Why You Should Earn Less: the Company’s Argument

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/6415/why_you_should_earn_less_a_company_rationale/

Thursday September 9 10:41 am

By Stephen Franklin

Tom Michaud is no bargaining expert. He is an applesauce cook, earning $21.80 an hour after working 15 years at the Mott’s apple juice plant in Williamson, N.Y.

But he sensed a problem from what he heard about the way contract talks were going with his company, Texas-based Dr. Pepper Snapple Group Inc. “You could see something building,” he recalled. He was right.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g57Mg-489KQ&feature=player_embedded

But what was ahead was something that union officials say they had not expected. The giant conglomerate offered a rationale for tough bargaining that you rarely hear from companies today: We’re losing money. We’re being eaten by the foreign competition. Our technology is terribly behind and we need to put the money into keeping the plant up to date.

These are the explanations companies usually offer whenever they say they need to slash wages and benefits. (Watch the recent PBS program above to hear the company’s explanation.)

Mott's talked about the plant’s inefficiency, but it also said that it wanted to “bring the plant’s costs in line with ‘local and industry standards,’” according to a New York Times report.

“This is the first time a very profitable company has come to us and asked for concessions, and I’ve been with the union for 23 years,” says Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), an affiliate of the United Food and Commercial Workers union.

FULL story at link.

[alcibiades_mystery]

1. You should have seen the DUers echoing the "local standards" logic when the story came out

It was despicable, to say the least.

If workers produce massive profits for their employers, why shouldn't they live high on the hog relative to other workers in the area?

[Omaha Steve]

8. Unions raise the bar

Even non-union employers have to pay better to compete for good workers when times are good. We raise all the boats.

[bluethruandthru]

10. +1000 n/t

[gateley]

2. K&R nt

[Fumesucker]

3. Snapple are scum..

They were advertising on Limbaugh a loooong time ago, personalized advertising by the pilonidal cyst himself.

No Snapple product has ever passed my lips.

[Sherman A1]

4. Sad

I watched the YouTube and really liked :sarcasm: the clown stating that CEO pay didn't matter, but pay to local standards somehow did so.

[xchrom]

5. There are some DUers who need to bake and eat

Humble pie in front of every one else.

This is infuriating.

[applegrove]

6. I worked with a guy who used to restock all the shelves in a Halifax grocery store.

They were told that they had to give union concessions because the owners were not making any money. They were just out and out lied to.

[Odin2005]

7. Those fucking BASTARDS!

[quaker bill]

9. As we spiral toward the drain

there appears a race for who can get there first. We are then compared unfairly with those who have already gone down the drain and told that we have it so much better than the others, that we should give up a little more....

The race to the bottom knows no limits. Sooner or later those at work will be implicitly compared to the unemployed, and told that we have it so much better that we should give just a litte more....

[JustAnotherGen]

11. Local Standards My *SS

Let me paint a picture. .. Rochester NY circa 1989. Many of my friends from high school lived near Route 104 and had dual income families: Working mostly at Xerox and Kodak. In those days, you could purchase a home, send your kids to college, take a few vacations, and save money.

Now let's say you leave the Xerox facilty in Webster NY (a suburb of Rochester on the north side of town) and cath Route 104 off of 590 to go out to your home in Williamson.

Sighing loudly here.

I've driven by that plant in Williamson many times. The 'local standard' of that particular 315-er zip code is indeed: Cheap bastard wages.

I left Rochester in 2006 - because there were NO JOBS you could make an actual LIVING at. Oh, sure, you can get by. But you can't even pay your student loans 'getting by'. So I will go home for Thanksgiving this year, and once again the local rag the Democrat and Chronicle will have a sob story about 'young people leaving the area'. They do this every year at that time of year.

This year I just might write in and say: Yep. I left. And I hope everyone who can get the gas money together gets the hell out of dodge with me. Because of nonsense like what is going on at the Mott's facility.

Sorry if I'm rambling - but they are indeed following the 'local wages' - because they know those people have NO WHERE else to go. They got them right where they want them - and it's flat out wrong. I hope the picture of Williamson - just a what? 15-20 minute drive out of Rochester helps those of you not in the area realize . . . this is the old Kodak and Xerox territory. When those facilities faded to just one light bulb a LOT of manufacturers in that area took advantage of the lost jobs to hire people at $7, $8, $9 etc. etc. an hour. And they all cried 'poor' when they did it.

[TBF]

12. Guess they really don't believe in "trickle down" huh? nt

[blindpig]

13. What the hell, any excuse will do...

when it comes to separating the worker from the fruits of their labor.

That's what Capital does, these guys are just a little less coy than others.

k&r