The White Working Class is A Dying Breed

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From the Washington Post:

 

The news this week that the death rate of middle-aged American whites — more particularly, working-class middle-aged American whites — is rising, while that of all other Americans continues to fall, is appalling. But it should come as no surprise...... the stories of the white working class have grown relentlessly grimmer. The offshoring of U.S. manufacturing and the increasing substitution of machines for humans in the production process took a huge toll. As Andrew J. Cherlin points out in “Labor’s Love Lost,” his study of the disintegration of the working-class white family, the share of blue-collar jobs in the U.S. economy declined from 28 percent in 1970 to 17 percent in 2010...........The white working class’s loss of jobs and incomes was spurred by its loss of power: The nearly complete deunionization of the private sector left those workers with no way to bargain for better pensions or pay. The doctrine of maximizing shareholder value, which corporations began to adopt in the ’80s, most commonly meant minimizing worker pay and benefits, hiring from temp agencies and eliminating programs to increase employee skills..........With the demise of stable, remunerative employment came the decline of stable, two-parent families..........

 

Full article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-white-working-class-is-a-dying-breed/2015/11/04/f2220170-8323-11e5-a7ca-6ab6ec20f839_story.html

[NUance]

The demise of the pale male. And so it goes.

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The demise of the pale male. And so it goes.

Yeah, good paying blue collar jobs are fewer and farther between, and if you get laid off when you're in your 40s or 50s , well, it's difficult to just take up some new occupation from the ground floor. It takes time to get good at anything, 5-10 years, and if you've spent most of your life gaining expertise in a certain thing and that goes out the window, well, it can be tough learning something new and feeling some self respect. Starting over, yeah right.

 

Alot of women are becoming the main bread winners in these situations as they are more suited from certain admin jobs etc and the blue collar guy, again, can lose self respect and respect from the spouse.

 

It can be a tough situation.

 

What makes me laugh a little is the thing where they say, "oh, we need more infrastructure work to put people back to work again". Well, you don't just "pick up" bridge work, or road work etc, these are skilled trades.

[NUance]

One reason we're in this pickle is because for the past half a century or so we gleefully sent as many blue collar jobs as we could over seas. Part of it happened because of labor unions. But I think that excuse is overblown. The upper management in charge of negotiating with labor unions had little incentive to do so. They could personally make more money through stock incentives and bonuses by simply closing down U.S. plants and opening up cheaper foreign plants in China and other developing countries. It didn't cost any upper management jobs to do this. And their kids who were off at Princeton and Harvard would never be working on the factory floor. So the upper management made out like bandits by sending all our blue collar factory jobs overseas. Even though it put many tens of thousands of blue collar Americans out of work. We did that to dozens of thriving American industries--automotive, computers, TVs, furniture--pretty much everything that used to be manufactured in the U.S.

 

And the EPA was a partner in all this. More stringent EPA laws made it tougher to manufacture things in the U.S. So what did we do? We sent all of our dirtiest industries overseas where they have lax environmental laws, and they can manufacture goods in the most efficient manner without concern for the environmental impact. I wonder if anyone has ever calculated how much damage the EPA did to the world's environment by driving our factories overseas to avoid regulation?

 

/gets off soapbox. Pours another drink.

[BigRedBuster]

One reason we're in this pickle is because for the past half a century or so we gleefully sent as many blue collar jobs as we could over seas. Part of it happened because of labor unions. But I think that excuse is overblown. The upper management in charge of negotiating with labor unions had little incentive to do so. They could personally make more money through stock incentives and bonuses by simply closing down U.S. plants and opening up cheaper foreign plants in China and other developing countries. It didn't cost any upper management jobs to do this. And their kids who were off at Princeton and Harvard would never be working on the factory floor. So the upper management made out like bandits by sending all our blue collar factory jobs overseas. Even though it put many tens of thousands of blue collar Americans out of work. We did that to dozens of thriving American industries--automotive, computers, TVs, furniture--pretty much everything that used to be manufactured in the U.S.

 

And the EPA was a partner in all this. More stringent EPA laws made it tougher to manufacture things in the U.S. So what did we do? We sent all of our dirtiest industries overseas where they have lax environmental laws, and they can manufacture goods in the most efficient manner without concern for the environmental impact. I wonder if anyone has ever calculated how much damage the EPA did to the world's environment by driving our factories overseas to avoid regulation?

 

/gets off soapbox. Pours another drink.

The part of your post about upper level management is well noted and I will admit it is part of the problem. Management in these huge mega corporations are out of control on compensation...etc.

 

However, most manufacturing jobs are with smaller companies than that. A lot of those jobs went over seas because of what else you said in your post. Unions, EPA regulations, employment law...etc. Now, I am not meaning to get into an argument for or against those things. Unions have their place. EPA has it's place, OSHA has it's place. They all serve a purpose even though everyone involved has WAY over stepped their usefulness (including management) and become a major part of the problem.

 

The fact is, these companies are competing with products that ARE produced in places like China and Indonesia by companies that aren't owned here. So, you have a company based in Australia that manufactures in Indonesia importing to the US and they don't play by the same rules as a company completely based here. The US company many times can't compete and are forced to move manufacturing if they want to stay in business. That's not (fat cats getting fatter than if they stayed here), that's just a matter of survival as a company.

 

Until that is addressed in all of these crappy trade agreements, nothing will change.

[cornographic]

One reason we're in this pickle is because for the past half a century or so we gleefully sent as many blue collar jobs as we could over seas. Part of it happened because of labor unions. But I think that excuse is overblown. The upper management in charge of negotiating with labor unions had little incentive to do so. They could personally make more money through stock incentives and bonuses by simply closing down U.S. plants and opening up cheaper foreign plants in China and other developing countries. It didn't cost any upper management jobs to do this. And their kids who were off at Princeton and Harvard would never be working on the factory floor. So the upper management made out like bandits by sending all our blue collar factory jobs overseas. Even though it put many tens of thousands of blue collar Americans out of work. We did that to dozens of thriving American industries--automotive, computers, TVs, furniture--pretty much everything that used to be manufactured in the U.S.

 

And the EPA was a partner in all this. More stringent EPA laws made it tougher to manufacture things in the U.S. So what did we do? We sent all of our dirtiest industries overseas where they have lax environmental laws, and they can manufacture goods in the most efficient manner without concern for the environmental impact. I wonder if anyone has ever calculated how much damage the EPA did to the world's environment by driving our factories overseas to avoid regulation?

 

/gets off soapbox. Pours another drink.

I agree with all of this, though, being a labor guy myself, I don't blame unions, you know, because I believe the working man/woman deserves to have decent living and working standards and bargaining power in the market place, yada yada. Unions are what "made Mur'ca great" in many ways for a large sector of the population, gave us the "middle class", so to speak, that is, allowed the working class person to attain a middle class income. And this is what appears to be the appeal of the Tea Party and what Trumpf is speaking to with his slogan: that is, a return, somehow, to the days when the working person made a good living and had a solid job. The paradox is, the Right Wing has jumped on this appeal by blaming everything on the gov't when, in fact, it is Right Wing policy that systematically attacks Labor. So, the working class white male tends to vote contrary to his economic interests by voting Right Wing.

 

Of course, the corporate class hates labor when it comes to the money. Any extra dollar they have to pay Labor is one less dollar in their pockets. The NAM has been on systematic assault against labor ever since the New Deal and the Wagner Acts were passed favoring Labor. So, of course, the whole thing about moving manufacturing overseas was/is to take advantage of the slave level cheap labor. The Mur'can taxpayer subsidizes such moves, of course, as per corporate welfare.

 

The fall out is that the working class white(and black etc) male has basically lost his identity and socioeconomic standing in many ways, and, sorry, not even Trumpf can bring that back. Any jobs that Trumpf--or whoever--does happen to "bring back" are going to be jobs that are on a significantly lower pay rate, of course.

 

There's no way any American Labor, whether union or non union can compete with the slave wages that exist overseas, so race to the bottom will continue as is--and the TPP just adds to all that.

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Another bad stat re: the working class. From the info below, one could derive that industrial capitalism is the most dangerous "terrorist" in the US--by far--but, of course, it wouldn't be a popular thing to say. Profits over people, as they say.

 

 

About 150 US workers die every day from hazardous working conditions,according to a new report by the AFL-CIO, the largest federation of labor unions in the US.

In 2013, 4,585 US workers were killed on the job and an estimated 50,000 died from occupational diseases, found the report. Additionally, about 3.8m work-related injuries and illnesses were reported. The AFL-CIO estimates that the real number of work-related injuries is somewhere between 7.6m to 11.4m each year as many work-related injuries are not reported. http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/29/north-dakota-deadliest-state-workers-third-year-running

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Good read:

The Legislative Attack on American Wages and Labor Standards, 2011–2012

 

 

 

Over the past two years, state legislators across the country have launched an unprecedented series of initiatives aimed at lowering labor standards, weakening unions, and eroding workplace protections for both union and non-union workers. This policy agenda undercuts the ability of low- and middle-wage workers, both union and non-union, to earn a decent wage......

 

 

 

This push to erode labor standards, undercut wages, and undermine unions has been advanced by policymakers pursuing a misguided economic agenda working in tandem with the major corporate lobbies. The report highlights legislation authored or supported by major corporate lobbies such as the Chamber of Commerce, National Federation of Independent Business, and National Association of Manufacturers—and by corporate-funded lobbying organizations such as the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), Americans for Tax Reform, and Americans for Prosperity—in order to draw the clearest possible picture of the legislative and economic policy agenda of the country’s most powerful economic actors.

 

http://www.epi.org/publication/attack-on-american-labor-standards/

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And, of course, there is the raiding of pension funds. Even UPS drivers are not immune:

 

 

The latest example is the Central States Pension Fund which serves hundreds of thousands of Teamsters in the Midwest, Trustees with the pension plan filed a petition with the U.S. Treasury Department late last month that would cut the pensions of workers and retirees by as much as 60 percent.

 

As I wrote last week in a letter sent to Fund Executive Director Thomas Nyhan, these cuts are simply outrageous. Trying to prop up Central States by proposing Draconian pension cuts that will impose significant hardships on the very people the fund is supposed to serve makes no sense.

The benefits these workers and retirees earned were the result of their own hard work as well as that of their fellow Teamsters. Wiping it out in order to balance the books is tantamount to highway robbery. Thankfully, there are others who feel the same way. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Michigan, took a stand for Central States beneficiaries last week when she said workers who contributed to pensions shouldn’t be facing an uncertain retirement, even if those pension funds are in a troubled state. “A pension is a promise that’s earned and workers should be able to count on it when they retire,” she said. https://teamster.org/news/2015/10/hoffa-central-states-shouldnt-cut-pensions