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Working More, Getting Paid Less
Productivity rose 8.1 percent in the third quarter, the largest gain since 2003, as employers pile more on their staff. Meanwhile, pay is stagnating and worker stress increasing because of the larger workloads and the constant fear of being thrown out of a job to join the more than 15 million workers officially unemployed.
A Los Angeles Times story points to how rising productivity, while good for the economy, is not benefiting America’s workers. According to Thomas A. Kochan, a professor of management at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, productivity gains are troubling because so far,
they haven’t been accompanied by wage increases….The threat of outsourcing has also made employees more reluctant to press for higher wages, he said, when they know that if they push too hard, their jobs could disappear.
The result?
Anxiety is rippling across the workplace. A survey by CareerBuilder released last month indicated that a quarter of employers rated their employees’ morale as low. Nearly half of employees said their workload had increased in the last six months, and 40% said their stress level at work was high. About one in five workers surveyed were dissatisfied with their work-life balance.
Read the full article here.
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9 Comments
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One reason for low wages is rising health care premiums.
Most will not complain because they know they need health care, but eventually it will affect their morale.
My employer payments for benefits represents 1/3 of my total wage compensation package and I haven’t seen a raise in over 4 years.
Essentially I am subsidizing the insurance industry by foregoing increased wages for benefits.
Yes! I agree. Now what are the unions, our politicians we voted in office, and our churches we support are going to do about men and women working more and getting paid less? You cannot ask the poor to solve these labor problems because they are already destitute enough. The bourgeois, the scholarly classes, the academias, the proletariats, the lower and upper middle-classes must respond first; and finally the poor can join in and assist in the defeat of the oppressive, unfair, and reigning oligarchic classes who are stealing hard working men and women’s labor, oppressing these hard working men and women, and denying these hard working men and women the pursuits of happiness, joy, the ecstasies of life, and the real essence of life.
Alma Glover
Well, just look at Boeing, they took their second production line to South Carolina, just because the Union Machinist’s voted out the Union (I.A.M.A.W.), out of their Factory. This is hard to believe that Boeing would do such a thing, when, I went to work for them at $12.72/Hour as a new hire on the 787-3 line in 06/2007, after an unpaid training/testing period. These are the kind of wages (and lower), that “We The People/Working Class Wage Slaves”, can expect for the Future of Flight and a lot of other Jobs, in the U.S.A. Personally, I’m tired of being “Trickled On”, by a dead President (Ronald RayGun), and being told by my Government and Corporate Government Leaders, that I’m not Trained enough, I don’t have the necessary skills for the Job, etc. That’s their excuse to get “Us”, to work for wages closer to what an Illegal Immigrant will work for in the U.S.A. When Boeing the Corporation and not the I.A.M. 751, chose to go on Strike, it caused me to find other employment (and fortunately as well as unfortunately, I did), which caused me to quit Boeing, in disgust, in part, due to the abuse on the Factory Floor and from other Union “Brothers and some Sisters”, being treated as unworthy and insignificant and “It’s OK, to abuse this guy”, kind of treatment. Since, I have already been through a number of other, at the bottom positions, over the many years of working toward the fictitious American Dream, and now the Dreamliner, I made the poor choice of staying with the I.B.E.W. after the Boeing Strike (Should have gone back, no matter how much it Sucked), and now I’m headed toward Homelessness in the U.S.A. Eventhough, I did get in on the tail end of a CAT/TB/WIA Training Program that I wasn’t made aware of when I first became unemployed/unemployable. At least, I should be able to finish about 30 to 40 Credit Hours in an Accounting program, before I wind up on the Streets, in the U.S.A. With 6 years of service in the U.S. Navy, and an A.A.S. Degree in Construction Management and a Journeyman Electrician EL01 License in the State of Washington and Boeing won’t/hasn’t taken me back/yet, I hope they do, because apparently, they’re the only game in town (Everett).
Right now, I’d be willing to go to Charleston, S.C., just for a Job, since Unemployment is really at about 30%, if everyone is actually counted.
This is the “New World Order and Globalization”, and I HATE IT!
How about You?
I hear many people complaining about unions and claiming their day has come and gone but this story points out their need. Unions bargain for workers rights to have fair wages and benefits. I appreciate the fact that I worked in a union job and as a result of that was able to retire comfortably at just under fifty seven years of age. I just wish the unions would stop trying to convince us that ‘bringing illegals into the fold’ is good for all workers. Illegals are NOT good for this country or her workers.
Would the AFL-CIO, in response to such situations, support federal legislation to cut work hours through amendment of the Fair Labor Standards Act? Comment on this please.
Employee Free Choice Act Now.
This is the answer. We get this and our lives will be much easier. This is nothing new all employers want us to work harder for less every damn one of em
Ladies and Gentlemen, I as you am a Union Member. I, as the person of comment #4, am retired. I have no idea how old each of you are, but #4 and I watched this all happen from the beginning. I started fighting this problem when I noticed it starting in the late 60′s and early 70′s. No one would listen and this problem we have now has been 40 years developing. I am sorry, but there are no quick fixes for this one. When outsourcing and foreign imports began, I told all who would listen that if they participated in buying these foreign products it would be the same as selling their jobs in the end and now you see where we are now. I agree with #4 on Illegal Aliens. We do not need them and if we do there is the H1B Worker Immigration program. We have laws and we need to enforce them. The problem we have now is that we are now competing in an International Market against a foreign wage scale. Big business is not concerned about us, they are only thinking about profits. Our Government Representatives don’t understand Our problems because most of them have never worked and are busy grabbing all they can get for themselves. Democrat or Republican, it makes no difference, they are about the same. It hasn’t made any difference which one was in office, the problem we have now has been progressing for 80 or 90 years in one way or another. It is being controlled by big money in the International Banking System and Government.
We are going to have to either educate new representatives or enter politics ourselves. We may not know a lot about government, but we do know what our problems are and have a fair idea what needs to be done to fix them. For our import trade has gotten completelyout of hand. We’ve forced our manufacturing Industry out of the United States by buying cheap foreign products. We didn’t always have Income Tax, Our Country operated on excise taxes collected on foreign goods imported into Our Country. We now have little if any import tax, but most other countries have what they call a Value Added Tax that can amount to 25% or more. The trade rules have to be changed for us to survive. It took us 40 plus years to get in this condition and I hope to God it doesn’t take that long to get it fixed. We’re in a heap of trouble boys and girls, and it’s going to take a lot of work to get us out of this situation.
We started out with 3rd world wages back in the 20′s and 30′s but I don’t believe we have the time to let the rest of the world catch up with us, because the longer it takes the more they are going to bring us down to their wage rate. We’re already on the way. We, over many years took part in the development of the most Industrialized Nation in the World and we have lost it. We can’t even clothe ourselves and soon, we, the breadbasket of the world will not be able to feed ourselves. Do you have any idea who is the largest meat packer in the world ? Brazil, and they own most of the packing plants in our country. We have a serious problem.
I don’t have the answer, but I do have some ideas and we are all going to have to sit down in small groups and discuss our ideas. We can then combine our ideas from all the different groups and possibly come up with a plan of action.
One thing I do know is that a large part of our representatives in Washington can’t solve our problems because they have become a part of the problem. A lot of changes are goin to have be made in both parties.
Well enough for now, I hope you all have a very MERRY CHRISTMAS.
[...] Work more–Less Pay! Productivity rose 8.1 percent in the third quarter, the largest gain since 2003, as employers pile more on their staff. Meanwhile, pay is stagnating and worker stress increasing because of the larger workloads and the constant fear of being thrown out of a job to join the more than 15 million workers officially unemployed. A Los Angeles Times story points to how rising productivity, while good for the economy, is not benefiting America
Immigrant workers ARE NOT the reason that the bosses get more production out of us with NO wage increase! The problem has many factors including: 1) weak labor laws, 2) sold out politicians from both parties whose only concern is for the corporate class,
3) a weak labor movement dependent on the corrupt two party system that does not represent our interests.
People working here without legal documents are NOT taking jobs that require a lot of skill or that even pay decent wages! The issue of the so-called illegals is one created to divide workers from the real culprit; CAPITALIST EXPLOITATION! If anyone out there still believes that we have a true democracy in the U.S., well folks you need to wake up! While we work for stagnant wages, while we go without adequate healthcare, the corporate bosses continue to live in immense wealth at our expense! The REAL enemy is the corporate boss and his toadies in both political parties! We need an independent, viable, worker controlled party that speaks for us!