– Somehow, I doubt very much that my father will ever say, “Boy do you have smart commenters.”
– I’m not quite as pessimistic as Oliver about what would happen if there isn’t an extension of the debt ceiling but I imagine some terrible things.
– In part, I think this is the best strategy to deal with the debt ceiling. (h/t)
– Bikes for Books at the Lake City Library. Sounds like a great thing for 4th and 5th graders.
Today’s article about the Seattle Times shows that the U.S. is becoming the “Mexico” of the industrialized world.
Ikea’s U.S. factory churns out unhappy workers
The U.S., and especially the southern U.S., has become a place where companies in Europe can out-source production to take advantage of American business-management models which employ low-wage workers, local governments which are hostile to unions, and management practices which are discriminatory, arbitrary, and treat the workers with callous disregard.
The particular example given in this article is a plant opened up in Danville, Virginia, by Ikea. The town has been hard-hit over the past two decades by the loss of the textile industry to overseas out-sourcing. So the government was more than happy to encourage manufacturers to come to the area, and offered sweet incentives, which included $12 million in state and local tax incentives.
But the promise of high-paying jobs quickly evaporated. Under mostly American management, initial pay scales of about $12.00 per hour quickly dropped to $8.00 per hour. Workers get 12 paid vacation days per year, but eight of them are assigned by the company. So you could find out on Monday that you suddenly have the next four days off as paid vacation, whether you wanted it or not, and it counts against your available vacation time. Even worse, about one-third of the workers are hired through temp firms and make even worse net wages, with no benefits at all. Mandatory overtime is common, without prior notice – a worker on Friday evening could find out he/she has to work overtime all weekend, and if they refuse they are usually fired. As a result, it is virtually impossible to plan any private life outside of work. The shop floor is policed by lower-level management issuing demerits for minor rules violations, which can quickly accumulate and result in an automatic firing.
Of course, turnover is a big problem, and there is an active unionizing campaign. To combat the union campaign the company held mandatory meetings where the managers attacked the union and said that the factory would shut down if a union was ever certified there (this comes from sources outside the ST article).
The problems in this factory have become big news in Sweden, where workers at Ikea there are represented by a Union (most Swedish workers are), are paid high wages, provided with government health-care, and enjoy a mandatory five week vacation. For them, it’s a bit of an embarrasment – but defenders of Ikea just shrug their shoulders and say it’s not Ikea’s fault, it’s how business management is done in the U.S.
A side note: Most of the mid-level business managers in the U.S. came of age during the “Reagan Revolution” and take it’s principles to heart. They tend to believe unions are the enemy, workers are always lazy and overpaid, and that they (management) deserve high wages and incentive bonuses for keeping workers in line.
The Swedes get a $19 min wage and five weeks vacation, but obviously they pay way MORE in taxes. When will Americans ever agree to pay more in taxes? More importantly, will they agree rich people should pay more in taxes? The other side is unionizing, are workers in general becoming more interested/bold about unionizing, re: Wisconsin?
Anyone feel the HuffPo bloggers suing the HuffPo/AOL entity because they blogged for free, knowingly, and then didn’t get a cut of the buyout, have a case?
@2
rich people already pay more in taxes.
a guy making $1 million a year pays more in taxes that someone making $50k a year.
rather than asking when people will decide to pay more, a better question is to ask is when will the govt wisely use the MASSIVE amounts of money they already get?
The amount of money govt gets is not the problem- its how they use it that is.
Cut 4 trillion in 12 years while deficit spending 1.7 per year..BFD….balance your damn budget………this is another obama smoke and mirrors….where’s the beef
Record gas prices
Stock market tanking
69% say America is on the wrong track
Get a clue, your guy is a complete failure
Jesus Christ, this is why I hate comments sections, fucking Astroturf!!!
I prefer playing on grass instead..
astroturf = blown knee…..
1
That is truly sad, yet all we hear from the right is blather about American exceptionalism. If the right gets its way, we will become a Third World nation, with the rich safely ensconced in guarded and gated communities.
1 – thanks for the excellent essay on the catastrophe that is the right wing mentality in this country.
8 – it’s pretty much that way now
Id @ # 5: Again, you keep repeating your lie that the stock market is tanking? Don’t you get embarrased when you are repeatedly refuted with easily-researched facts?
DJIA at end of Bush’s Presidency:
8,281.22
DJIA under Obama (today’s closing): 12,270.99 (up 48.18%).
Well bully for Rep. Reid Ribble R-WI.
@5
And yet, doing things that would insulate people from those high prices like building at higher densities, adding bicycle infrastructure and light-rail lines makes folk like you go ape shit.
Look, you can have it one way, or you can have it the other way, but you can’t have it both ways.
Ha, ha righties (and a handful of clueless lefties). The dreaded cap-and-trade programs are moving right along.
More from the Huffo-Po article.
Lindsey Graham, “no new federal judges until I get mine.”
Rumor has it that, Graham is also holding out for a teen-aged Mexican prostitute (male), a shoe box full of blow, and a case of Cheese Whiz.
Maybe the Ikea plant in Danville, Virginia is a good place to have a temporary job but not necesarily a career. Most baristas don’t intend to be baristas for decades, yet they may work at a coffee shop for a while. Most workers at McDonald’s or Burger King don’t plan to make careers out of flipping hamburgers.
The jobs at Ikea in Danville sound like low-tech jobs without much chance of growth in the position. No wonder job turnover is so high: people leave the company once they secure a better job elsewhere that is more of a career boost. But the Ikea position served its purpose. What we need is more Ikea jobs to provide a temporary positions while people wait or prepare for better paying, longer-lasting careers.
Ikea has done well be keeping the unions out because unions will simply stop the upward mobility of the young people. Paying someone a middle class wage for a lower class job does not help that person reach his or her potential. Ikea’s discouragement of a union is key to people thiking that the job there should only be temporary, until something better becomes available.
Better? Like Wal-mart and Target perhaps?
Ummm. It’s not Ikea per se – it’s Ikea’s american management who benefits materially by abusing their authority.
Somehow workers in Sweden churn out the same products but with much better pay, benefits and working conditions.
The workers might try appealing to Sweden to replace American management with Swedes but what Swede in their right mind would want live in rural Virginia?
I hear stories like this and I wonder what’s wrong with America or at least Virginia? How did we get so broken as a society?
Why do our trolls seem to enjoy the misery of those employees?
“In part, I think this is the best strategy to deal with the debt ceiling.”
That’s a good plan. An even better plan would be to show that the government can operate just fine without issuing debt or having to conform to debt ceilings. You want to see Wall Street really howl? Stop issuing Treasuries.
@ 17: Your whole line of bullshit is belied by the fact that upward mobility in this country is less than nearly every one of those socialist developed country in the world.
Now why is that?
# 17: If you’ve ever been to areas such as southern Virginia (where Danville is located), or the economically depressed areas throughout the U.S., you would understand that it’s not about upward mobility. It’s about getting any job, and the conditions of that employment. These aren’t starter jobs for these workers, they are often “end of working career” jobs for those who put in years at textile factories, lost their jobs and were out of work for a decade or more, and are trying to just hold out until social security and medicare kick in.
Ikea/Danville’s management clearly understood that anyone who wanted to work there didn’t have many other options, and used that to impose some ridiculously poor employment conditions on their employees. “Don’t like it? Starve!” is a short description of that attitude, and those are the exact words I once heard from one manager, years ago, from another location with similar economic conditions.
Those who are leaving the Ikea jobs aren’t going on to better jobs, the article showed that most either went on to work minimum-wage retail or dropped out of the labor market entirely – some jobs just aren’t worth the pay, even if there are not other alternatives.
But more importantly, you’ve missed the point entirely. These aren’t just entry-level jobs, they are the future of the U.S. industry at the rates things have been going over the past decade.
If the U.S. industrial sector was growing as it should, this plant would have more automated processes, and those employed there would be more highly-paid and educated people who know how to design, repair, and operate the machinery. Instead, every job is becoming what used to be considered an entry-level job, because at $8.00 an hour the workers are considered disposable parts, cheaper than even automated machinery.
Unfortunately, it reminds me of the upper rivers in China where boats would be hauled upriver by laborers hauling on ropes up narrow paths carved into the hillsides. For centuries, the price of labor was so low that those controlling the market would use human labor rather than the more expensive animal labor or machines. Only in the last generation have these been replaced in China with a combination of dams, locks, and railroad systems which accomplish the same goal. Unfortunately, we are heading in the opposite direction here in the U.S.
By the way, met a fellow last week who was on a high-speed train in China. Speeds in excess of 300 MPH, which is actually putting some air routes out of business.
are you fucking kikes still here? i thought you all had been arrested for stealing and cheating like your cousin bernie