Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich has a
Washington Post article on the decline of the organized labor movement.Here's part of Reich's explanation:
Wages and benefits typically account for 70 percent of a company's total costs. So it's not surprising that as companies have scrambled to cut costs, they've done everything possible to cut the wages and benefits -- and numbers -- of their employees. One method, of course, has been to fight unions.
Industrial workers have been hardest hit. Their wages have eroded and their benefits have been cut. Many of their jobs have disappeared. Meanwhile deficit-ridden federal and state government have also cut costs by trimming payrolls and outsourcing jobs to the private sector.
That last sentence should raise a red flag.Are you aware of many state or local governments that
actually cut payrolls? Here's a June 2003 article from
USA Today which seems to contradict Robert Reich:
And despite anecdotal reports of layoffs — Oregon furloughed 130 state troopers, for example — state governments have added 74,000 workers (an increase of 1.5%) in the past two years while the private sector has registered a net loss of 2.6 million jobs (a decline of 2.4%).
By almost any measure, state governments have suffered less than businesses and taxpayers during the economic downturn
