From: "Curtis Price" <cansv-AT-igc.apc.org>
Date:          Sun, 14 Apr 1996 23:01:10 +0000
Subject:       (Fwd) [60] U.S. WORKERS' ANGER YET TO TRANSLATE POLITICALLY


------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
Date:          Wed, 10 Apr 1996 23:30:51 -0400
From:          NewsHound-AT-sjmercury.com (NewsHound)
To:            cansv-AT-igc.apc.org
Subject:       [60] U.S. WORKERS' ANGER YET TO TRANSLATE POLITICALLY

Selected by your NewsHound profile entitled "STRIKES". The selectivity score was
 60 out of 100.

U.S. workers' anger yet to translate politically
BY FRANK JAMES

Chicago Tribune

WASHINGTON -- As a member of a crew that services planes, he is one of those 
hardworking Americans whom national politicians like to cite as victims of 
technology, stagnant wages and corporate downsizing.

``I'm angry,'' said Bruce, 35, standing outside the main terminal at National 
Airport smoking a cigarette. ``I've been working for this company five years. 
They told me I'd be full time by now, and I'm still part-time.

``I can't make a living off of what I do,'' said the worker, who lives with his 
parents. ``The American dream, like buying a house, is going by the wayside.''

Many workers like Bruce, who did not want his full name used, are fed up by the 
downside of the new economy. But so far their hostility has not translated into 
a political backlash.

Workers are fearful, said a senior federal policymaker who declined to be quoted
 by name, fearful himself of the potential repercussions of his remarks.

``And scared people generally, except in extremis, don't become militant,'' he 
said. ``So I would be surprised if there's any really significant backlash, 
largely because people are too concerned and in certain instances, frightened 
about retaliation.''

Most U.S. workers are too worried about losing their jobs to openly defy their 
bosses. Like Bruce, they seem to have more pragmatic responses: ``I'm going to 
night school so I can get a better job,'' he said.

Earlier this century, widespread backlash against harsh conditions helped create
 the modern U.S. labor movement, including workplace norms like the 40-hour work
 week, two-week vacations, child labor laws, pensions and medical benefits.

American workers fed up with exploitative employers took great risks to 
organize, sometimes losing their lives.

Although the recent strike of autoworkers against a General Motors brake plant 
showed that some workers are willing to take on their employers, that is more 
the exception than the rule.

This is in sharp contrast to Europe, where workers have more leverage because of
 the higher degree of union membership. Dayton autoworkers may have shut down GM
 production, but French workers virtually paralyzed Paris after the government 
proposed a modest shrinking of that nation's social safety net to reduce the 
nation's budget deficit. The French government backed off.

On this side of the Atlantic, the U.S. Labor Department reported fewer strikes 
in 1995 than at any time in the past 50 years, as union membership fell to just 
15.5 percent of the U.S. work force compared with 25.2 percent in 1968.

Trends such as striker replacement, worker-displacing new technologies and 
employer readiness to move jobs to wherever labor costs are lower account for 
much of the change.

While strikes in the United States fade as a worker weapon, only weeks ago it 
appeared populist politics might be emerging as a replacement.

``After (Patrick) Buchanan's victory in New Hampshire, I was called by a number 
of chief executive officers who said, `We've got to do something,''' Labor 
Secretary Robert Reich told reporters.

Buchanan assailed what he described as greedy corporate officials and 
anti-American free-trade pacts, in an attempt to attract workers brooding over 
their economic misfortunes.

The brief Buchanan blip appeared to fit the theory of Stephen Roach, chief 
economist for Morgan Stanley & Co., the New York investment firm. Roach was Wall
 Street's principal forecaster of a worker backlash that would result in 
populist solutions such as trade barriers that threaten profits and, eventually,
 investors.

But other analysts believe it would be a mistake to read Buchanan's boomlet as a
 shot over the bow from angry workers.

``Pat Buchanan doesn't prove or disprove anything, he was largely irrelevant'' 
to workers, said Guy Molyneux, vice president of Peter Hart Research, which 
conducts focus groups of union and nonunion workers, mainly for Democratic 
clients.

``His support was mostly from fundamentalist Christians ... motivated much more 
by his position on social moral issues than his economic platform.''

Nonetheless, something subtle is occurring, said Deanna Geddes, a human 
resources professor at Temple University. Many workers are engaging in 
passive-aggressive behavior as companies evaluate them more aggressively to 
justify some layoffs or decisions not to increase pay.

``People can retaliate, and do retaliate, but do so in covert ways that are 
difficult to detect,'' like subjecting their managers to the silent treatment or
 working more slowly, said Geddes.

Reich also sees the tide beginning to turn. ``I think American business is going
 to be faced with a very big backlash,'' he said recently. ``It may already be 
starting.''

At one energy company, a worker tampered with a quarterly earnings report to 
indicate a financial problem where none actually existed, according to an 
on-line newsletter by Kroll Associates, a major security consulting firm to 
corporations. The report was then forwarded to Wall Street analysts.

In another, an angry chemical company worker offered the formula for his 
employer's proprietary product to a competing company, the newsletter said.

But again, only a small fraction of the work force does such things, said John 
Horn, senior managing partner at Kroll Associates. ``There isn't an epidemic of 
people getting back at their companies.''


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