NYT: The treatment of workers by American corporations has been worse than most realize

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/31/opinion/31herbert.html?_r=1&hp

Op-Ed Columnist
A Sin and a Shame
By BOB HERBERT
Published: July 30, 2010

The treatment of workers by American corporations has been worse — far more treacherous — than most of the population realizes. There was no need for so many men and women to be forced out of their jobs in the downturn known as the great recession.

Many of those workers were cashiered for no reason other than outright greed by corporate managers. And that cruel, irresponsible, shortsighted policy has resulted in widespread human suffering and is doing great harm to the economy.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Andrew Sum, an economics professor and director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston. “Not only did they throw all these people off the payrolls, they also cut back on the hours of the people who stayed on the job.”

As Professor Sum studied the data coming in from the recession, he realized that the carnage that occurred in the workplace was out of proportion to the economic hit that corporations were taking. While no one questions the severity of the downturn — the worst of the entire post-World War II period — the economic data show that workers to a great extent were shamefully exploited.

The recession officially started in December 2007. From the fourth quarter of 2007 to the fourth quarter of 2009, real aggregate output in the U.S., as measured by the gross domestic product, fell by about 2.5 percent. But employers cut their payrolls by 6 percent.

FULL story at link.

[PDJane]

1. Yes. It has.

Moreover, the American Corporation is known for precisely this. They're known for firing people without cause, for jumping first and asking questions later, for reducing the workforce to starvation wages and forcing them to pick up the slack for those fired or 'laid off.'

They're also known for paying nothing more than the law demands for those they are laying off and firing...except, of course, for those with a contractual parachute. Even then, the labour laws are skimpy.

I've watched this getting progressively worse for more than 30 years.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

5. add to that, firing soon-to-retire workers

so they can avoid paying retirement benefits.


Pure evil.

[spooky3]

2. Workers' productivity has been going up a long time, but their pay has not.

Many corps. just used it as another reason to cut their jobs or hours, and reap the profits.

[Uncle_Gunnysack]

4. Sure their productivity has been going up.

Once you gut a workforce somebody is going to have to pick up the slack of the disappeared.

[Uncle_Gunnysack]

3. This is not a new phenomenon.

The NYT decided to report on this, 35 years too late. Did this article appear in their obituary section?

It should. The American workforce has been killed by corporate America.