Like the laid-off mechanic described above, most Americans find increasingly bleak prospects of higher-paying full-time jobs, especially in manufacturing. Nearly two and a half million US production jobs were lost from 1981 to 1992, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, including a net job loss in production of computers and semiconductors. From February 1993 to February 1994, roughly 10,000 production jobs were lost in Washington State, including those at high-tech plants for Nintendo and Keytronic, which are being moved to Mexico.
In contrast, service sector work has increased dramatically in the US. Restaurant and bar jobs, for example, jumped by nearly two million in the eighties. Most of these new jobs pay lousy. According to a study by the Economic Policy Institute, about 60 percent of recently created jobs are part-time, and many are low-wage. The biggest employer in the US is now Manpower, Inc., a temp agency. The old full-time-with-benefits Ward Cleaver is being replaced by Beaver, who has minimal benefits, security, attachment, or support in any job, yet must act enthusiastic about it.
One cause of job decay is too much sugar for the bosses. Corporate bosses have been seeking low-wage, often politically repressive, countries such as China or Mexico. This means higher profits for the management class in the US, but a loss of production jobs for American workers. As the management class becomes enriched, they have extra money to spend, and-voila!-service sector jobs trickle down from heaven.
If you can't get a job being a manicurist or yacht mechanic for the super rich, you might land one as a security guard, whose job is to keep away those who can't adapt to the new service economy. Employment of guards is expected to grow by nearly 19 percent in King County for the years 1990 to 1995, according to state projections. Guarding is one of the fastest growing occupations locally, along with lawyers, bill collectors, amusement attendants, and door-to-door salespeople. Just what you always wanted to be when you were a kid!
Another reason for job decay is automation. Machines and computers demand no wages, file no complaints, and collect no unemployment when they're disconnected. Perfect workers, in short. The decline of US unions has also contributed. Union jobs typically pay well, but due to various pitfalls they have declined 15 percent over the past decade and a half. (A slight but hopeful increase in 1993 was the first in 14 years.)
Job decay gets little help from the mainstream press. The Seattle Times, whose proper role should be to expose and floss away local job decay, instead sometimes celebrates it. An April 17 article entitled "Benefits of NAFTA showing" quotes management delight at moving manufacturing to Mexico, yet ignores completely the lost jobs in the US. A February 14 article claims that job security and benefits in Germany are "an obstacle to competitiveness" with other countries, and that the burger-flipping model of the US "is proving attractive to German business." In fact, poor working conditions in other countries are an obstacle to fair paying jobs in Germany, since German factories are also relocating to lower-wage countries, including the US.
Some preventative dentistry against job decay in the US is surfacing. The key motivation for the Teamsters national freight strike was management's insistence on expanding part-time work at much reduced wages. A broadcast employees union in May urged TV viewers to boycott programs on NBC, which has proposed to increase its use of temp workers from 15 to 67 percent of its workforce, according to the SPEEA Newsletter, a Seattle engineers' publication.
Really fighting job decay, however, requires brushing the whole mouth rather than a few individual teeth. Until labor becomes as internationally conscious as management, workers can only have small gains in individual countries. Trade sanctions against politically repressive low-wage countries are absolutely necessary. In the US, however, such sanctions will be difficult to enact as long as campaign money for our politicians comes primarily from the management class.
RUSSIA. Tens of thousands of Soviet-era workers in chemical weapons plants died from the toxins they were exposed to, according to Russian scientists in the Union for Chemical Safety, who also assert that roughly 300 towns and 1 million inhabitants are still suffering from high cancer rates and birth defects from the dumping of these toxins. (NYT)
CHINA. Two separate fires in late 1993 killed over 140 Chinese workers. In a fire at a toy factory, the gates and windows of the plant were locked, preventing escape. In the second case, workers sleeping in the dormitories of a factory were killed when synthetic materials caught fire and produced toxic fumes. (Labor Notes)
PORTLAND, OR. Hotel workers have enlisted more than 100 elected officials and community leaders to support a Hotel Workers Bill of Rights, which would allow them to join a union without fear of retribution. The Sheraton Airport Hotel in Portland was singled out during protest rallies. The Sheraton was cited by the National Labor Relations Board for harrassment and intimidation against union organizing, and had illegally exposed workers to toxic chemicals. (NW Labor Press)
BOTHELL, WA. Advanced Technology Labs last August used a legal loophole to lay off 170 workers without notice. The lack of warning made it impossible for public agencies to arrange timely help for those axed. In honor of this deed, ATL was given a national "Dirty Dozen" award by the Federation for Industrial Retention and Renewal. (WA State Labor Council)
Sucking Sound Gets Louder. At least 140 more Washington jobs were officially lost due to NAFTA in recent months. Many of these were layoffs from wood product firms, who are now forced to compete with Mexican imports produced with low wages. These are in addition to 336 jobs lost in January alone.
General Purge. 107 of 210 workers at a General Motors plant in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico have been fired for union activity since November 1993, according to Labor Notes. In January, 187 GM workers tried to register an independent union at the local labor board office. When no response was received, 50 workers protested by occupying the office for two hours on February 17. In March, GM sacked 15 leaders of the movement, followed by 60 other workers days later.
Have a Labor-related story to tell? Good news or bad.. send it to Doug Collins WAfreepress@gmail.com and he'll tell the world.
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Contents on this page were published in the June/July, 1994 edition of the Washington Free
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