A PHOENIX RISES FROM ITS ASHES!
... it's all about you and nothing about a livable wage
Point well made. Unionization is a key element in terms of Labor Availability & Pay-scale. It is difficult for me to understand why unionization has diminished so greatly in the US. See that evolution since :
Union Membership in the United States 1930-2010..
In the US, unionization has declined disgracefully to a very minor percentage (of the total workforce), which the OECD puts it precisely at 10.8%*.
I haven't been a union member since I was a kid at a factory that made shirts in Central Massachusetts. That shop is long gone.
But the discussion here is not about saving jobs that cannot be saved, but those that can be saved.
And, to do so, American workers have to wake up to the fact that unions are the only way to do so.
Now that remark needs some qualification. After all, the unions did not save Detroit from its implosion in the 2008/2010 time-frame. In fact, I would say they were the cause of the catastrophe that remodeled car-making in the US.
Unions have a bad habit of continuously trying to improve the wages of their members. Meaning this, given the way in which the world has changed, the US has a wage-problem as regards base manufacturing. The Bamboo Curtain came crashing down in 1991, and labor has never since been the same in the US.
My point is simple: If we are to "save wages in American industry" we must recognize two central "happenings":
*First, automation is going to accelerate even further, thus replacing even more people in manufacturing jobs. Robotics will see to that - and that we cannot avoid.
*Secondly, if that is indeed the case, robotics still need people to run an automated production line - but nothing like the numbers of line-workers in the past. Where are these people to come from, if we don't train them? And who would be a better candidate for such training than someone who has production-line experience?
*Thirdly, if we do indeed make it easier for manufacturers to adopt production-line Robotic Technology in America, then we could actually
bring jobs back from China!
WHAT? BRING JOBS BACK FROM CHINA?
YES!
Any production line is simply a logical progression of steps in the elaboration of a work-process. Where once these manufacturing processes - once performed by humans - now they are performed far more deftly by machines. But, that does not mean that an automated-production line does not need management oversight by professionals.
We could actually bring jobs back to America ... and it is unions that should take the lead.
HOWZAT?
By convincing the Federal Government to promote Industrial Manufacturing Automated Processes; and, most importantly, providing (free, gratis, and for nothing) the training to provide a skilled manpower to employ them!
* OECD numbers
here.
) The Direct guy, um, directly asked my son what his hourly wage was. Turns out my freshly-minted union son (Communications Workers of America) makes about $7 per hour more than the DirectTV veteran. (He was really surprised when he found out that bucket truck drivers make $30-plus per hour.) Needless to say, this guy was not pleased. And the sad part is AT&T is not training the DirectTV workers to do the phone and data side of it (U-verse, fiber optic installation, etc.), at least not yet. At this point they're "valued employees" who are sort of like lost-stepchildren. If they're smart they'll join the union.
