Latest chapter in the saga of wage slavery – Moscow-Pullman Daily News

The scuttlebutt on the streets of Plummer, Idaho, is that free government money is making people lazy and that accounts for the countrys labor shortage. Thats the snippet of conversation I eavesdropped upon, between a convenience store clerk and a police officer, while filling a takeout cup of coffee free of charge. Gotta toss out whats left at the end of the night anyway, she said.

The weekly $300 unemployment booster shot in the form of the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation program ended Sept. 6. Perhaps that program did persuade some to stay on the couch. The bigger numbers dont square with that assumption. Who was I to argue though? The coffee was on the house and I still had 40 miles to drive.

We are in the throes of pandemic-induced cultural churn and attitudes towards work are a central part of the shift. Even after the recline-and-drink-your-keg money dried up, we experienced the biggest drop in the workforce participation rate since World War II. There is a lot more to the story.

Even among some of the more serious economists, there is doubt that workforce participation will return to the prepandemic status-quo, particularly at the bottom rungs of the labor ladder. Those bigger numbers: 8 million unemployed, and the more pressing curiosity: 10 million unfilled job openings. And mind you, these openings arent for Directors of Chemical Engineering or corporate Real Estate Vice Presidents; you must direct your attention to the bottom third of the pyramid, a layer actively being dismantled or otherwise chiseled away.

Sectors with the most dire labor shortages include hotels, daycare, and restaurants with employment down 17, 10, and 8 percent respectively. In the construction market alone, there are more unfilled positions than at any time over the last two decades. Well give only scant mention of the shortage of truckers and dock workers lest we get pulled into the frailty of the entire global supply chain.

So, why the attitude shift amongst hourly wage earners? As one striking union member with John Deere phrased it: this s--ts about to get real. He and 10,000 of his fellow assembly line workers are now on picket lines at plants in Iowa, Illinois and Kansas. What is real is that management is following a worn-out script (as are union members) and cutting pensions for all new John Deere employees. After all, they have to beat earnings-per-share estimates to line their pockets with multi-million-dollar bonuses.

As long as there is a sense of long-term security, there is a simmering tolerance for social inequity: management can have their mini-Tudor estates as long as workers can afford season tickets to the Mariners games. That sense of security has evaporated. Cost cutting in the form of production outsourcing, assembly robotics, reduced health care and pensions has sent a clear message.

The industrialization of the U.S. has had more than a few get real moments. During the Great Steel Strike of 1919, the U.S. Army was called-in to take control of Gary, Ind.; the steel mill strike of 1952 saw President Truman direct the government to seize and operate those factories. Perceived threats and inequities are nothing new to American labor.

While witnessing the waning, though vigorous, labor unrest from the last vestiges of our manufacturing sector (1,400 strikers at Kellogg; 1,000 coal miners in Alabama; 400 whiskey-makers in Kentucky, etc.), we see an increased militancy in the service sector and see examples in the form of teacher and nurse strikes across the country.

We see the fragmentation between upper middle class service workers who can work from the comfort of their homes on laptops and those who toil on the front lines: forced overtime, job burnout, and the ever-present health risks. Those who sweep the floors, drive the school buses, take care of our kids, slice our bacon, and fill our Amazon Prime cardboard boxes. A relevant study at MIT concluded that 70 percent of wage stagnation between 1980-2016 was due to automation. Machines dont get pregnant or COVID, as they say.

This phase of labor shortages and unrest is yet another get real moment in the saga of economic growth at all costs. No such thing as a free lunch even when the coffee is on the house.

After years of globetrotting, Broadman finds himself writing from his perch on the Palouse and loving the view. His policy briefs can be found at US Renew News: http://www.usrenewnews.org

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Latest chapter in the saga of wage slavery - Moscow-Pullman Daily News