Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : The Donkey's Inn -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mephisto who wrote (7270)	8/14/2003 11:47:12 AM
From: Mephisto	Respond to of 15516

No Work, No Homes The New York Times August 14, 2003 OP-ED COLUMNIST By BOB HERBERT Talk about preaching to the choir. President Bush and his clueless team of economic advisers held a summit at the president's ranch in Crawford, Tex., yesterday. This is the ferociously irresponsible crowd that has turned its back on simple arithmetic and thinks the answer to every economic question is a gigantic tax cut for the rich. Their voodoo fantasies were safe in Crawford. There was no one at the ranch to chastise them for bequeathing backbreaking budget deficits to generations yet unborn. And no one was there to confront them with evidence of the intense suffering that so many poor, working-class and middle-class families are experiencing right now because of job losses on Mr. Bush's watch. After the meeting, Mr. Bush said, "This administration is optimistic about job creation." It's too bad George Akerlof wasn't at the meeting. Mr. Akerlof, a 2001 Nobel laureate in economics, bluntly declared on Tuesday that "the Bush fiscal policy is the worst policy in the last 200 years." Speaking at a press conference arranged by the Economic Policy Institute, Mr. Akerlof, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley, said, "Within 10 years, we're going to pay a serious price for such irresponsibility." Also participating in the institute's press conference was Robert Solow, an economist and professor emeritus at M.I.T. who is also a Nobel laureate. He assailed the Bush tax cuts as "redistributive in intent and redistributive in effect." "There has been a dissipation of the huge budget surplus," he said, "and all we have to show for that is the city of Baghdad." The president and his advisers could have learned something about the real world if, instead of hanging out at the ranch, they had visited a city like Los Angeles (or almost any other hard-hit American venue) and spent time talking to folks who have been thrown out of work and, in some cases, out of their homes in this treacherous Bush economy. The job market in California worsened in July. More than a million people are out of work statewide, and there are few signs of the optimism that Mr. Bush is feeling. Officials at homeless shelters in Los Angeles, as in other large American cities, are seeing big increases in the number of families seeking shelter because of extended periods of joblessness. The pattern is as depressing as it is familiar: the savings run out, the rent doesn't get paid, the eviction notice arrives. Tanya Tull, president of Beyond Shelter in downtown L.A., said the percentage of families in her facility had climbed from about one-third to more than half because of the employment crisis. The breadwinners can't find jobs, she said, "so they're losing their housing." Ralph Plumb, president of the Union Rescue Mission on L.A.'s skid row, said his agency, traditionally a haven for homeless men with drug and alcohol problems, is providing shelter for more and more "intact" families. Their problems are not the result of drug or alcohol abuse, or mental impairment. They simply have no money. Forty percent of the people at the mission are there "purely due to economic issues," he said. Ms. Tull and Mr. Plumb both said an important factor in the rise of homeless families had been the "reform" of the welfare system. Destitution is the next stop for people who can't find jobs and can't get welfare. One of the families at the Union Rescue Mission was featured this week in a front-page article in USA Today. William Kamstra, who earned $40,000 a year before losing his job, looks for work each day while his wife, Sue, and their three children spend the day at a library. They sleep at the mission. "Homelessness in major cities is escalating," the article said, "as more laid-off workers already living paycheck to paycheck wind up on the streets or in shelters." That story ran one day after a front-page Wall Street Journal article that spelled out how sweet just one of the Bush tax cuts has been for those in the upper brackets: "The federal tax cut, which slashed the tax rate on dividends and prompted many companies to increase their payouts, is proving to be a boon for some corporate executives who are reaping millions in after-tax gains." Some people have reason to be optimistic. It's the best of times, or the worst of times. Depending on your perspective. nytimes.com

To: Mephisto who wrote (7270)	8/14/2003 11:49:22 AM
From: Mephisto	Respond to of 15516

Views On Economy Worsen cbsnews.com NEW YORK, Aug. 13, 2003 [Excerpt] (CBS) "Americans are getting more pessimistic about the economy - 60 percent say it's bad, the highest number recorded in a CBS News poll in ten years - and a majority disapproves of the way President Bush is handling it. With public confidence in the economy falling and the job market stagnant, the president called his economic team down to Texas on Wednesday to show the world he's on the case. But few Americans see signs of a recovery, and most think the Bush administration's tax cuts - the centerpiece of his economic and jobs program -- will not do much to improve either the stock market or the job market. THE ECONOMY The economy remains in first place as the most important problem facing this country, as it has for the past few months. Nearly four in ten volunteer it. The public is pessimistic about the economy, and has become more so recently. 60% think the economy is in bad shape - the most negative assessment seen in this poll in ten years. Just a few months ago, opinion was more evenly divided. And this represents a marked deterioration since January 2001, when Bush first took office; then, 84% thought the economy was in good shape."

To: Mephisto who wrote (7270)	9/1/2003 3:25:09 PM
From: Mephisto	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 15516

A Way to Break the Cycle of Servitude The New York Times August 31, 2003 ECONOMIC VIEW By LOUIS UCHITELLE ON this Labor Day weekend, let us remember low-wage workers. Twenty percent of the work force — 26 million people — earn $8.23 an hour or less. Most of them are not teenagers snagging pocket money, but adults supporting families. With so little income, too many Americans are pushed into poverty, and getting out of this trap is increasingly difficult. As many studies have shown, rising income inequality has driven people apart. And low-wage workers, occupying the bottom rung in this ruptured society, have descended into what amounts to a servant class. It is not their work that makes them servants. We need factory assemblers, store clerks, child care workers and the telephone operators who field calls to "800" numbers, processing much of the nation's commerce. What makes them servants is the miserable pay. Measuring status by wage, as many Americans do, no one — the employers of low-wage worker, the public or the low-wage workers themselves — seems to value this class of work. Promotion, or higher pay, would be a way out. Unfortunately, neither solution kicks in very often. More than in the past, low-wage workers are stuck in place. "There is not any kind of sinister approach by companies or individuals to make this happen," said Jeffrey Joerres, chief executive of Manpower Inc., the temporary-help agency, which places many low-wage workers. "But it is the path that we are on." That path has become self-perpetuating. Employers are under constant pressure to cut costs. Hospitals, for example, have to bid for good medical staffs, so they offset this cost by squeezing the wages of unskilled kitchen workers. Or they outsource food preparation to contractors who pay even less. In either case, the result is a constant, dispiriting turnover. But it is tolerated. The low wage more than offsets the cost of one or two days of training for each new hire. So wages barely rise. Adjusted for inflation, the $8.23 an hour today is only 9 percent higher than the $7.55 that the workers in the 20th percentile earned 30 years ago, according to the Economic Policy Institute. All of that improvement came in the very tight labor markets of the late 1990's, when even low-wage workers could command higher pay. The constant turnover of people in these jobs often leaves the impression that low-wage workers are irresponsible and unambitious. But Eileen Appelbaum, director of the Center for Women and Work at Rutgers University, offers a different explanation. "If you work in a hospital as a nurse's aide, you care about patients, and you are asked to care for more people than you can safely care for and you are afraid you will hurt someone," she said. "So, you leave." Or you have a personal crisis — a sick child, for example. Low-wage jobs seldom come with time off, "so you quit, knowing that when you can work again, there will be another rotten job you can get," she added. Training is a way up the wage ladder, but employers of low-wage workers seldom offer it or give those workers time away from daily tasks. Manpower Inc. offers training, but for jobs that pay $9 an hour and up. Most of the more than 180,000 people that Manpower sends out each day earn at least this wage, but 30 percent draw only $8.50 an hour or less. For them, the instruction is less than respectful. Job readiness, it is called. "We have a whole set of videotapes that are uncomfortable for me to watch," Mr. Joerres said. "You need to arrive on time. You can only take breaks at break time. Have you taken a shower?" FAR from lifting these workers, the unfettered American marketplace holds them down. They need help, ideally from employers, if only those employers could find their way back to the pre-1970's system of long-term employment in low-skilled jobs that included training, promotions and raises. In some places, unions still force this to happen — at New York City hospitals, for example — and no hospital is at a disadvantage because each is bound by the same wage scale. But in this era of disappearing unions, that is not likely to work. Raising the minimum wage would be a quicker route, if only Congress and the administration would make that a priority. The minimum wage once went up regularly, peaking in 1968 at the equivalent of $7.08 an hour today, adjusted for inflation. That's nearly $2 above today's actual minimum of $5.15 an hour. Just restoring the minimum to its old value of $7.08 would also push up wages that are just above the minimum. Suddenly, the bottom 20 percent of the work force would be making up to $10 an hour, instead of $8.23. That might be a large enough raise to justify training and job security, and new respect for the men and women in these jobs — respect as workers, not servants. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company nytimes.com

To: Mephisto who wrote (7270)	9/4/2003 5:47:09 PM
From: Mephisto	Respond to of 15516

Signs of Economic Recovery, but Not Jobs Thu Sep 4, 1:35 PM ET story.news.yahoo.com By Tim Ahmann WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Further signs emerged on Thursday suggesting a quickening in the pace of the U.S. recovery, but a rise in applications for jobless benefits showed the economy is not yet firing on all cylinders. Initial claims for unemployment aid rose unexpectedly last week, climbing back above the 400,000 level economists view as dividing improvement from deterioration in the jobs market, a report from the Labor Department showed. But other reports underscored the economy's brightening outlook. A private-sector group said the giant U.S. services sector grew rapidly last month, while government data showed orders for manufactured goods rose more than expected in July. While economists have been heartened by mounting signs the economy was gathering strength, a weak labor market continues to show the recovery is not yet out of the woods. "One week does not reverse a trend, but clearly we are not getting much below that magic 400,000 number and it suggests we will have to wait a bit longer for the job recovery to catch up with the rest of the economy's recovery," said Tim O'Neill, chief economist at BMO Financial Group in Toronto. A separate Labor Department report threw light on why the economy has continued to shed jobs -- a big surge in business productivity in the second quarter allowed firms to boost output while reducing the number of hours worked. In a revision to figures released a month ago, the Labor Department said the productivity of U.S. businesses grew at a 6.8 percent annual rate during the second quarter, well above the previously reported 5.7 percent clip and the strongest advance since the first quarter of last year. The jobless claims report fueled early gains in the bond market and weighed on stocks. U.S. Treasury prices marched even higher later in the day after a Federal Reserve official said there would be no need to jack interest rates up sharply as long as inflation stayed low. DARKNESS AND LIGHT The claims report said first-time filings rose 15,000 to 413,000 in the week ending Aug. 30, defying predictions on Wall Street for a slight drop. The four-week moving average of initial claims, which smoothes week-to-week volatility to provide a clearer picture of underlying trends, also inched up, climbing 4,250 to 401,500 to break a string of four weeks below the key 400,000 level. "I think the unexpected jump by initial state jobless claims warns against extrapolating too much good news from recent improvements in economic activity," said John Lonski, chief economist at Moody's Investor Service in New York. "Until employment growth returns materially, consumer spending is at risk," he said. In another sign of the tough time the unemployed face finding jobs, the number of jobless workers still on benefit rolls after claiming an initial week of aid climbed by 24,000 to 3.66 million in the week ending Aug. 23 -- the highest level since late June. In contrast, the Institute for Supply Management struck an upbeat note with a report that showed its August service-sector index remaining at the record high of 65.1 reached in July -- the highest since the survey's inception six years ago. "The service sector is rampaging ahead in the third quarter," said Ian Morris, chief economist at HSBC Securities. A reading above 50 denotes growth in the sector, which comprises about 80 percent of the U.S. economy. ISM's new orders index, a potential harbinger of future growth, edged up to 67.6 in August from 66.9 in July, while its employment measure inched up to 51.0 from 50.7. A report on factory orders from the Commerce Department also buttressed widespread views the economy was gaining strength. It said orders for U.S. manufactured goods rose 1.6 percent in July to $329.4 billion, the highest level since May 2001. The gain exceeded economists' expectations and bolstered other recent indications the long-struggling manufacturing sector was on the mend. Some analysts think the economy could grew as quickly as a 5 percent annual rate in the current quarter, stepping up from the second quarter's 3.1 percent advance.

To: Mephisto who wrote (7270)	9/4/2003 5:57:28 PM
From: Mephisto	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 15516

Bush and factory jobs An editorial September 3, 2003 madison.com Since President Bush assumed office on Jan. 20, 2001, the United States has lost more than 2.5 million manufacturing jobs - roughly 50,000 of which came from Wisconsin. When the president should have been focused on the hemorrhaging of vital industries, he instead poured his energies into cutting taxes for the super-rich. The manufacturing job losses are the tip of the economic iceberg. According to the U.S. Labor Department, more than 9 million Americans are looking for work. And while there has been some upturn in manufacturing orders in recent days, there is little evidence in the lives of unemployed Americans to suggest that the United States has turned the corner out of Bush's recession. However, now that the 2004 election season is just around the corner, the president says he "gets it." "There's a problem with the manufacturing sector," Bush told a Labor Day rally in Ohio, where he wore a union-man costume that looked almost as silly as the flight suit he pulled on to declare in May that the United States had accomplished its mission in Iraq. Bush coupled his newfound understanding - or should we call it his "election season conversion"? - with a pledge to activate a federal government that has paid little attention to dislocated workers. Performing his best FDR imitation, Bush announced, "We have a responsibility that when somebody hurts, the government has to move." But how should the government move? Hopefully not with more of the same. Bush trade representatives continue to aggressively push for international trade agreements that have been proven to undermine job security, wages, benefits and environmental protections not just in the United States but in the countries we trade with. The "race to the bottom" that began with the North American Free Trade Agreement will be accelerated by a Free Trade Area of the Americas agreement that critics correctly refer to as "NAFTA on steroids." So if government wants to aid American manufacturing workers, step one is to step back from the FTAA. Bush economic aides, and their allies in the Congress, continue to push for a trickle-down economics approach that relies on tax cuts for the rich to restart the economy. But two years into the experiment, the trickle-down theory is failing just as miserably as it did when Ronald Reagan was president. The trick is to get money to working people who actually spend it, rather than to millionaires who bank their tax rebates - or use them to shift business operations to the Bahamas. So if government wants to aid American manufacturing workers, step two is to put the brakes on implementation of tax cuts for the rich and shift the money to unemployment benefits and job creation. If President Bush took these two simple steps, people might believe him when he says, "I believe there are better days ahead for people who are working and looking for work." Then again, if he fails to take these steps, working people and people looking for work might just bring on the better days by electing a better president. Published: 8:40 AM 9/03/03

To: Mephisto who wrote (7270)	9/5/2003 9:44:42 AM
From: Mephisto	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 15516

America's unemployed iht.com Friday, September 5, 2003 Considering that more than 80,000 jobs have been shed for each month of his presidency, George W. Bush's announcement that he is creating a new undersecretary of commerce post devoted to job creation is notable for its feebleness. The only detail yet clear is that the post is to be devoted to the "needs of manufacturers." That is hardly a confidence builder for the 9 million trying to find work plus the millions more who have given up. The 2.7 million jobs lost in the private sector in less than three years is one of the worst slides in decades. "There are better days ahead," Bush told union workers on Labor Day, in a choice of language that eerily echoes Herbert Hoover. The United States should not forget the president's earlier insistent prescription: in selling his tax cuts in the Republican Congress, Bush proclaimed them as just the economic "jobs and growth" package workers needed. But the unemployment problem remains rock-hard in resisting the administration's trickle-down fantasy that cuts for the affluent will generate new jobs for the working class. The tax cuts have failed to do the trick, and the recovery has so far not been of a size sufficient to create jobs. Ominously, a new study by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York says this recession's job losses have been far more structural and permanent than in the past. Now, a new job czar has emerged like the Wizard of Oz to signal that the presidential election cycle is upon us. The agony of the jobless deserves the fullest attention of the president and his eager rivals, and action more ambitious than the addition of employment for one happy undersecretary in the Commerce Department.

To: Mephisto who wrote (7270)	9/13/2003 1:41:07 PM
From: Mephisto	Respond to of 15516

Chasm of poverty / The economy's up, but so is the number of poor "But there is still reason to ask why 34.8 million Americans should live in poverty while Bush policies have increased the comforts of those at the top" post-gazette.com Editorial Thursday, September 11, 2003 The current state of the economy and one's estimates of where it is going both depend on where one is standing. From the high end looking down, the picture is rather positive, based on rising markets, good overall growth figures and lower taxes on the wealthy's income, dividends and inheritances. From the low end looking up, particularly if one is unemployed, the rise in stock market prices doesn't help at all, at least in the short run. The number of Americans who are poor grew last year by 1.4 million, including 700,000 children, to a total of 34.8 million. That's one out of every eight Americans. The economy continues to bleed jobs, losing another 93,000 in August, for an unemployment rate of 6.1 percent. That's 2.7 million jobs gone since President Bush took office. Next year's elections will bring voters to the inevitable assessment: How am I doing? Am I better off now than I was a year ago? Better than at the beginning of the Bush administration? The bad part of a political season, in terms of long-term prospects for the economy and steps that should be taken by the administration and Congress, is that politicians' actions will be influenced by party and candidacy. Citing rising markets and encouraging growth rates, President Bush and the Republicans say the administration is on top of the economic recovery, and that the measures they have taken already -- the tax cuts and other benefits to the high end of society -- are the reason for what is going right. Democrats latch onto the job hemorrhaging and put it down to Bush administration mismanagement, citing the huge deficit and tight domestic spending, which have cascaded from the federal level to state and local governments, causing substantial pain and misery. So what does it mean? The Republican "trickle down" approach, pursued by the Bush administration for the past 2 1/2 years, says that if the rich do well, spending and investing more, the poor will eventually do well also. The problem with that is there is inevitably a lag as wealth trickles down -- if it trickles down at all. Another fact inside the rhetoric is that five out of six jobs lost since 2001 are in manufacturing, dear to the hearts of southwestern Pennsylvanians. Many of those jobs have migrated to low-wage centers like Mexico and China and are unlikely to return to the United States. The American economy is flexible enough to adjust to this phenomenon, in time. Pittsburgh, in particular, has been agile in retooling itself. The fact that southwestern Pennsylvania's unemployment rate runs about half a percentage point below the national average testifies to the region's resilience. But there is still reason to ask why 34.8 million Americans should live in poverty while Bush policies have increased the comforts of those at the top. Chief executives in industry, some of whom are not exemplars of honesty and integrity, rake in multimillion-dollar salaries that bear no relation to the success of their companies or the compensation of employees who toil further down the line. This growing financial chasm only polarizes society, against the backdrop of Mr. Bush's tax cuts, his favors to big business and large federal contracts thrown to companies like Halliburton, Boeing and Bechtel that make substantial campaign contributions. There is something wrong with an American government -- both the executive and legislative branches -- that is driven by the needs and desires of rich campaign contributors. Anyone seeking the White House in 2004 must be ready to address the nation's growing poverty and the rising social cost of ignoring it.

To: Mephisto who wrote (7270)	10/2/2003 10:39:11 PM
From: Mephisto	Respond to of 15516

Fed Sees Growth But Rues Lack of Jobs Thu Oct 2, 5:27 PM ET story.news.yahoo.com By Tim Ahmann WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Despite faster growth, a lack of jobs shows the U.S. economy still needs nursing to get back to full health, top Federal Reserve (news - web sites) officials said on Thursday. "I have to admit that until we actually book a couple of quarters of solid output growth and see the beginning of an employment rebound, there will be some doubts in my mind whether we are, at last, out of the woods," Chicago Fed President Michael Moskow said in an otherwise upbeat speech in Evanston, Illinois. Moskow also said a lack of inflation pressures meant the Fed would likely be able to keep interest rates low for some time. Philadelphia Fed chief Anthony Santomero also expressed concern on employment, even as he welcomed signs the recovery was "gaining some traction." "Employment gains will be slow in coming, and we still have some way to go before we reach our goal of maximum sustainable growth," he told a conference in Philadelphia. Fed Governor Ben Bernanke also weighed in, saying the weak jobs market remains a main concern for the central bank. "The most difficult question is when the employment situation will turn around," Bernanke told reporters after speaking at Widener University in Chester, Pennsylvania. Although the economy exited recession in November 2001, 1.1 million jobs have been lost since then as businesses showed a surprising ability to boost output while still showing workers the door. The latest remarks add to a torrent of recent Fed-speak that has boldly underlined the expectation among policymakers that the benchmark overnight interest rate, currently at a 45-year low of 1 percent, is likely to stay low for some time. The Fed sent that message in unusually clear language after both of its past two meetings in statements that said "policy accommodation can be maintained for a considerable period." The dearth of jobs is causing political heartburn for President Bush (news - web sites), who faces charges of economic mismanagement from Democrats hoping to capture the White House in next year's election. In addition, economists say it keeps alive the possibility the recovery could falter. The Labor Department (news - web sites) will issue its closely watched employment report for September on Friday, and Wall Street economists expect to see a loss of 30,000 jobs, which would mark the ninth straight monthly decline. TOUGH CALL Santomero said the Fed's decision on when to eventually raise interest rates would be more difficult than in past recoveries due to shifts in the structure of the economy that were stalling jobs growth. "In this particular cycle, I believe the challenge is somewhat more difficult because technological change and globalization are affecting the economy's long-run capacity for growth and near-term capacity to employ people in ways that are difficult to quantify," he said. Still, all three Fed officials acknowledged signs the pace of recovery had quickened. "I expect this expansion to be marked by healthy growth in both business investment spending and in output per capita, beginning modestly at first but gaining steam as the recovery gains momentum," Santomero said. For his part, Moskow downplayed the likelihood a lack of jobs, and the income they generate, could derail the recovery. "While such scenarios are of concern, they seem less likely than one in which demand continues to grow at a solid pace and employment eventually rebounds," he concluded. Moskow cited three pillars of economic support: the strong growth in productivity, or worker output per hour, which he said would prove only a temporary restraint on employment; fiscal stimulus; and a monetary policy that could afford to stay stimulative because inflation was in check. "Inflationary pressures are not a significant near-term worry, so it should be possible to maintain accommodative monetary conditions for a considerable period," he said.

To: Mephisto who wrote (7270)	10/25/2003 8:52:30 PM
From: Mephisto	Respond to of 15516

As Factory Job Losses Rise, So Do Risks to Bush October 25, 2003 As Factory Job Losses Rise, So Do Risks to Bush By Warren Vieth, Times Staff Writer latimes.com MENOMONEE FALLS, Wis. - The gales of globalization are blowing hard across America's factory belt, but Cathy Schuldt does not plan to go quietly into the postindustrial era. Schuldt, owner of Butler Wire & Metal Products Inc. in this Milwaukee suburb, laid off 19 of her plant's 49 employees after her customers began buying welded-wire baskets from Chinese suppliers who could deliver finished products for less than she was paying for raw materials. She had plenty of company: The exodus from America's factories is responsible for all but 29,000 of the nearly 2.6 million U.S. jobs lost since President Bush took office. And that could have political ramifications as people like Schuldt share their pain in the voting booth. Schuldt and her friends say they feel betrayed, abandoned and disenfranchised by the nation's economic elite and its defenders in Washington. "George Bush had better get off his butt and start doing something. He still doesn't understand that the jobs that have left have left forever," said Schuldt, who is struggling to preserve the company her father founded 37 years ago. "Most of us have been conservative Republicans all our lives. I've never voted for a Democrat. But if I had someone I could vote for on the Democratic side that saw the picture, I definitely would." Schuldt and other small manufacturers in Wisconsin have formed an organization called Save American Manufacturing Now, which is evaluating candidates for office based on their positions on trade issues. SAMNow recently endorsed the reelection bid of Sen. Russell D. Feingold, a liberal Democrat, and is considering endorsements in other congressional races, and possibly the presidential campaign. Since 1979, when manufacturing employment peaked at 19.6 million, 1 in 4 factory jobs have disappeared. It took more than two decades to lose the first 2.5 million. The second 2.5 million have gone away since Bush took office in January 2001. The main reasons: The sluggish economy reduced demand and forced companies to cut costs aggressively. Surging productivity enabled employers to produce more goods with fewer people. Outsourcing of production to China and other countries is responsible for as much as a third of the job loss, economists say. Other factors include rising production costs associated with regulation, litigation, health coverage and pension benefits For the most part, the causes reflect long-term trends that began well before Bush arrived in Washington. But as his father learned a decade ago, voters tend to direct their economic anger at whoever is occupying the White House when the economy hits the skids. As the 2004 campaign season begins, Bush's policies for dealing with the loss of so many jobs are under sharp scrutiny. The hemorrhaging has slowed in recent months amid a general economic rebound, and some analysts express hope it will be staunched as the recovery gains strength. But even the optimists tend to agree this recovery is different. So far, it is occurring without a net gain in factory employment, and economists say it is likely that many of the lost jobs will not be restored. That's because most of the losses are attributable to permanent, structural shifts instead of the cyclical layoffs typical of past recessions. "They're not all going to come back," acknowledged National Assn. of Manufacturers President Jerry Jasinowski. Displaced factory workers "will have to move on," he said, into growing sectors of the economy, such as home building and health care. Pete Merriman moved on earlier than most. After being laid off several times as an industrial electrician, he staked his claim in the service economy shortly after Bush assumed office in 2001. For the last three years, he's been delivering pizza for a living. "It's hurt [Bush] in my view, that's for sure," said Merriman, who said he is making decent money toting thick-crust pizzas around Green Bay but would rather be wiring paper-making machinery again.The rate of decline during Bush's tenure dwarfs the experience of his father, George H. W. Bush, who was turned out of office in 1992 after presiding over the first "jobless recovery." Over the four years of the elder Bush's presidency, America lost factory jobs at a rate of about 26,000 a month. Since his son settled in the White House, the monthly job loss has averaged nearly 80,000. "Unless perceptions change, this could be a big problem for the president," said G. Donald Ferree Jr. of the University of Wisconsin Survey Center. The White House is paying attention. While still counting on tax cuts to revive the economy, administration officials have promised to crack down on trading abuses by China and other low-wage countries and are cajoling the Chinese to adjust their undervalued currency. As a share of the U.S. workforce, manufacturing has been declining since World War II. Some economists attribute the shrinkage to the inevitable march of history. As the U.S. economy matures, they say, there is inevitably a transition from factory jobs to service sector work. But the accelerated pace is causing growing concern. Good-paying factory work has been disappearing much faster than the economy can create equivalent jobs in other areas, analysts say. The factory exodus threatens to create economic, social and political upheaval as millions of displaced production workers experience extended bouts of unemployment and the prospect of replacement jobs offering significantly lower pay, reduced benefits and diminished social standing. "When all is said and done, these jobs were going to go away anyway," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Economy.com, a West Chester, Pa., economic forecasting firm. "Under more normal circumstances, if the world economy and financial markets worked properly, it might have happened over a period of a decade. But it's all being compacted in a period of a couple of years, at a time when the rest of the U.S. economy is struggling, and we just can't overcome it." California, by virtue of its sheer size, has the nation's largest casualty count: Its factories have shed 298,000 jobs, a 16% decline. Some of the biggest cuts have occurred in politically pivotal states that could tip the outcome of the 2004 election: Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Washington, Florida, Tennessee. In Wisconsin, where Bush trailed Gore by a mere 5,708 votes in 2000, the president and his aides have been making frequent stops in recent weeks. The state has lost 73,000 factory jobs since Bush took office. "A lot of Wisconsin manufacturers hurt," the president acknowledged during an appearance in Milwaukee three weeks ago. "It's tough sledding, tough times, and I understand that." The list of companies that have closed plants, moved production or initiated big layoffs include pillars of Wisconsin industry: small-engine builders Briggs & Stratton Corp. and Tecumseh Products Co., paper producers Stora Enso and P. H. Glatfelter Co., cookware maker Mirro Co., rock crusher Metso Minerals, hardware giant Master Lock Co., and dozens of foundries, metal fabricators, automotive suppliers and electrical equipment manufacturers. One company that has stood apart is Harley-Davidson, the icon of American motorcycle machismo whose Milwaukee-area factories have become a required backdrop for visiting politicians, including Bush and members of his Cabinet. The company has kept its five assembly lines operating, maintained wages and benefits, and resisted the trend toward moving production overseas. But that may be about to change. The company has informed the union representing its 1,600 Milwaukee-area production workers that unless some way is found to reduce the cost of building transmissions, it will consider moving the work elsewhere. About 200 jobs could be affected. "There's a cloud hanging over this area, and it's not smog. It's the threat of job loss," said Andy Voelzke, a machinist at Harley's Pilgrim Road transmission plant in Menomonee Falls. "Now they're trying to take a chunk out of us. As we've seen with other factories, once they open the door to that, it doesn't stop." When it happens, the consequences can be dire. Three weeks ago, a month shy of his 60th birthday, Russell Luepnitz lost his job as a tool-and-die maker at Caysun Co. in Manitowoc. His wife, Susan, who has Parkinson's disease, has gone back to work full time to help make ends meet, but Luepnitz said it's only a matter of time before the well runs dry. "I've got a ground-zero plan," he said. "If I don't get anything in six months, my unemployment runs out. We'll have to sell our house and get an apartment. As my wife's health keeps backing off, she won't be able to keep working. We'll have to keep cutting back and cutting back, moving down the food chain so we can survive." The sour mood can spread well beyond the factory floor. In Menomonee Falls, at Pop's Custard, which serves up Jumbo Bacon & Cheese Double Butter Burgers for $2.79 and three scoops of Chubby Hubby for $2.65, sales have fallen 20% over the last two years. Owner Sharon Whitman attributes half of that to new competition and the other half to the job slump. "People are watching their money," said Whitman, whose custard-making machines shake the floor like overworked cement mixers. "You can go to McDonald's and get a double cheeseburger for a buck. I don't blame 'em." The job losses have created fissures within the factory fraternity. The National Assn. of Manufacturers, whose roster includes multinational firms that have moved production overseas, opposes protectionist measures and is generally supportive of current Bush administration initiatives. But some smaller factory owners and workers blame U.S. trade policies for much of the shrinkage, particularly approval of the North American Free Trade Agreement a decade ago and China's recent acceptance into the World Trade Organization. They are backing congressional proposals to slap tariffs on Chinese goods and rescind permanent normal trade relations with Beijing. Wisconsinites do not appear to blame Bush for all of the factory belt's misfortunes. "It's something he inherited," said Gary Huss, president of Hudapack Metal Treating Inc. in Elkhorn. "A strong economy or a weak economy is a good five years in the making." Yet even if Bush doesn't deserve the blame for starting the slide, some fault him for not doing more to stop it. "The economy did not slump because of the dot-com bubble bursting. Manufacturing didn't go down because of 9/11. The economy isn't down because of the war in Iraq," said Mike Retzer, controller of R. H. Strohwig Tool & Die Co. in Richfield, which has laid off 40 of its 175 employees since 2000. "We didn't lose orders because of any of that. When we lost orders it was not because the project was canceled, but because they were taking that work to China."

To: Mephisto who wrote (7270)	11/2/2003 4:36:01 AM
From: Mephisto	Respond to of 15516

New economic data, same old story PRINCETON, New Jersey Paul Krugman: The Commerce Department announces very good growth during the previous quarter. Many observers declare the economy's troubles over. And the administration's supporters claim that the economy's turnaround validates its policies. That's what happened 18 months ago, when a preliminary estimate put first-quarter 2002 growth at 5.8 percent. That was later revised down to 5.0. More important, growth in the next quarter slumped to 1.3 percent, and we now know that the economy wasn't really on the mend: After that brief spurt, the nation proceeded to lose another 600,000 jobs. The same story unfolded in the third quarter of 2002, when growth rose to 4 percent, and the economy actually gained 200,000 jobs. But growth slipped back down to 1.4 percent, and job losses resumed. My purpose is not to denigrate the impressive estimated 7.2 percent growth rate for the third quarter of 2003. It is, rather, to stress the obvious: We've had our hopes dashed in the past, and it remains to be seen whether this is just another one-hit wonder. The weakness of that spurt 18 months ago was obvious to those who bothered to look at it closely. Half the growth came simply because businesses, having drawn down their inventories in the previous quarter, had to ramp up production even though demand was growing slowly. This time around growth has a much better foundation: Final demand - demand excluding changes in inventories - actually grew even faster than gross domestice product. So it's unlikely that growth will drop off as sharply as it did back then. But - you knew there would be a but - there are still some reasons to won-der whether the economy has really turned the corner. First, while there was a significant pickup in business investment, the bulk of last quarter's growth came from a huge surge in consumer spending, with a further boost from housing. These components of spending stayed strong even when the economy was weak, so there shouldn't have been any pent-up demand. Yet housing grew at a 20 percent rate, while spending on consumer durables (that's stuff like cars and TV sets) - which last year grew three times as fast as the economy - rose at an incredible 27 percent rate last quarter. This can't go on - in the long run, consumer spending can't outpace the growth in consumer income. Stephen Roach of Morgan Stanley has suggested, plausibly, that much of last quarter's consumer splurge was "borrowed" from the future: Consumers took advantage of low-interest financing, cash from home refinancing and tax rebate checks to accelerate purchases they would otherwise have made later. If he's right, we'll see below-normal purchases and slower growth in the months ahead. The big question, of course, is jobs. Despite all that growth in the third quarter, the number of jobs actually fell. And new claims for unemployment insurance, a leading indicator for the job market, still show no sign of a hiring boom. (By the way, for the last month there's been a peculiar pattern: Each week, headlines declare that new claims fell from the previous week; a week later, the past week's number is revised upward, and the apparent decline disappears.) And unless we start to see serious job growth - by which I mean increases in payroll employment of more than 200,000 a month - consumer spending will eventually slide, and bring growth down with it. Still, it's possible that we really have reached a turning point. If so, does it validate the Bush economic program? Well, no. Stimulating the economy in the short run is supposed to be easy, as long as you don't worry about how much debt you run up in the process. As William Gale of the Brookings Institution puts it, "Almost any tax cut or spending increase would succeed in boosting a sluggish economy if the Federal Reserve Board follows an accommodative monetary policy. The key question is, therefore, not whether the proposals provide any short-term stimulus, but whether they are the most effective way to provide stimulus." Gale doesn't think the Bush tax cuts meet that criterion, and neither do I. To put it more bluntly: It would be quite a trick to run the biggest budget deficit in the history of the planet, and still end a presidential term with fewer jobs than when you started. And despite Thursday's good news, that's a trick Bush still seems likely to pull off. E-mail: krugman@nytimes.com iht.com

To: Mephisto who wrote (7270)	11/2/2003 4:53:26 AM
From: Mephisto	Respond to of 15516

There's a Catch: Jobs The New York Times October 27, 2003 OP-ED COLUMNIST By BOB HERBERT The president tells us the economy is accelerating, and the statistics seem to bear him out. But don't hold your breath waiting for your standard of living to improve. Bush country is not a good environment for working families. In the real world, which is the world of families trying to pay their mortgages and get their children off to college, the economy remains troubled. While the analysts and commentators of the comfortable class are assuring us that the president's tax cuts and the billions being spent on Iraq have been good for the gross domestic product, the workaday folks are locked in a less sanguine reality. It's a reality in which: o The number of Americans living in poverty has increased by three million in the past two years. o The median household income has fallen for the past two years. o The number of dual-income families, particularly those with children under 18, has declined sharply. The administration can spin its "recovery" any way it wants. But working families can't pay their bills with data about the gross domestic product. They need the income from steady employment. And when it comes to employment, the Bush administration has compiled the worst record since the Great Depression. The jobs picture is far more harrowing than it is usually presented by the media. Despite modest wage increases for those who are working, the unemployment rate is 6.1 percent, which represents almost nine million people. Millions more have become discouraged and left the labor market. And there are millions of men and women who are employed but working significantly fewer hours than they'd like. Jared Bernstein, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, has taken a look at the hours being worked by families, rather than individuals. It's a calculation that gets to the heart of a family's standard of living. The declines he found were "of a magnitude that's historically been commensurate with double-digit unemployment rates," he said. It was not just that there were fewer family members working. The ones who were employed were working fewer hours. According to government statistics, there are nearly 4.5 million people working part-time because they have been unable to find full-time work. In many cases, as the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas noted in a recent report, the part-time worker is "earning far less money than his or her background and experience warrant - i.e. a computer programmer working at a coffee shop." Economists expect some modest job creation to occur over the next several months. But there's a "just in time for the election" quality to the current economic surge, and even Republicans are worried that the momentum may not last. The president has played his tax-cut card. The spending on Iraq, most Americans fervently hope, will not go on indefinitely. And President Bush's own Treasury secretary is talking about an inevitable return to higher interest rates. Where's the jobs creation miracle in this dismal mix? Meanwhile, these are some of the things working (and jobless) Americans continue to face: o Sharply increasing local taxes, including property taxes. o Steep annual increases in health care costs. o Soaring tuition costs at public and private universities. Families are living very close to the edge economically. And this situation is compounded, made even more precarious, by the mountains of debt American families are carrying - mortgages, overloaded credit cards, college loans, etc. The Bush administration has made absolutely no secret of the fact that it is committed to the interests of the very wealthy. Leona Helmsley is supposed to have said that "only the little people pay taxes." The Bush crowd has turned that into a national fiat. A cornerstone of post-Depression policy in this country has been a commitment to policies aimed at raising the standard of living of the poor and the middle class. That's over. When it comes to jobs, taxes, education and middle-class entitlement programs like Social Security, the message from the Bush administration couldn't be clearer: You're on your own. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company nytimes.com

To: Mephisto who wrote (7270)	11/2/2003 3:32:22 PM
From: Mephisto	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 15516

U.S. Arrests Hundreds of Workers at Wal-Mart Stores Thu Oct 23, 8:47 PM ET story.news.yahoo.com By James Vicini WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Hundreds of workers at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. locations across the country were arrested on immigration charges in an investigation into contractor cleaning crews, and some company executives knew about the alleged illegal hirings, U.S. officials said on Thursday. They said the investigation, known as "Operation Rollback," involved allegations the contractor had recruited illegal immigrants, mainly Eastern European nationals, to work on cleaning crews at stores of Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer. Two officials initially said about 300 workers had been arrested at 61 stores in 21 states. But the officials later revised the numbers and said about 250 had been arrested at some 60 stores. They said investigators were still pursuing at least 50 workers. Federal law enforcement officials said some Wal-Mart executives had direct knowledge of the alleged scheme, based on recorded conversations, surveillance and monitoring. One official said federal agents conducted searches at the Bentonville, Arkansas, headquarters of Wal-Mart, the largest U.S. private sector employer, with about 1.1 million workers in the United States and 1.4 million worldwide. Another official said federal grand jury subpoenas have been issued for the Wal-Mart executives to testify. The executives were not identified. An official said the U.S. investigators believe Wal-Mart has shown a "reckless disregard" for U.S. immigration laws, exploiting workers, and has continued to hire some contractors who were already convicted of felony violations. A Wal-Mart spokesman said the company was "committed to cooperating" with federal officials, who he said came to company headquarters with specific requests for information. "These are third-party contractors," spokesman Tom Williams said. "We require that the contractors use legal workers." "We don't know at this point if the current investigation includes one or more outside contractors. We use hundreds of them," he said, adding that about 1,000 of Wal-Mart's U.S. stores have outside cleaning services. Wal-Mart already faces dozens of lawsuits alleging discrimination and violations of wage-and-hour rules. The company has drawn fire from labor groups, who say the company has an anti-union stance. WORKSITE ENFORCEMENT EFFORT Garrison Courtney, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security's Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said the arrests were part of a "worksite enforcement" effort. "If a company knowingly hires illegal workers it can be penalized up to $10,000 per person," he said. The latest arrests stemmed from two prior investigations by federal immigration officials involving contractors and Wal-Mart stores, one in 1998 and the other in 2001, the officials said. One official said the cleaning contractor at issue in the latest investigation was owned by two Illinois men and a Missouri man. The company, which was not identified, allegedly hired illegal aliens, who had been recruited in the United States and in Europe, the official said. Kurt Barnard, head of the consulting firm Retail Forecasting Group, said, "This is going to be a major public relations problem, with lots of tongues wagging about it." Still, he said the news would probably have little effect on Wal-Mart's sales or profits because the company's low prices will continue to attract shoppers by the millions. Wal-Mart estimates more than 100 million Americans visit their stores every week. On Wall Street, the stock closed up 47 cents at $58.71 on the New York Stock Exchange . In March, a federal court jury acquitted leading poultry processor Tyson Foods and three of its executives of conspiring to smuggle illegal immigrants to work at its U.S. plants. (Additional reporting by Deborah Charles and Emily Kaiser)

To: Mephisto who wrote (7270)	11/2/2003 3:39:38 PM
From: Mephisto	Respond to of 15516

MOYERS: Welcome to NOW. We return tonight to one of the most important beats on this program: what's happening to the American workplace. It's astonishing, but there are tens of millions of fully employed people working even longer hours than ever, who, when inflation is taken into account, earn less money than they received 30 years ago. Take a look at these figures: in 1973, workers in the private sector were paid an average $9.08 an hour. Today in real wages, they are paid $8.33 per hour. The liberal Economic Policy Institute says one in four workers makes under $19,000 a year. So many people who get up and go to work every day still cannot meet a family's basic needs. Across the country big corporations are trying to push wages even lower, but in Jefferson, Wisconsin, some workers and their neighbors are fighting back. Here's our report from correspondent Sylvia Chase and producer Peter Meryash. CHASE: American workers … who believe they are fighting for their way of life. For generations, their parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, sisters and brothers have earned their living on the other side of that fence at a plant that hasn't known a strike in all its 124 years of operation...until now. RICE: You folks have done something other people in this country have failed to do, and that's stand up and fight for the rights of working men and women. I'm so proud of you. CHASE: It's a fight to hang onto the kinds of jobs that have sustained middle class communities across America, with good health benefits, pension plans and even profit-sharing. RICE: There truly is a war going on. That war is not in Iraq. That war is right here in Jefferson, Wisconsin. That war is right here in America. That war is a war on working people. CHASE: These working people make a product most everybody knows...the pepperoni found on some of America's most popular pizzas. And that sausage is at the center of their struggle against another familiar name: Tyson Foods, a FORTUNE 500 company that bought the Jefferson plant in 2001. SHULMAN: Here in Jefferson, the question is whether we're gonna let Tyson take jobs that take care of families, and make them jobs that are really poverty jobs. CHASE: Beth Shulman. Her book, THE BETRAYAL OF WORK, makes the case that middle-income American workers are losing ground. SHULMAN: That issue is the issue I think facing America in the 21st century. Whether or not we're gonna have an economy in which we have middle incomes, middle class, where we have healthy communities, where we have healthy families. BUBOLZ: I grew up in Jefferson. I lived here all my life. CHASE: Striker Kurt Bubolz, father of three. BUBOLZ: And it was always a good community, you know? Middle-class. Safe. Good schools. A good place to raise your family. CHASE: But Bubolz wonders, after union wage and benefit concessions, what becomes of the middle class? The hometown? The family? BUBOLZ: It forces both parents to work. It forces less time with our children. It causes more stress on a marriage. You know, all of these factors, you know, that are tied in with family are also tied in with a living wage. We need a living wage in order to provide the best for my family, you know, both in time and quality of life. CHASE: A quality of life rooted in the 19th century, when a local sausage maker built a plant that grew into an economic mainstay of the town. FLEMING: My grandfather worked here and my older brother, my younger brother used to work there and my sister, my wife and I work there right now. BUBOLZ: I'm the third generation, yeah. So I guess we got a good hundred years, 125 years at that plant, just, just in my family. CHASE: And that may be why even in an era when unions are sometimes trusted as little as their corporate opponents, the strikers have seen the community rally to their cause. At the local pizza joint, Ken's Towne Inn, they've replaced Tyson's pepperoni with a rival brand. CHASE: Patti and Dave Lorbecki own the local Piggly Wiggly, where all Tyson products have been taken off the shelves. PATTI LORBECKI: Everybody has either somebody they know personally, a family member, a friend, a neighbor who works for Tyson, so everybody's affected by it. Everybody. DAVE LORBECKI: Whether it's the jeweler, the drugstore, or the True Value Hardware store, it just goes right on down the line. You go down any street, east, west, north, south and they all have signs, you know, supporting the Local 538 Tyson workers, because they've supported them in business all these years... CHASE: The union voted to strike when Tyson stood its ground on a new contract which required wage and benefit concessions from current workers. Not only that, the contract would drastically reduce pay for new workers down from the old starting base of $11.10 to $9 an hour. That's just $18,720 a year. SHULMAN: We all know what it really takes to support a family. Most experts think that it takes at least double that. So, $18,000 just can't support a family. It can't put food on the table. Can't pay for transportation to work, can't pay for affordable childcare, it can't pay for utilities, it can't pay for the basic things that every family needs. CHASE: Enter overtime and both parents working. A stressful solution. But how does just one wage earner manage without overtime on Tyson's starting base pay, barely above the poverty line for a family of four? Tyson Senior Vice President Ken Kimbro: KIMBRO: We're in business to compete with other manufacturers making those products. In order for us to be in business and stay in business we have to be able to manufacture at a competitive wage. CHASE: And if that is a poverty level wage? KIMBRO: It's the work that we have to offer at the competitive wage that we need to pay in order for the facility to operate. That's the only answer I can have. CHASE: Kimbro is head of human resources for Tyson. He says new workers at Jefferson could eventually earn $11 an hour base pay. But the union points out, that top rate for base pay is 10 cents less than starting wages under the old contract. For Tyson, the lower wages are in line with what the company pays elsewhere. CHASE: You have said, Mr. Kimbro, that the proposed contract will bring the Jefferson plant into line with other Tyson plants. The quote that I saw was Jefferson was in a luxurious position. What did you mean by luxurious? KIMBRO: That probably wasn't my best choice of words. And I think what I said was that it had a luxurious contract. What I was trying to refer to is the contract at Jefferson was very expansive. CHASE: Under the old contract, Jefferson workers paid next to nothing for their health plan. And after 25 years at the plant, they had six weeks' paid vacation. Those sorts of benefits were indeed generous compared to the rest of the Tyson system. Tyson is a company which has enjoyed extraordinary growth. The Arkansas rags-to-riches story goes from family chicken farm to biggest poultry and meat producer in the world, operating in 27 states and 22 countries, employing 120,000 workers. Sales last year: $23 billion. Profits: more than $380 million. CHASE: Is the plant not paying for itself? You said you were not pleading poverty, or… KIMBRO: No. CHASE: …saying that the Jefferson plant was inefficient, or costing you too much money. KIMBRO: Well, what I was trying to refer to there, and maybe didn't do a good job either, is we weren't saying that the plant was not profitable. What we're concerned with is the long-term viability of the plant, if the terms and conditions, and benefits are aligned like they are. SHULMAN: Tyson is a profitable company. CHASE: Beth Shulman is also a former official of the striking union, the United Food and Commercial Workers. SHULMAN: It's a company that basically hasn't had a loss in demand. Nothing has changed, other than Tyson believes it can extract this from workers. CHASE: Tyson has contacted now several times this past week to inform us about comparable starting wages offered by other employers in the Jefferson area, some paying less than Tyson. Those same kinds of wages can be found nationwide. In fact, one in four workers currently earns poverty-level wages for a family of four. And the Jefferson story is being played out across America. Downward pressure on wages and benefits is at the core of a gathering supermarket strike wave rolling across the country. In California alone, 70,000 union workers are on picket lines. The issue: benefit cuts and lower wages. The supermarkets asked for the concessions because they are feeling pressure from non-union Wal-Mart, the retail giant with 32-hundred facilities in the U.S. and the company reports 1.3 million workers worldwide. The WALL STREET JOURNAL reported this week that Wal-Mart "… has used its low labor costs…to compete heavily against supermarkets, prompting them to cut costs." Those "low labor costs" are estimated between 8 and 10 dollars an hour on average. In California, the unionized supermarkets pay a higher average wage of about 12 dollars an hour. Another Wal-Mart strategy to keep costs low, says the WALL STREET JOURNAL: "new hourly workers must wait six months to sign up for [health] benefits, and part-timers…can join the plan only after two years on the job." SHULMAN: That's why this is important. If Tyson's can do it and Wal-Mart can do it, what we're gonna see is a ripple effect throughout our society in terms of the wages and benefits. CHASE: NOW contacted Wal-Mart. The company wouldn't comment. Wal-Mart has said it wants to move into Jefferson, Wisconsin too, but local businesses are trying to block them. CHASE: What would a Wal-Mart do to this market of yours? DAVE LORBECKI: To be very honest, I think you'd see the town become just a Wal-Mart town. That would be it. I think you'd lose the jeweler, the drug store. You'd probably lose both grocery stores. Definitely would lose the hardware store. That doesn't leave anything else left. The shoe store would be gone. So, I don't think there'd be anything left. PATTI LORBECKI: And I guess until the people stand up like the Tyson workers are doing right now and say, "You know, we're not gonna put up with it. We're gonna stand our ground, and we're gonna fight." And that's to say the same thing that Dave and I are doing, in trying to keep Wal-Mart out of Jefferson. We're trying to stand up to a big giant. And it's gonna be a difficult fight, but we have to do it. CHASE: The Jefferson strikers have been fighting now for 8 months and they are paying for their defiance. That's evident at meetings of the Union Hardship Committee, where they dig into the kitty when strikers have an emergency. KERNAN: So you guys don't have no insurance either, huh? BARE: No, we had it until she got laid off from her other job, but she's just a sales assistant right now, and there's no insurance there. CHASE: They turn to a free food bank, stocked by donations from townfolk, local businesses and other unions… but with only $100 in weekly strike pay, they're all just scraping by. FLEMING: I had all this money saved up. And now it's my savings, and it's all dwindling down to nothing now. FLEMING: It's hard to find a job, when you've been in that plant for 20 years. You go apply, and people look at you like, "Well, you've been there 20 years. If we train you and that strike ends, you're just gonna go right back there." THRASHER: It's tearing families apart because some people are putting pressure, one family member's putting pressure on the other family member to go back to work, you know? Maybe be a scab or whatever. CHASE: If the striking workers were to accept the contract and go back into the plant today, Tyson says their average wage would be about $14 an hour. So why do the strikers care if new workers have to start at $9 an hour? BUBOLZ: The worker who comes into Jefferson to work, comes to Jefferson to live. And if he isn't able to live, or even provide basic needs to himself, then he becomes a burden of the state, almost. With three kids and a wife and a husband on $9 an hour, you're gonna get food stamps. You're gonna get energy assistance. CHASE: If you pay a poverty level wage… KIMBRO: Uh-huh. CHASE: …which you propose to do in Wisconsin, working families - the working poor, we call them - can and do qualify for public assistance, like Medicaid, food stamps, on such wages. And I'm asking the question on behalf of taxpayers in our audience. Should we be expected to pick up the slack in a place like Jefferson, Wisconsin, because Tyson is paying poverty level wages and the workers can't get by on what they're earning? KIMBRO: Well, my response is that we offer jobs. We offer jobs at what we believe is a competitive wage. We have a lot of competitors that pay much less than what we are currently offering in Jefferson, Wisconsin. We are doing that because we want to stay in business. We want that facility to continue to operate in Jefferson. CHASE: And it's not a question of conscience for Tyson or any other company in your view. KIMBRO: I don't know that I can speak for any other company. But I'm not ashamed that we offer work. I'm not ashamed of the wages that we pay. BUBOLZ: A man should be able to stand on his own two feet. You know. Without having to go and ask for help every month. 'Cause I can't feed my kids. Because I can't pay the heat. It's not acceptable. To go and work 40 hours. And feel productive. But yet not be able to give yourself what you need. That's insane. CHASE: If you come to no satisfactory conclusion with Tyson, and the workers begin to go in there at $9 an hour. What becomes of Jefferson? FLEMING: Ghost town. I believe it's gonna be one big ghost town. CHASE: How so? FLEMING: I think people are gonna move out. You know, that live in this community. That work at that plant. I think they can't afford the high taxes in this state. And where could you work for $9 an hour and pay your bills? By the time you pay for your insurance, what's that leave you for a paycheck? Doesn't leave you much. CHASE: This isn't the first time Tyson wages have been an issue. An undercover sting by the U.S. immigration service at the company's Shelbyville, Tennessee chicken processing plant caught plant managers on tape making a deal to hire 250 illegal aliens. That's the voice of a plant manager. MANAGER: We're gonna hire, we're gonna hire every one of 'em that you bring us, you know, up to 250. Maybe by the time we get to 250, it may need to be more than that but... but we know that we can use 250. CHASE: Tyson fired the managers involved for violating company policy. Two of them, Truley Ponder and Spencer Mabe, pled guilty earlier this year to hiring illegal aliens. They claimed qualified local people wouldn't work for what Tyson was paying, which was $6.89 an hour according to court testimony. In his guilty plea, Mabe claimed "…Tyson refused to raise wages to attract new and retain old employees…" so he "… continue[d] to use aliens … knowing that many of these aliens were probably illegally in the United States." He testified against Tyson when the U.S. government charged the company with conspiracy to violate immigration laws. The indictment stated Tyson cultivated "a corporate culture in which the hiring of illegal alien workers was condoned…to cut its costs." A jury acquitted the company and three executives. The foreperson said the government lacked evidence. KIMBRO: We spend countless amounts of money, time, and energy communicating to people that we want to only hire people who are authorized to work. It's in our best interest as an organization to do that. We would not gain anything by knowingly hiring someone that was not authorized to work in the United States. CHASE: So that no one here at the headquarters had any idea that this was going on in Shelbyville. KIMBRO: No. Absolutely not. CHASE: On a recent Friday back in Jefferson, Mike Fleming and other striking parents watched their sons play in the homecoming game. The Jefferson Eagles trounced the Watertown Whippets. Homecoming king Mike Frier says he and his mom have learned to live with the strike. MIKE: My mom, like, cleans houses now so, like, that's what she does every day of the week, so we're doing alright now. CHASE: Mike and three of his teammates are strikers' children. They have their goals set on a college education. But they're beginning to understand that what their parents may once have assured them was a middle class rite of passage can no longer be taken for granted. JOHNNY: They're not going to have enough money and they're not going to be spending money on me, like, if they were to help me out with tuition or whatever, they couldn't do that. I would have to work for it myself. CHASE: What are you going to do? JOHNNY: I don't know. Just hope for scholarships is all I can think about now. CHASE: Nancy Thrasher's long desire to help her grandchildren get a college education seems out of reach now. She spent five years of her life slicing and packing pepperoni at the Tyson plant. THRASHER: Tyson family, what you deserve. This is what Tyson family's got now. We have no jobs. We have no insurance for our kids. We can't send our kids to college. We can't buy no new houses. But we supposed to be Tyson family. What's wrong with this picture here? pbs.org

To: Mephisto who wrote (7270)	11/2/2003 3:41:16 PM
From: Mephisto	Respond to of 15516

In fact, one in four workers currently earns poverty-level wages for a family of four. pbs.org Source: MOYERS: Welcome to NOW. We return tonight to one of the most important beats on this program: what's happening to the American workplace. See: Message 19458011

To: Mephisto who wrote (7270)	11/2/2003 4:13:07 PM
From: Mephisto	Respond to of 15516

Beneath the Smiles, a Churning Anxiety November 2, 2003 ECONOMIC VIEW By LOUIS UCHITELLE The New York Times WE live in a manic-depressive economy, and right now we're in the manic phase. The annual growth rate, 7.2 percent in the third quarter, was spectacular. The Keynesian-style stimulus has been wonderfully effective. But the depressive phase may kick in again soon, as growth slows and millions of employed and unemployed Americans struggle to make up for lost incomes. They are out there trying now, earning $40,000 or $50,000, for example, rather than the $50,000 or $60,000 they made before they were laid off and took pay cuts to get work again. The Labor Department does not calculate their growing numbers, and neither does anyone else. But who notices these days? Consumer spending carried the economy in the summer and early fall, accounting for two-thirds of the third-quarter growth rate. Tax cuts and mortgage refinancing put hundreds of millions of dollars into people's pockets - offsetting lost income - and low interest rates cut borrowing costs. The 7.2 percent growth rate is not sustainable. Nearly every forecaster concedes that. A month into the fourth quarter, the growth rate has probably fallen back to 4 percent or so. That is still robust, but not enough to dispel the sadness that will set in as we climb down from euphoria. Part of the sadness lies in the obstacles to re-employment. The corporate sector remains plagued with overcapacity and may require many months of 4 percent growth just to make full use of those currently working. Job creation has to move above 200,000 a month, most economists say, before we can begin to shrink the pool of nearly nine million unemployed. We haven't gotten to six-digit job creation yet, much less sustained it. No wonder the unemployed spend 19.7 months, on average, seeking work, the longest stretch in nearly 20 years. "The breadth of the unemployment is almost unprecedented,'' said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Economy.com. Of the nine million unemployed, five million were laid off or fired, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. (The remainder are new entrants or people returning to the labor force after a voluntary absence.) Most of those five million will work again, but for less pay. The bureau's wage data, from its "job displacement'' surveys done every two years, are clear on this point. Three people are laid off, and three years later only one has regained the lost wage or risen above it. Labor economists describe the process: You are forced out of a $25-an-hour job and, after six months of job hunting, find work at $20 an hour. Two years later, having struggled back to $23 an hour, you are laid off again, and you slip back into the next job at $21 an hour. During this period, your standard of living suffers not only from the lower wage, but also from the income lost during unemployment and the loss of the raises you would have received if you had never been laid off. How many millions of people are living this experience? Such a number, if it existed, would be an effective indicator of our standard of living and our ability to sustain economic growth through consumer spending. Among the currently unemployed, most are expected to face lower pay in their next jobs. But how many Americans now working lost one or more jobs in the last 20 years as layoffs spread? The Bureau of Labor Statistics suggests the number is high. It has been tracking 10,000 people, a cross section of the population, since 1979, when most were teenagers and the permanent layoff was just becoming a national phenomenon. They are in their 30's and 40's now, and over the years each has held, on average, 9.6 jobs. The survey does not include reasons for so much job-changing, but the average is high enough to suggest that at least one or two of the jobs followed layoffs. IN a similar vein, Ann Huff Stevens, a labor economist at the University of California at Davis, working with data from a 1992 health and retirement study, found that among men and women 51 to 62 years old who had been laid off, 47 percent had been laid off more than once. Such surveys suggest that tens of millions of Americans are struggling to get their incomes back to where they were. The struggle dampened wage gains even in the booming 90's and has sapped confidence. "They have lost their seniority and their confidence that they can ride out succeeding waves of layoffs,'' said Katherine Newman, a sociologist at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. "And they see now that education does not protect them anymore. It used to, but it doesn't anymore. It shakes their faith in their capacity to control their lives.'' Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company nytimes.com