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Why Won't the Candidates Talk About Americans' Economic Pain?

By Paul Waldman, The American Prospect. Posted December 12, 2007.


The middle-class is paying the price for our growth-at-any-cost business culture.
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These are not good times for American workers. Real wages are lower today than they were before the recession of 2001, and barely higher than they were thirty-five years ago. Health insurance is more expensive and harder to obtain than ever before. Manufacturing jobs continue to move overseas. The unions whose efforts might arrest these trends continue to struggle under a sustained assault that began when Ronald Reagan fired striking air-traffic controllers in 1981, in effect declaring war on the labor movement.

This is a story with which you are probably familiar. But these are in no small part symptoms of a larger transformation of the relationship between employers and employees, in which Americans increasingly sign away their humanity when they sign an employment contract.

Let's take just one component of today's work environment that most people have simply come to accept: drug testing. An article published last year on Time magazine's web site titled, "Whatever Happened to Drug Testing?" reported that in the last decade, the proportion of employers testing their employees for drug use has declined to 62 percent, after having exploded to over 80 percent in the 1990s.

That's right -- "only" 62 percent of employers make their employees pee into a cup (or fork over a lock of hair, the current state of the art). The recent decline notwithstanding, the fact remains that most Americans work at places where drug testing is standard practice.

But the classic justifications for drug testing -- that it will reduce accidents, absenteeism, and overall productivity -- turn out to have very little support. When this study was released 10 years ago, it got a certain amount of attention for what the authors referred to as a "surprising" finding. In their survey of high-tech firms, they found that those that performed drug testing on their employees had lower productivity than those that didn't test. Forget all the rhetoric about pot-addled employees missing work and stumbling their way around the office.

But I'd bet that most people who work weren't too surprised. Think about the jobs you've had. Where were you the most productive? Was it when you worked for a boss and an organization that treated you with respect, that valued your contributions, where you actually felt that you were part of something useful? Or were you more productive when you worked for a boss and an organization that governed by fear, that treated you with suspicion and contempt? Most adults have worked for the latter kind, while only some have had the good fortune to work for the former. And many if not most of them do just enough work to stay out of trouble and avoid the wrath of their superiors. That's the spirit fostered in a workplace where employees are treated like criminals.

There is an ideology inherent in the way employers treat their workers, one reflected in the relative amounts of attention paid by the news media to labor issues and the ups and downs of the stock market. Wall Street, of course, makes heroes out of executives who cut benefits and sack workers, like the monstrous "Neutron Jack" Welch, formerly of General Electric. A corporate barbarian of the first order, Welch pocketed hundreds of millions of dollars while firing more than 100,000 employees, then went on to write a series of best-selling books gobbled up by junior executives looking for the secret battle plan to slash their way to the top. He's just one among many; another such executive, who laid off 9,000 people when he was CEO of Halliburton, later became vice president of the United States.


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See more stories tagged with: economy, healthcare, election08, employment, jobs

Paul Waldman is a Senior Fellow at Media Matters for America. His latest book was Being Right is Not Enough: What Progressives Must Learn From Conservative Success.

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Business Culture -
Posted by: RoffleTheWaffle on Dec 13, 2007 5:18 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
My mother, who has been a businessperson for most of her life, tells me about how things were when she was responsible for hiring people, and how things are now in the small business she runs. If what she's told me is to be treated as truth, the business world has changed a lot.

It's like there used to be a mutual appreciation and respect between employer and employee that doesn't exist now. An employer should be grateful to have workers, and employees should be grateful to have work. Now, a new attitude has emerged, embracing only one side of the old one. Employees should be grateful to have work, and the employer can and should replace or dispose of them whenever it's convenient. The difference it seems is that workers aren't viewed as people but as liabilities. They're an unfortunate, necessary evil that has to exist in the workplace so the boss-man can get rich and retire at 45.

If the information I've gathered is to be treated as fact, the business world has over the past few decades become completely dehumanized compared to a (historically unusual) former standard. I'd believe it. The places where I've worked don't even care about retaining employees anymore, because everyone here in the rust belt is a beggar, not a chooser. The management types who've come here where I live over the past few years know they can run their workplaces into the ground and always have people working because there aren't any good choices left anymore. It's sad, really. Did I also mention that a lot of these new businesses are also foreign, and send most of the money they make out of the country? Think about that for a second.

We're so screwed.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Sorry. Gore campaigned on the plight of the people.
Posted by: Sojourner on Dec 14, 2007 10:08 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
And look what happened to him.

Somehow our plutocracy has managed to convince Americans that if they are not doing well, it is their own fault. All they have to do is find their own company to "part-out" and with workers whose retirement packages they can steal.

We voters have had more than enough good chances to change the way this country is run. Instead we want to imagine we are entrepreneurs by playing the lottery.

And I don't blame the schools. Yes, public education could be better but that's not the problem. As Dylan sings, we listen to ads that tell us "You can do what's never been done. You can win what's never been won."

We create an aristocracy of wealth and power that pays law enforcement to put people in jail and keeps the cages the rest of us are in clean--sorta.

But we've all had a hand in creating global warming. We are irresponsible and therefore divided, and we have been conquered not by a foreign enemy but one right here at home.

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Good workplace, bad workplace
Posted by: halg on Dec 15, 2007 7:17 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
All workplaces are bad; I've run into few that even approximate the ideal. Either bosses are asses, in which case the employees suffer at their whims and callousness, or the bosses are "nice" which often times allows the laziest and most manipulative free run to terrorize the rest of the workforce with their ineptitude and unprofessionalism, and ultimately, its customers. No easy solutions there.

There is no labor section of the newspaper to tell the stories of the families devastated by layoffs and the workers ground down by the daily parade of indignities.

That largely depends on which newspapers you read. Try reading the People's World Weekly (if you can accept that it is published by the Communist Party USA). They report regularly on working conditions and union activity, not just overseas, but right here in America. True, they have a slant. But if you are serious about the families "devastated by layoffs and ... indignities," you might find this helps fill the void. The Socialist Party's Militant newspaper also contains some good stories on this and other topics.

Yes, MSM does not have this coverage. But we already know that, so why not look outside MSM?

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author too generous...
Posted by: undrgrndgirl on Dec 16, 2007 2:46 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
this author gave business too much credit for taking care of employees...i know many people who are in "temp" jobs (no benefits) with the elusive carrot of "permanent" (full benefits) hanging in front of their noses - when really there is no hope of the job ever becoming permanent - what is it, why buy the cow when you can have the milk for free...though i did appreciate his discussion of drug testing (it should be outlawed)...as for me, i'm looking for work - i (almost) have an MA in applied history and 15 years as a medical assistant if anyone's hiring...

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» RE: author too generous... Posted by: underledge
jvb123
Posted by: jvb1235 on Dec 16, 2007 10:12 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
You know, there _is_ a candidate who is speaking to this: his name is JOHN EDWARDS. Why is no one listening??? I realize you have to search and read for yourself - the media is totally disregarding him, for some reason.

He is the only candidate that I totally agree with EVERYTHING he says. Check it out!

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

» RE: jvb123 Posted by: zbeckerd