This is a valuable book on the globalization of the labor market, well worth checking out:
Low-Wage Capitalism (WARNING: large pdf file)
Intelligent replies to the content of the book are welcome. (Ideological, dismissive comments are not so welcome, thanks).
Could you give us a summary of the main points of the book?
“However, the ratio of CEO pay to employee wages remains exceedingly high: more than 319 times in 2008, according to the 2009 survey by United for a Fair Economy.[12] This compares with 42 times in 1980.[13]”
http://www.aflcio.org/corporatewatch/paywatch/pay/#_ftnref12 true???
i am not sure what is left out in calculating the above linked info.
does it mean (or leave out) more overall people are employed at lower than previous wages?
are too many corporate profits going to too many people in the executive sector of companies?
if the ratio was lowered back to 42 times and that money was placed with personnel…how much would it affect wages? 1%??? 10% or more???
i believe this article is referring to the us. globally i am not sure if the same is occurring.
Here’s a random quote:
" There must be a fight for the right to a job as a worker’s property
right. The right to occupy the workplaces to defend jobs and defeat conces-
sions must be put on the agenda. There must be a struggle for the right of
workers to take over bankruptcy proceedings as the primary creditors."
So the worker who has a job in a building has a property right to the place, but the guy who actually built the building has no right to it.
The worker has a right to “occupy”, meaning by force, the workplace he has not bought, but that someone else paid for with cold cash.
The worker is the primary creditor, but the people who actually lent money to the company have no right to get it back. This is both morally right and a sound way to ensure future loans will be forthcoming.
The reason for all this is really quite clear and very logical: The workers “create all the wealth in the first place.”
These exploited slaves own their own homes, the author admits. But they at the same time live off of unemployment, while keeping down a job in a workplace hostile to unions.
I presume the reader either knows this sites response to this stuff, or knows how to use the search feature to find it.
Of course, the author does point out a real problem. The union workers are used to big salaries, but are being faced with international competition in the form of cheap labor. His solution is for the workers to occupy the buildings till they get what they want, mainly the same job at the same wage or higher.
He points out that GM used to employ more workers than anyone, but for some mysterious reason, it now employs less. After the book was written, it turns out GM actually went bankrupt.
What a shame the workers didn’t occupy the place a while back, to guarentee their just wages, since they create all the wealth in the first place. Then GM would not have gone bankrupt, with all the wealth the workers would have been creating.
The Whole State of California is now bankrupt as well, because the gov’t workers are unionized, and got their just wages for all the wealth they were creating.
Whole states are now just one huge wasteland of empty deserted factory buildings [I’ve seen this with my own eyes, it’s called the Rust Belt] because the workers created so much wealth, and got such just union wages, that the factories had to close down.
So, bottom line, what alternate answer is there to that flood of cheap labor, other than making sure the union workers keep creating all the wealth, get theirs first thing, and making sure that if the place goes bankrupt they are first in line to get money form the bankruptcy proceedings?
I think I know the answer, learned it form here. But that is beyond the scope of comments on the book.
Thanks for the replies. I’m afraid that I was forced to abandon this thread when my father went into the hospital temporarily. I don’t really want to come back to it at this point, just wanted to say thanks for the replies and sorry for seeming like a hit-and-run thread starter (it couldn’t be helped).
Wow, that’s too bad. Best of luck.