The “middle class” myth: Here’s why wages are really so low today

[Scuba]

http://www.salon.com/2013/12/30/the_middle_class_myth_heres_why_wages_are_really_so_low_today/

The argument given against paying a living wage in fast-food restaurants is that workers are paid according to their skills, and if the teenager cleaning the grease trap wants more money, he should get an education. Like most conservative arguments, it makes sense logically, but has little connection to economic reality. Workers are not simply paid according to their skills, they’re paid according to what they can negotiate with their employers. And in an era when only 6 percent of private-sector workers belong to a union, and when going on strike is almost certain to result in losing your job, low-skill workers have no negotiating power whatsoever.

...

In Nick Reding’s book “Methland,” he interviews Roland Jarvis, who earned $18 an hour throwing hocks at Iowa Ham…until 1992, when the slaughterhouse was bought out by a company that broke the union, cut wages to $6.20 an hour, and eliminated all benefits. Jarvis began taking meth so he could work extra shifts, then dealing the drug to make up for his lost income.

Would Americans kill pigs for $18 an hour? Hell, yes, they would. There would be a line from Sioux City to Dubuque for those jobs. But Big Meat’s defeat of Big Labor means it can now negotiate the lowest possible wages with the most desperate workers: usually Mexican immigrants who are willing to endure dangerous conditions for what would be considered a huge pile of money in their home country. Slaughterhouses hire immigrants not because they’re the only workers willing to kill and cut apart pigs, but because they’re the only workers willing to kill and cut apart pigs for low wages, in unsafe conditions.

...

The anti-labor movement’s greatest victory has been in preventing the unionization of the jobs that have replaced well-paying industrial work. Stanley was lucky: After Wisconsin Steel shut down in 1980, a casualty of obsolescence, he bounced through ill-paying gigs hanging sheetrock and tending bar before finally catching on as a plumber for the federal government. The public sector is the last bastion of the labor movement, with a 35.9 percent unionization rate. But I know other laid-off steelworkers who ended their working lives delivering soda pop or working as security guards.

[PowerToThePeople]

1. When I was in my late teens/early 20s

I had some friends that worked at slaughterhouses. I think they were paid in the high teens at the time. They certainly made more money than I did. I had less take home pay, but my job was cleaner. I was ok with that.

[villager]

2. Yet one more reason -- in addition to climate change -- to boycott Big Meat...

n/t

[phantom power]

3. Nobody is paid according to "skill" or "value" or "effort"

People are paid in proportion to their negotiating power. End of story. It's one of the biggest intellectual bait-and-switches in human history.

[Scuba]

4. Yep. That's why they don't want you to have any.

[Stryder]

7. Yup

Pretty much got this whole unemployment rate thing dialed in.
Productivity's goin' like a bat.
But you're lucky to have a job. Which makes labor a buyers market.
What a happy accident, huh?

[The2ndWheel]

5. It's a question of need

Do they need you for the job? Do they need your skill for the job? Do they need your effort for the job? Do they need you for their profits to go up? If they don't, then they have little use for you, you have nothing to negotiate with, and so your value to them is low.

Even if you have an education, are you needed?

[blkmusclmachine]

6. ,

,

[Spitfire of ATJ]

8. Why can't they just admit the Middle Class was invented to promote Capitalism?

But now that Communism no longer is a threat the Middle Class is no longer needed.

[reformist2]

9. File that idea under scary and disturbing (but possibly true)!

[jwirr]

10. My whole family has worked in slaughterhouses in the NE IA area. What happened to the original

labor force can be illustrated by my brother. He worked in the pack for his entire adult life and by the time things started to change he ended up being the only non immigrant worker because he knew every machine in the plant. Unfortunately he did not speak or understand Spanish so he was told he was no longer needed. This has happened in every pack in the area.

They could not outsource so they insourced. Prior to that many NE IA and southern MN workers were long term residents or their wives. No longer and it is not because they will not work in that line of work.

[moondust]

12. Are the immigrants here on work visas?

There are several different types of H-class visas. These include:

H-1B Visas: These are earmarked for skilled temporary workers like architects, computer programmers, designers and others.
H-1A Visas: These are set aside for farm laborers and other seasonal employees.
H-2B Visas: These are set aside for non-agricultural workers who typically enter and exit the country within the same year.
H-3 Visas: These are intended for short-term training stints during which the visa holder must earn a salary or stipend.
H-4 Visas: These can be obtained by certain relatives and dependents of qualifying H-visa holders.

http://gutierrezfirm.com/immigration/non-immigrant-work-visa/h-visas/

[jwirr]

13. Actually I am not sure. There have been cases of undocumented workers and there are also many

who are US citizens. I have never looked into the total issue. My brother was fired and that was the last of our interest.

[Xyzse]

11. This to me is a far more important subject than the current tempest

Which only serves to divide using such a base subject.

[Doctor_J]

14. as Parenti points out, the opposite of "working class" is not "upper class"

You used to be able to be both. No, the opposite of working class is "owning class", which consists specifically of people who don't work, who just get filthy rich off of others' work.

[Scuba]

15. +1

[TBF]

16. Breaking unions has been extremely

successful for the ownership class. Not sure why the rest are agreeing with them rather than looking out for their own economic interest.

When will folks tire of $7/hr and fight back?

[Doctor_J]

17. Hate Radio and Fox "News"

25 years of propaganda - an entire generation of brainwashed Limbeciles believe "unions bad", and that black people and "big government" are what's keeping them from turning into Willard Rmoney

[laundry_queen]

18. That's exactly it.

My dad, once a union man, bought into the crap that unions are bad because the union bosses are only looking out for themselves. This happened because his company went on strike for benefits back in the 70's and my dad got a job elsewhere to make ends meet because the strike dragged on for a really long time. My dad is one of those selfish "why should I pay school taxes, I don't have any kids in school right now" idiots and so he was pissed strike pay wasn't enough for him to make ends meet. He blamed it on the bosses 'taking' his money.

All he needed was a little bit of propaganda (we're in Canada so the propaganda isn't as overt but it's there on the right) to believe that unions were the problem. Now he thinks all union workers are lazy, entitled and overpaid. It's true if he would've stayed with his union and his company, he'd be better off now than he is. He worked for crappy wages for years, all the while saying union people were overpaid, never stopping to think he was underpaid. I think part of this thinking stems from jealousy. His thinking process is such that if he is making less than the union person, they are making too much. If he is a union person making good wages, he deserves it because he is a hard worker. Typical republican thinking - memememe, I got mine. And the propaganda enables them to rationalize their selfishness and scapegoat those they look down on.