The race to the bottom. And its not just a global fungible labor market. It's also Sam Walton's business model: "I pay low wages. I can take advantage of that. We're going to be successful, but the basis is a very low-wage, low-benefit model of employment." (Attributed in Adam L. Penenberg, "Why Google Is Like Wal-Mart", Wired, 21 April 2005, Wikiquote.) I was just listening to an NPR report today to that effect. US business have to compete against that model and countries have to compete with other countries. Many people don't realize it, but the US is merciless competitor internationally.
French study urges €30 billion cut in labor costs
Kay Steiger
I heard bits and pieces of the NPR piece today. One made the point that these low-wage employer put burdens on governments to make up the difference in the low pay and ability for the workers to survive in our modern society.
ReplyDeleteThe next big political issue emerging not" jobs" — any job — but rather it's morphing into "the living wage" as part-time and temp work begins to dominate in order to keep wages and benefits low. US employers say that like it or not, they need to go this route to compete with the Wal-Mart business plan that is dominant.
ReplyDelete"My austerity is bigger than your austerity"... I keep starting to think we probably are going to need a female ultimately to get us out of this.... rsp,
ReplyDeleteThis is why imports are not so bad afterall - if only we could raise our standard of living
ReplyDeleterather than raze our standard of living