NEWS & LETTERS, March-April 2010
Editorial
Limits of workers' patience
The frustrations, despair, fear and anger among a growing number of workers keep increasing as unemployment continues to rise despite economists' claims of economic recovery. Recoveries have begun in some sectors of the economy, but where it comes to jobs, not only has there been no recovery, the number of unemployed continues to increase with no end in sight.
This fear and anger were dramatically seen in a February union meeting of autoworkers at the NUMMI (New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc,) plant in California. Formerly a GM-Toyota joint venture, Toyota was preparing to lay off its 4,600 workers and close the plant April 1. Some 500 workers were at the meeting to learn about the negotiations on severance pay as well as a number of other issues.
They demanded to know the status of the negotiations and why neither the local union nor the United Auto Workers (UAW) national union had aggressively fought for them. The meeting erupted in white-hot anger when the union president used the F word to try to silence a worker who had asked a question.
During the meeting and in interviews with workers afterwards, the great divide between the workers and the union leadership was unmistakable, expressed often with profanities directed at their local leadership and at Ron Gettelfinger, president of the UAW. The workers noted that the UAW was now a part owner of GM following the bankruptcy, and that the union was looking out for the interests of GM instead of union members.
UAW CONNIVED WITH TOYOTA
Workers also charged that, while they were kept in the dark about negotiations, the union was getting a part of their severance pay and that conditions put on getting their severance pay were designed to keep workers in line until the plant closed. In other words, no misbehaving on the part of the workers. But the greatest concern was over losing their job, with no union battle to keep the plant operating.
The question of jobs remains at the top of the list for all workers. Of the 15 million officially unemployed, 6.3 million have been out of work for more than six months, higher than at any time in the past. Millions of workers and their families are barely getting by on unemployment compensation checks. For 2.4 million of them, their checks will run out by the end of April. Extension of unemployment compensation by Congress would be just a stopgap measure. Only about two-thirds of the unemployed get unemployment checks at all, yet 44 states cut off welfare benefits for families whose income is 75% or more of the poverty level.
The U.S. economy must generate 100,000 jobs a month just to meet the number of new job applicants. The Labor Department does not count those who have exhausted their unemployment benefits or who have given up on finding a job, as millions have. So the real number of unemployed is more than 20 million.
The greatest culprit is automation, which has destroyed 5.6 million jobs since 2000--a number that will only increase as technological discoveries are applied to factories, mines, mills, and offices. None are immune. So even reversing the export of jobs to low wage countries like China would not solve the crisis that capitalism has created.
RECOVERY WITHOUT JOBS?
In the past, auto, banking, and home construction have led the way out of recessions, but there is no hope of that now. Auto companies have been a basket case for the past two years, home mortgage foreclosures continue at an increasing rate, and there have been more banks closed this past year than in any year since records were first started, outside of the Depression.
Nor do all suffer equally. Black men, who make up only 5.4% of the workforce, are 13% of the long-term unemployed. The unemployment rate for those earning over $150,000 is 3.2% and 4% for those in the $100,000 to $150,000 bracket, but a whopping 30.8% for those making less than $12,000 a year--worse than the 25% unemployment rate during the Great Depression.
Many commentators point out that a continuation of joblessness will lead to social unrest, social dislocations, social turmoil and a whole host of other "socials," but they are straining to find any expression other than "revolution," a word that they all know and fear. By now it is clear that the spirit of revolt in the U.S. is growing. It is not only workers and their families who are feeling the need for a profound change to be able to live like human beings, it is pervading the whole of society.
This kind of change is what the majority of people looked to when they voted for President Obama. But instead of change, there is only more of the same, and in many cases, even worse. The specter of social revolution haunted the whole decade of the Great Depression. It is increasingly haunting the present period of the Great Recession.
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