the elite government bureaucrats (and the producers) consume!
US citizens would then have traded businessmen, industrialists and Wall Street financial wizards who now control the conditions and terms of their employment (or servitude) for an elite class of family connected (almost royal) government bureaucratic employees who will be controlling our employment (or our conditions of servitude), and they would then dole out our share of the necessities of life to each of us according to our needs, not according to the amount that we produced!
Why don't workers start, operate and own their own businesses today?
This is normally not possible in any of the nations with a socialist form of government, without bribing some government employee to get a permit.
Except for the fact that the job growth has been in the PRIVATE sector.
Lost here is the Profit factor...can private companies provide for the general population the safety, education, etc. needs at a price that all can afford.
There is a difference between having a business for profit that people can choose to need or not and those things that provide for the "common good" of the entire country.
Unless we TRULY want to return to the pioneer days, we have moved past the ability for a person to be able to provide for all of their needs.
We evolved to those things that were best done as a PUBLIC service and whether a person works for the "state" and is paid with tax dollars to provide for ALL or we all keep our money and TRY to hire people on our own (or even a smaller "group) we WILL pay for services.
But I still believe that if there is a need and someone can figure out how to provide the solution and do so at a profit, they will...if not, it doesn't change the need for the service and, therefore, there is a need and purpose for "Public Services".
Most Socialist countries, as far as I can tell, have people who are happy and work and enjoy their lives knowing the "basics" are provided (at a "fee") and the rest is for their use. We have friends in Sweden who do not worry about their healthcare (and one has Alzhiemers), they have educated their children, have their social retirement, worked all of their lives and saved, bought a house and always took a month of vacation each year (travelling the world). Doesn't sound so awful to me.
NAFTA was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on December 8, 1993 (about 1 yr after he was elected) and he then started enforcing NAFTA on January 1, 1994.
Where were the Union Labor Leaders that should have objected to NAFTA?
Today they say that they objected, but I do not remember them objecting, so maybe this is why Bill Clinton enacted NAFTA.
Why don't the US Labor Unions object to President Obama’s new Free Trade Agreements today?
President Obama's multiple new Free Trade Agreements will probably cause further relocation of more existing US jobs to other nations?
I guess another few more million unemployed US citizens does not matter to President Obama!
Surely the Union Leaders knew the employment implication results of NAFTA, but maybe not.
Republicans and Democrats are for exporting US jobs to foreign nations where workers are willing to work for less compensation than US workers.
All is doomed, unless the USA re-industrializes! "By any means possible!"
Maybe the union leaders were objecting to their rank and file members, but that was like "preaching to the Choir".
Why were the Union leaders not objecting to NAFTA? And all of the subsequent FTAs? And MFN cor China?
With their poilitical contributions to Bill Clinton, they had him in their pocket, so why did they let him create NAFTA. (He actually added Mexico to an existing canadian agreement and then he just renamed it "NAFTA" with great fanfare acknowledging his great economic creation.
I only remember a guy named Ross Perot objecting to the creation of NAFTA.
And what right do unions have to prevent 'scabs'. This is a free nation...people are allowed the right of contracts. You can offer a job, and someone can accept. The previous job holder has no say in this matter.
Maybe President Obama will ask Congress and the Senate to repeal all of his newly created FREE TRADE AGREEMENTS (treaties) because they will continue to cause the relocation of many more existing US jobs to foreign nations?
President Obama’s newly created FTAs will probably have the same results of "sucking our US jobs to Mexico" as when President Clinton signed NAFTA into law except that these US jobs will go to other nations this time. NAFTA was the first of many subsequent treaties created by many subsequent "FREE TRADE" legislation actions!
Now ,for the qui
I for one think American companies are purposefully destroying the American economy because of greed. It is not unreasonable for citizens to demand companies act responsibly which means that they have to live up to the environmental and other social standards we believe in. We do not have to live with corporations trying to enslave us like we are Chinese people. We can and will kick out of this country any corporation that is purposefully trying to destroy this nation. It is not ok for companies to sell their goods here and make them somewhere else. It is not ok for companies to move their operations overseas to flaunt our laws. It is not ok for corporations to leave their profits overseas to avoid taxation.
We can and will put the CEO's and shareholders of companies that seek to destroy America under our boots and we will take away their charters. They can leave but profits made in the US will be confiscated and they will never be allowed to return to this great nation again.
Let's say that someday you leaveyour parents basement and threaten the Bad Smart people .Lots of Bad Smart People are leaving Illinois presently.Jobs go with the Bad Smart people..Are you going to start a basement and breakfast to replace these jobs?
Is not taxing imported products entering the USA FAIR TRADE?
If the USA does not have extremely high taxes on imported products, then US citizens must compete with the lowest cost labor is whichever nation has the lowest paid workers if they want those jobs to be in the USA!
US businesses that consider hiring US workers for $10.00 per hour must also realize that they will have to pay additional payroll taxes for FICA, UI, HEALTHCARE, environmental compliance plus pay for Holidays, Vacations, Sick Pay, and other Benefits, Payroll Burden and other costs that add another ($5.00 minimum extra per hour plus the environmental compliance costs) large variable percentage to the amount that a US business pays to US employees as compared to the $2.00 or less per hour that an Asian worker is happy to receive without any of these extra payroll burden costs.
FREE TRADE AGREEMENTS economically require that US businesses must use foreign manufacturing costs if foreign costs are any less expensive than US costs in order to meet the US consumers demand for the lowest price possible for each purchase.