RedCeltic
30th December 2003, 14:18
The White-Collar Blues By Bob Herbert
New York Times December 29, 2003
Iam surprised at how passive American workers have become.
A couple of million factory positions have disappeared in the short time
since we raised our glasses to toast the incoming century. And now the
white-collar jobs are following the blue-collar jobs overseas.
Americans are working harder and have become ever more productive -
astonishingly productive - but are not sharing in the benefits of their
increased effort. If you think in terms of wages, benefits and the
creation of good jobs, the employment landscape is grim.
The economy is going great guns, we're told, but nearly nine million
Americans are officially unemployed, and the real tally of the jobless
is much higher. Even as the Bush administration and the media celebrate
the blossoming of statistics that supposedly show how well we're doing,
the lines at food banks and soup kitchens are lengthening. They're
swollen in many cases by the children of men and women who are working
but not making enough to house and feed their families.
I.B.M. has crafted plans to send thousands of upscale jobs from the U.S.
to lower-paid workers in China, India and elsewhere. Anyone who doesn't
believe this is the wave of the future should listen to comments made
last spring by an I.B.M. executive named Harry Newman:
"I think probably the biggest impact to employee relations and to the
H.R. field is this concept of globalization. It is rapidly accelerating,
and it means shifting a lot of jobs, opening a lot of locations in
places we had never dreamt of before, going where there's low-cost
labor, low-cost competition, shifting jobs offshore."
An executive at Microsoft, the ultimate American success story, told his
department heads last year to "Think India," and to "pick something to
move offshore today."
These matters should be among the hottest topics of our national
conversation. We've already witnessed the carnage in manufacturing jobs.
Now, with white-collar jobs at stake, we've got executives at I.B.M. and
Microsoft exchanging high-fives at the prospect of getting "two heads
for the price of one" in India.
It might be a good idea to throw a brighter spotlight on some of these
trends and explore the implications for the long-term economy and the
American standard of living.
"If you take this to its logical extreme, the implications for the
entire middle-class wage structure in the United States are terrifying,"
said Thea Lee, an economist with the A.F.L.-C.I.O. "Now is the time to
start thinking about policy solutions."
But that's exactly what we're not thinking about. Government policy at
the moment is focused primarily on what's best for the corporations.
From that perspective, job destruction and wage compression are good
things - as long as they don't get too much high-profile attention.
"This is a significant problem, much greater than we believed it was
even a year ago," said Marcus Courtney, president of the Washington
Alliance of Technology Workers, an affiliate of the Communication
Workers of America.
Accurate data on the number of jobs already lost are all but impossible
to come by. But there is no disputing the direction of the trend, or the
fact that it is accelerating. Allowing this movement to continue
unchecked will eventually mean economic suicide for hundreds of
thousands, if not millions, of American families.
Globalization may be a fact of life. But that does not mean that its
destructive impact on American families can't be mitigated. The best
thing workers can do, including white-collar and professional workers,
is to organize. At the same time, the exportation of jobs and the effect
that is having on the standard of living here should be relentlessly
monitored by the government, the civic sector and the media. The public
has a right to know what's really going on.
Trade agreements and tax policies should be examined and updated to
encourage the creation of employment that enhances the quality of life
here at home. Corporate leaders may not feel an obligation to contribute
to the long-term well-being of local communities or the nation as a
whole, but that shouldn't be the case with the rest of us.
New York Times December 29, 2003
Iam surprised at how passive American workers have become.
A couple of million factory positions have disappeared in the short time
since we raised our glasses to toast the incoming century. And now the
white-collar jobs are following the blue-collar jobs overseas.
Americans are working harder and have become ever more productive -
astonishingly productive - but are not sharing in the benefits of their
increased effort. If you think in terms of wages, benefits and the
creation of good jobs, the employment landscape is grim.
The economy is going great guns, we're told, but nearly nine million
Americans are officially unemployed, and the real tally of the jobless
is much higher. Even as the Bush administration and the media celebrate
the blossoming of statistics that supposedly show how well we're doing,
the lines at food banks and soup kitchens are lengthening. They're
swollen in many cases by the children of men and women who are working
but not making enough to house and feed their families.
I.B.M. has crafted plans to send thousands of upscale jobs from the U.S.
to lower-paid workers in China, India and elsewhere. Anyone who doesn't
believe this is the wave of the future should listen to comments made
last spring by an I.B.M. executive named Harry Newman:
"I think probably the biggest impact to employee relations and to the
H.R. field is this concept of globalization. It is rapidly accelerating,
and it means shifting a lot of jobs, opening a lot of locations in
places we had never dreamt of before, going where there's low-cost
labor, low-cost competition, shifting jobs offshore."
An executive at Microsoft, the ultimate American success story, told his
department heads last year to "Think India," and to "pick something to
move offshore today."
These matters should be among the hottest topics of our national
conversation. We've already witnessed the carnage in manufacturing jobs.
Now, with white-collar jobs at stake, we've got executives at I.B.M. and
Microsoft exchanging high-fives at the prospect of getting "two heads
for the price of one" in India.
It might be a good idea to throw a brighter spotlight on some of these
trends and explore the implications for the long-term economy and the
American standard of living.
"If you take this to its logical extreme, the implications for the
entire middle-class wage structure in the United States are terrifying,"
said Thea Lee, an economist with the A.F.L.-C.I.O. "Now is the time to
start thinking about policy solutions."
But that's exactly what we're not thinking about. Government policy at
the moment is focused primarily on what's best for the corporations.
From that perspective, job destruction and wage compression are good
things - as long as they don't get too much high-profile attention.
"This is a significant problem, much greater than we believed it was
even a year ago," said Marcus Courtney, president of the Washington
Alliance of Technology Workers, an affiliate of the Communication
Workers of America.
Accurate data on the number of jobs already lost are all but impossible
to come by. But there is no disputing the direction of the trend, or the
fact that it is accelerating. Allowing this movement to continue
unchecked will eventually mean economic suicide for hundreds of
thousands, if not millions, of American families.
Globalization may be a fact of life. But that does not mean that its
destructive impact on American families can't be mitigated. The best
thing workers can do, including white-collar and professional workers,
is to organize. At the same time, the exportation of jobs and the effect
that is having on the standard of living here should be relentlessly
monitored by the government, the civic sector and the media. The public
has a right to know what's really going on.
Trade agreements and tax policies should be examined and updated to
encourage the creation of employment that enhances the quality of life
here at home. Corporate leaders may not feel an obligation to contribute
to the long-term well-being of local communities or the nation as a
whole, but that shouldn't be the case with the rest of us.