50 Percent Pay Cuts at GE's Plants: Is This the Future of American Jobs?

[xchrom]

ttp://www.alternet.org/labor/154990/50_percent_pay_cuts_at_ge%27s_plants%3A_is_this_the_future_of_american_jobs_/

This piece was originally published by Labor Notes. Come to the Labor Notes conference May 4-6 in Chicago, the biggest gathering of grassroots labor activists and all-around troublemakers out there! More than 100 workshops and meetings to ‘put the movement back in the labor movement.’

If the war against unions has reached a tipping point, Wilma Smith is among those determined to rebalance the scales.

The 58-year-old assembler at the General Electric plant in West Burlington, Iowa, was called back to work in September.

She had been on layoff since 2007 from the non-union factory, which makes electrical switch gears for municipalities and energy-hungry factories, hospitals, and call centers. “You know how you have a fuse box in your house?” she asks. “These are like fuse boxes for a city,” the size of a refrigerator.

But the job came with new terms: a 50 percent pay cut—she’d now make $12 an hour. No health care coverage when she retired. And no chance she’d get the $5,000 bonus GE’s union workers won in last year’s national contract.

“You know what the deal is, so I don’t want to hear any complaining,” the manager at the 150-worker plant told her at orientation.

[MadHound]

1. Yes, yes it is.

This has been the plan all along, to reduce the cost of American labor to the point where it is competitive with Asian labor. Sure, American workers will make a bit more, but that is only because it costs to ship goods from Asia to here.

But the cost of living in this country will continue to rise, putting the squeeze on everybody. Ideally, the rich want to see the rest of us turned into serfs.

[lunatica]

2. Why yes. It IS the future of American jobs

Not only pay cut in half, but also more work. See, General Electric makes out pretty well. It saves on the workers' salaries and also cuts the workforce by half and saves on having to give benefits, while getting more productivity out of who's left. They hit the Trifecta.

Capitalism baby!

[SharonAnn]

42. And, they not only pay no Federal Income tax, they actually get tax REFUNDS!

[Honeycombe8]

58. Wow. I knew GE hadn't paid fed income tax, but I didn't know it got refunds.

There is something very wrong with that. There should be a minimum tax or something.

[NNN0LHI]

3. Unionized workers used to set the pattern for wages and benefits for all workers

Now it is non-union workers who are setting the pattern for everyone's wages and benefits.

The Reaganites are overjoyed about this.

Don

[leveymg]

4. This wouldn't happen in Germany. We have two pro-GE political parties. That's why it happens here

GE gets the government it pays for. But, it's coming out of the worker's pockets.

[xchrom]

6. +1

[Ilsa]

5. And GE's income is in the $billions with

no income taxes. They do nothing to support the commons, the infrastructure.

What Greedy Bastards.

[TBF]

9. This is what we'll have until we get rid of the capitalism -

when folks are rewarded for greedy behavior it's what you'll get. Change the reward system and you'll see different behavior.

[NNN0LHI]

12. We had a better reward system during my lifetime

It was called collective bargaining.

But the Reaganites fell for the anti-union bullshit and here we are now.

Don

[TBF]

23. I hear you -

the only chance we working class ever had was with the unions. I remember painting strike signs with my dad when I was a kid, and I am squarely middle-aged now. We have a couple of generations of folks who have little to no experience with unions and it is telling (even on this website).

[Puzzledtraveller]

20. Then why produce anything?

[TBF]

24. I don't think I buy the "puzzled" part of your user name -

but I certainly see the traveling part.

[Starry Messenger]

27. lol

[Initech]

46. We just need to bring back stricter regulations.

Deregulated capitalism is a bad idea and it's coming back to bite us in the ass hard. For them it's all about obscene profit while squashing the little guy. If we brought back regulations and taxed the fucking hell out of these greedy bastards - we might actually start making some progress.

[TBF]

52. We did see that work to some degree between 1930-80 roughly

and it's probably worth a shot. I dunno, with all the outsourcing that's been done, not to mention the union breaking, it would still be a tough. But, yes, I hear you. At least for that time period folks had jobs and a chance at upward mobility. That's all gone now.

[Sanity Claws]

7. GE owns NBC

The mass media has been peddling propaganda to support shit like this.

[MADem]

8. Jack Welch bought and paid for Tim Russert. Made Tim rich, but he had to sell his soul. nt

[HughBeaumont]

10. And that shit troll is on CNBC every other damned week.

. . . peddling the garbage corporate-friendly slag with his golf-buddy Joe Kernen just in case we all forgot.

[MADem]

40. Yes, he is--he is one of the most dangerous people that many have never heard of! nt

[HughBeaumont]

41. Like his fellow 1%ers, they relish their villainous nature.

Jack Welch, on the typical Gore voter, in 2000: "someone who needs all these goddamned social programs because she's too goddamned dumb to keep her legs crossed and too goddamned lazy to get an abortion."

Charming guy.

[BumRushDaShow]

34. Not anymore. Comcast bought out GE's stake and now owns NBC-Universal. n/t

[bluedave]

11. Yes indeed

I knew it was all over when all the temp. worker agencies popped up.

[Jakes Progress]

13. If we had a genuine Democratic party or candidate

this would be addressed.

The the party heads keep us cluck clucking and tsk tsking over hot button issues that won't be addressed either. They use scare tactics on us the same way the republicans trot out willie horton and gay marriage every two years.

We fall for it and rise up to "defeat" the great evil. Then the people who pay for both parties have a nice giggle at us and just go on screwing the people. It's a game they play and we are the pieces.

[xchrom]

14. indeed. nt

[valerief]

15. So the CEO got a 50% pay cut?

[Initech]

49. More like a 50% pay raise.

[SammyWinstonJack]

57. He got the fifty percent the workers were forced to give up.

[valerief]

61. Badda bing! nt

[MannyGoldstein]

16. I'm BURSTING with PRIDE!!!

That GE's CEO agreed to head Obama's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. There's no way America's 99% can lose with strategies like this!

[Thor_MN]

25. Half a chicken in every pot!!!

And don't say that you don't have a pot to piss in, it's right there, with the chicken.

[Cerridwen]

17. Future? No. It's already here for many people.

That it hasn't yet "trickled up" to "everyone" means those who still haven't experienced it can continue to deny it is yet an issue.

[Fumesucker]

18. Jeffery Immelt is CEO of GE and head of Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board...

Let's get America back to work...

At half the wages...

[sarcasmo]

19. Take a cut or we close the plant and move to China.

[obxhead]

31. More like, take a 50% pay cut while

we continue with our plans to move the plant to Asia within this decade.

[pampango]

44. GE's been outsourcing to the "South and West", long before China was a gleam in their eye.

"for decades GE ... spread whatever gains its unions made to non-union workers, to keep organizing at bay.

But after losing a 1946 strike badly, management adopted a hard-line stance against unions, preaching the gospel of individual responsibility. GE closed plants in the unionized North, shipping jobs South and West, and adopted a “take it or leave it” approach to negotiations, termed “Boulwarism” after its labor relations chief.

The company was a model of de-unionization and corporate triumphalism..."

And that was before international outsourcing existed to any significant extent.

[AllyCat]

21. Huge profits from the US War Machine and beyond. Pay no taxes...

But they have to cut salaries of their lowest paid workers to break even?? I'm sorry, this is exactly where I see government should come in and intervene.

[SammyWinstonJack]

59. Except that the CEO is on Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board.

[cloudbase]

22. It's been the plan all along.

"Until we get real wage levels down much closer to the Brazils and Koreas, we cannot pass along productivity gains to workers’ wages and still be competitive”

Stanley J. Mihelick
Executive Vice President
Goodyear, Inc.
1997

[SharonAnn]

43. Until we get executive pay down to closer to the Brazils and Koreas, we cannot pass along bonuses, e

Why isn't that logic true for the executives? They're get pay, stock options, benefits, bonuses that WAY exceed executives in those countries.

[HiPointDem]

47. Wow, that statement is so internally contradictory. Wages must go down so we can pass on

wage gains? What?

These SOBs must think we're stupid. Oh, right, they do.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

26. Wasn't GE one of the companies that hasn't paid any income tax over the last several years?

Cheap assed sons of bitches.

[fasttense]

32. NOT Only dose GE NOT pay federal taxes and get a subsidies back, they KEEP worker's state income tax

A report about corporations keeping the State income tax they collect on their workers' wages (without telling the workers of course) recently came out and guess what? GE is at the top of the list. So, they cut their worker's pay while taking their worker's state income tax in secret.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/12/big-companies-state-taxes-workers_n_1419582.html

My, my how quickly America has embraced fascisms.

[lunasun]

37. wtf I never heard of this thanks for the info!!!

Yeah unionist were one of Hitler's many enemies of the state

[raouldukelives]

28. Whatever Wall St investors want. Wall St investors get.

This actually might be considered a "good job" in the not to distant future. Depending on how much pressure there is to lower wages & working conditions in America to compete on a global scale and provide more returns for shareholders. The important thing is to make the markets happy and all they demand is the worlds natural resources, protected wildlife areas and people to be utilized, exploited and drained to the fullest to provide maximum investment returns.

[marshall gaines]

29. well

shouldn't see anymore I love working here at GE commercials, after being laid off from auto company bs. what hypocrisy. 50%??????????? no healthcare when retired when needed most?? PROFIT, NOT PEOPLE most important in this country and all you good patriots who voted repug and LOST their jobs over the last 31 years, you're getting what you voted for. I do not feel sorry for you. To you dims who lost your job, just goes to prove we need a new party to represent ALL good decent, hard working people who care about their kids, nation and their future....

[nineteen50]

30. this is one key to austerity economics corporations cutting

wages and benefits while government is destroying union power and cutting public benefits and services

[woo me with science]

33. Welcome to the new America.

We are nothing but farm animals for the rich.

[HelenWheels]

35. Take it and like it!

Can't even complain about the pay cut. I wonder what that manager makes?
Do they follow the workers around after work to make sure they don't complain? Wouldn't doubt it.

[hootinholler]

36. But we're so proud we made the shiney locomotive

And the jet engines! Watch them fly!

[socialist_n_TN]

38. Lots of outrage in this thread..............

But some of us have seen this as the plan all along. So what do we do about it. You DO realize that they can't make ANY of this stuff without us don't you?

Marx had the prescription...

[Bake]

39. They're hiring again at Appliance Park in Louisville, too.

You can see their commercial shot at Appliance Park (which used to be Louisville's biggest employer).

What the commercial doesn't tell you is that these jobs pay about $12-$13 an hour. And the benefits suck. $13 an hour is not a middle-class wage. It's barely subsistence level.

The cynic in me thinks this was the long term plan when they offshored all those jobs -- bring them back ultimately at half the wage (or less).

Bake

[HiPointDem]

48. Another thing about the "global workplace" is that if there's labor unrest in a US plant, they

just close it and expand production in a chinese plant, or wherever.

[Better Believe It]

45. K & R

[Egalitarian Thug]

50. Minimum wage is going to be the prevailing wage. Raise it while there's still time. n/t

[KG]

51. yes, this is a part of the economic 'recovery' that so many are so ready to promote.

and why some of us are less than thrilled by it.

[Gold Metal Flake]

53. REpublican economics.

This is what Republicans do.

[progressoid]

54. It's trickling down.

[Octafish]

55. ''You know what the deal is.''

Senator Sanders: Obama's jobs panel head closed 25 U.S. plants and outsourced thousands of jobs.

[stillwaiting]

56. They have radically remade the average American's way of life in a shockingly small amount of time.

And we're not supposed to complain about it.

The corporate tools that toe this company line are fuckers every one.

98-99% of American citizens are still losing ground every year, and we will continue to do so until the Labor Movement begins gaining ground instead of losing it. The propaganda against the Labor movement has been devastatingly effective. It's so tragic how many working class Americans fail to realize that the only way average Americans can secure a more fair pay structure and adequate benefits is through strong unions. They have been massively hoodwinked.

[Heywood J]

60. Just another brick in the wall.

http://www.thespec.com/news/ontario/article/665385--caterpillar-closes-london-electro-motive-plant

Electro-Motive Canada is closing its London locomotive factory just over a month after locking out workers when they refused to accept 50 per cent pay cuts.

50% seems to be a new norm.