Working for Less – The New Reality
January 17, 2012
Thomas J. Mackell Jr.
U.S. factory jobs are on the rise. Why you say? Well in case you haven't notice the workplace has changed dramatically over the last 25 years making it more attractive for employers to abandon their sweatshops abroad like in Indonesia, China, the Philipines and Mexico and resettle them here.
We have come full circle witnessing the creation of the new 21st Century sweatshop in America. Jobs now pay a lot less, its called "a globally competitive wage," while health coverage is almost non-existent and a pension plan is an oxymoron, and all the while, Washington lobbyists and Congressmen work hard to erode the safety and health standards that have been a signature part of the American workplace.
For those older workers who are still in the old industrial system their time is running out and those replacing them will be subject to the new workplace order.
The downsizing of America has been successfully accomplished by the financial community seeking greater returns off the backs of workers and a political elite hellbent on smothering the middle-class.
All-in-all, the "barbarians at the gate" have sliced and diced our economy into smithereens making it hardly recognizable from its robust past of the 50s, 60s, and 70s to its skeletal remains in the new Century.
In a scene from "Godfather III" Michael Corleone is in a meeting with business and church people in Rome to accomplish the purchase of a financial institution owned by the Vatican. When Michael's associate expresses concern about the completion of the transaction, an older Sicilian, Don Lucchesi, says to him that "Finance is a gun; Politics is knowing when to pull the trigger."
All you have to do is to watch the workings of Wall Street and K Street and you know what's going on in America. Lot's of target practice.
Thomas J. Mackell, Jr. Ed.D., Senior Partner, Black Thorn Lynch Associates, Inc., former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond and author of: "When the Good Pensions Go Away: Why America Needs a New Deal for Pension and Health Care Reform."
