The assault on US workers’ wages: PRIVATE SECTOR WAGES FELL 6% IN 2009.

[Hannah Bell]

An article published in Wednesday’s Financial Times under the headline “US Matches Indian Call Centre Costs” gives some indication of the impact on American workers of a coordinated and escalating wage-cutting drive by big business...

According to the article, a number of Indian outsourcing firms are shifting operations to the US to take advantage of low labor costs, a reversal from the 1990s when many call centers and software firms shuttered American operations to exploit educated but low-paid workers in India...

This is a calculated policy of class war. It is being ruthlessly pursued by taking advantage of the misery and desperation caused by mass unemployment and the spread of home foreclosures, utility shutoffs, hunger and homelessness...

At the heart of this strategy is slashing the cost of American labor and on this basis reviving US manufacturing as a cheap-labor platform for exports to global markets. The shifting of operations from India to the US is undoubtedly being celebrated both in Washington and on Wall Street as evidence of the initial success of this ruthless policy.

Wage and benefit-cutting has hit every part of the US working class: factory workers, teachers, government employees, and service workers; whites, blacks, Hispanics; US-born and immigrants; women and men; teenagers and workers with decades of experience.

Last week the Commerce Department reported that PRIVATE SECTOR WAGES FELL 6% IN 2009...

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/aug2010/pers-a19.shtml

[aquart]

1. Executive compensation , however....

didn't lose a dime.

[Greyhound]

4. Are you kidding?

Through the roof, baby!
;)

[Dinger]

2. K & Rec #2 (nt)

[Greyhound]

3. But, but, but, the economy is doing great! Just ask Timmy or Larry, all their friends have so much

to rake in that they have to hire (sub-minimum wage) people to help them rake it in.

[JoePhilly]

10. What year is this data for?? Oh yea ... 2009.

In 2009, we had yet to hit the bottom. The stimulus did not pass until end of Feb 2009.

It should be no surprise that wages continued to fall during 2009.

I agree that CEO compensation should not be moving up ... but during 2009, no one was claiming the economy was great. In fact no one is claiming that now.

At most, they point out that economic indicators, and trends, have improved after the stimulus passed.

So what we need to see is the TREND LINE. What were wages doing since the recession started, Dec 2007 up to Feb 2009. Then, you'd compare that to April 2009 to NOW.

To have any idea whether wages are improving, you need the trend.

[notadmblnd]

5. last week I was offered 10.50 an hour for a job I was paid 45-60k to do five years ago

for the same company. I turned it down. I'm cleaning houses for just a little less than that and there's no stress cleaning toilets.

[Hannah Bell]

6. that's amazing. what field? i agree with you about cleaning toilets. i'd rather do it than play

shitty office politics.

[notadmblnd]

9. IT. It was the same job, same company Technical Rep level II

of course it was offered through a contract house. I'm going to give it 90 days and apply directly to the corporation.

[leftstreet]

7. K&R

[Hannah Bell]

8. k