Corporations Are Not Humans: Not Even Close----Episode 49

        NO PLACE FOR PEOPLE IN THE CORPORATE WORLD
                                             (continuation) 

    Corporate restructuring is not simply about the drastic elimination of jobs ; it is also about downgrading those that remain. The white-collar labor market is becoming more lke the labor exchanges where jobless day laborers gather, hoping to hire out for the day. The "just-in-time" inventory concept now applies to people too. 
   The number of workers employed by temporary agencies has increased 240 percent in ten years. Manpower, the largest of 7,000 U.S. temp agencies with 600,000 temporary workers on its rolls,  is now America's largest private employer. Although some workers are part-time or temporary by choice, in 1993 nearly a third of the 21 million part-time workers in the United States said that they would prefer full-time jobs. Many displaced workers become self-employed, contracting out individually for temporary work. Most of these have suffered sharp declines in income. Although much of the evidence is anecdotal, Census Bureau statistics reveal that from 1989 to 1992, the real median income of Americans who worked for themselves fell 12.6 percent to $18, 544. Many of the newly self-employed workers are earning well below $18,000 a year --- a level that makes supporting a family in the present American economy difficult, if not impossible. 
   Young professionals are now actively counseled to plan career paths independently of their companies, to build their resumes and their outside contacts so that they are ready to move on when a new opportunity arises or when their companies abandon them. The advice to young people starting their careers : treat every job as though you are self-employed.
   Not so long ago, the firm for which a person worked was almost like family. It was a primary support system in an otherwise often impersonal and transient world. A good job was far more than an income. It was a source of identity and of valued and enduring relationships. Those days are no more, placing yet more stress on the family itself. In the present job market, the distinction between white-collar and blue-collar is less significant than the distinction between those who have permanent jobs and those who don't. The system nurtures an attitude of get what you can from the system while you can. Look out for yourself, because no one else will. 


                                     A SPREADING CANCER 

   Rather like the spread of a malignant cancer, the dysfunctional values and dynamics that characterize U.S. corporations and financial markets are spreading to Europe and Japan where corporations have traditionally been known for their sense of responsibility to their workers and the interests of the communities in which they are located. By May 1994,a binge of corporate restructuring in Europe, similar to that in the United States, had pushed Europe's unemployment rate to 10.9 percent. Even these rates, high as they are, may mask a much deeper dysfunction. In Belgium, unemployment was 8.5 percent in 1992, but 25 percent of the workforce was living on public assistance. Persistent joblessness is resulting in growing social unrest, exacerbating racial tensions, and sparking a vicious backlash against immigrants. Joblessness is especially acute among youth, whose unemployment rate is twice that of the general population and still rising. On March 25, 1994, 50,000 students marched down a Paris boulevard, "taunting police and chanting slogans demanding jobs." A survey of 3,000 European teenagers found them "confused, vulnerable, obsessed with their economic futures." 
  The onslaught is strongly supported by the propaganda machinery of the corporate media establishment, which is quick to turn every injustice created by the excesses of corporate globalization into justification for yet more excess. Pointing out that the unemployment rate in Europe has averaged about 3 percentage points higher than in the United States, The Economist cautioned, "no trade barrier will keep out the technological changes that are revolutionizing work in the rich world ; and a trade war is sure to destroy more jobs than it saves." It counseled Europe to emulate the United States by reducing social safety nets that "give the unemployed little incentive to seek work," minimum wages that "cost young workers their jobs," employer social security contributions that reduce demand for labor, and "strict employment-protection rules" that discourage firms from hiring by making "it hard, if not impossible, to lay off workers once they are are on the payroll." To those who point out that the quality of jobs in America has deteriorated as a consequence of such policies, The Economist has a ready answer : 

     Too many of the jobs being created in America), say the merchants of gloom, are part-time, temporary and badly paid. The real wages of low-skilled workers have fallen over the past decade. Yet in comparison with Europe, this should be seen as a sin of success ---an example of a well-functioning market --- not a failure. As manufacturing has declined, America and Europe have both faced shrinking demand for low-skilled labor. In America, the relative pay of these workers was allowed to fall, so fewer jobs were lost. European workers, by contrast, have resisted the inevitable and priced themselves out of work. 

   In short, according to the corporate press, Europe's unemployment problem is a result of overpaying the poor, taxing the rich, and imposing regulations that limit the ability of European firms to get on with serious downsizing.  The Economist editorial pointed to moves by various European countries to reduce minimum wages, cut payroll taxes, and loosen employment-protection laws as signs of hope.