The Current Economic Crisis And What The Future Holds For The American Worker.

James Pence Videos
Opinion:
Today March 9, 2009 unemployment is at 8.1% and already people are lining up by the thousands for the few available jobs. While most of us believe this is bad corporate America and the Chamber of Commerce are salivating at the opportunity to play workers against each other to obtain cheaper labor. Workers in the private sector have watched their health care benefits dwindle or disappear and for the most part don't have traditional pension plans. They've lost equity in their homes and watched their 401k' s drop like a rock and are desperate to keep their jobs, even if it means a cut in pay.
The Future
So what's in store for the American worker? I believe I know what's in store, but I hope I'm wrong, however I wouldn't be taking the time to blog this if I didn't feel the American worker will be working longer hours for less benefits and money for a long time to come. So you might ask how do I reach this conclusion? Read on and then feel free to challenge my thoughts with a comment.
Read more after the hump.

Human Nature
Most American workers have obligations such as car payments, home mortgages spouses and children and when workers get laid off they will do most anything to meet these obligations, especially when spouses or children are involved. It's human nature for people to what they can to provide for their children and spouses and this is where the competition for jobs begins and will allow corporate America to play workers against each other to obtain cheaper labor.
Spiral To The Bottom
Some American workers enjoy traditional pension plans, good health care plans and good pay, but for the most part these are government employees, state, local and federal and this is where human nature comes into play again. The unemployed workers and those that have to take jobs without traditional pension plans, health care benefits and lower wages will become increasingly upset with those government employees and this will create a climate, fueled by corporate America, to cut the benefits and pay of government employees. And the beat goes on until the American worker reaches the level of the lowest paid workers in the world.
Unions
The Unions will soon be irrelevant! I hope I'm wrong about this, but I believe this is where human nature and the struggle for survival comes into play again and corporate America is very good at playing this game.
I understand how this stuff works because I've been a Union officer and part of several Union organizing campaigns in good times when jobs were plentiful and I've seen first hand how companies and workers react. The companies will play the workers against each other and the workers will be so worried about losing their jobs that they will avoid the unions like the plague.
Political Implications
As a video and photo blogger I've had the opportunity to be around many people and I can't tell you how many times I've been told don't video tape me or photograph me here at this event because my boss might see it and I'll get in trouble and for the most part these incidents occurred during periods of low unemployment when times were much better. I understand that but I believe this will become much worse as corporate America increases their strangle hold on the American worker and then the only political voices we will hear will be the ones that can afford to speak out and that won't be the average American worker.
What Have We Learned?
I hope a lot, but that may be overly optimistic. Some of us remember when 401k plans were first made available to the average worker and we, yes including me, jumped on that hook line and sinker because the stock market was the place to make money after all the folks on Wall Street were smarter than us and they were honest to boot. Then we watched as corporate America slowly but surely eliminated the traditional pension plans and replaced them with 401k's. Little did we know that the folks on Wall Street were dumber, greedier and less honest than we thought. We watched as they pissed away trillions of our hard earned 401k dollars. I hope we learned that Wall Street can't be trusted and that we've been duped.
What Will We Do?
I don't know, but it looks like it will be everyone for his or herself for a long time to come, unless of course we come to the realization that collectively we can be more powerful than corporate America and the politicians.

Comments

[Mountain Man]

Senator for the People's Rebublic of China, Mitch McConnell, and George Bush have gotten exactly what they wanted. When the economy of the United States finishes its downward spiral things will be very different. The Urban areas will lose even more tax revenues and tax revenues are not that much in the rural areas, so they will lose even more. Everyone will suffer. Hey Mitch, how many more jobs are you going to export to your "developing economies of China and India"? Why won't you go out and talk to the every day people of Kentucky? Mitch you are a foreign coward and you don't care about the United States.
Mitch, why do you support the government of mainland China? The Communists there do not allow the Tibetans to pray. Mitch why do you support the abolishment of religion in what used to be the independent country of Tibet before 1949? Are you an Anti-Christ? Of course a smug, arrogant piece of human filth like you won't answer anybody to their face because you are a coward. We need to put China in its place and free Tibet. I can't help it if China bought a bunch of bad paper from the United States - look what China did to the citizens of the United States in 1952 at the Yalu River. We won't talk about this, will we Communist Senator McConnell? The citizens of the United States are forced to eat bad loans daily because of the organizations that you support like the United States agency for international development, the world bank, and the international monetary fund. How many bad loans do the Citizens of the United States get stuck with because of the United States agency for international development? We don't read about any of these organizations in our Constitution, do we Mitch. You did swear to defend and protect the Constitution of the United States or Mitch, do you believe that the Constitution is just a piece of paper like George Bush does? Of course Mitch, you are too much of a coward to answer this. If you will remember Jim Bunning helped elect foreigner McConnell to the position of minority leader in the Senate. Come 2010 we need only LOYAL AMERICANS in the Senate and we need tax policies that promote bilateral trade with NO DEFICIETS only with nations that can produce something. We need to take care of our own first. Since the United States has a currency of decree, the gross domestic product must increase in order for us to HONESTLY pay back our loans to other countries. Making bad loans and exporting jobs DOES NOT ACCOMPLISH THIS. Also Hillary Clinton needs to read this.

[john]

Unions have been expanding in the private workforce over the past two years, so I highly question your assumption about unions.

[Jim Pence]

John,
Thanks for the comment. I really believe in unions and will do anything I can to support them. I also support the Free Choice Act.
http://www.freechoiceact.org/petition/
However, Union membership has been declining ever since 1954 when it peaked at 28% of total employment -unions' share of non agricultural employment was then 35%. During the subsequent half century the union share declined more or less continuously, and now is only about 11%. A mere 7% of private sector employees are unionized. The one bright spot in the union picture is the growth in their share of government employees to about 37%. The overall decline in union membership is seen also from its sharp decline with the age of individuals: the union share of workers is highest among those aged 45-64 at almost 15%, which significantly exceeds the 11% for workers aged 25-44, and the only 5% union share for workers under age 25. Older workers are more likely to be in declining more unionized industries,while younger workers are in the newer less unionized sectors.
These are facts even though I don't like them.
Jim

[Richard Dillon]

What a great post Jim!! One reason I love being here so much is we just seem to agree on about everything.

Unfortunately, the Republicans and other enemies of the middle-class have used fear to turn worker against worker for a long time now. That coupled with the fact that a lot of people can just tend to be ass-kissers to the powerful has hurt many workers, including the ones that do the ass-kissing.

It is painful to watch.