Archives : 2013 December

The “middle class” myth: Here’s why wages are really so low today
▻http://www.salon.com/2013/12/30/the_middle_class_myth_heres_why_wages_are_really_so_low_today

The argument given against paying a living wage in fast-food restaurants is that workers are paid according to their skills, and if the teenager cleaning the grease trap wants more money, he should get an #education. Like most conservative arguments, it makes sense logically, but has little connection to economic reality. Workers are not simply paid according to their skills, they’re paid according to what they can negotiate with their employers. And in an era when only 6 percent of private-sector workers belong to a union, and when going on strike is almost certain to result in losing your job, low-skill workers have no negotiating power whatsoever.

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Slaughterhouses insist they hire immigrants because the work is so unpleasant Americans won’t do it. They hired European immigrants when Upton Sinclair wrote “The Jungle,” and they hire Latin American immigrants today. But it’s a canard that Americans won’t slaughter pigs, sheep and cows. How do we know this? Because immigration to the United States was more or less banned from 1925 to 1965, and millions of pigs, sheep and cows were slaughtered during those years. But they were slaughtered by American-born workers, earning middle-class wages. Mother Jones magazine explains what changed:

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#compétences #syndicats #logique_d'apparence

#Noam_Chomsky, the Salon interview: Governments are power systems, trying to sustain power
▻http://www.salon.com/2013/12/29/chomsky_governments_are_power_systems_trying_to_sustain_power

We’re developing technologies that will be used by our own governments and by commercial corporations and are already being used to maximize information for themselves for control and domination. That’s the way power systems work. Of course, they’ve always played the security card. But I think one should be very cautious about such claims. Every government pleads security for almost anything it’s doing, so since the plea is predictable it essentially carries no information. If after the event the power system claims security, that doesn’t mean it’s actually a functioning principle. And if you look at the record, you discover that security is generally a pre-text and security is not a high priority of governments. By that I mean the security of the population — security of the power system itself and the domestic interests it represents, yes, that’s a concern. But security of the population is not.

The Presidential Hack List: Ranking Barack Obama’s favorite columnists - Salon.com
▻http://www.salon.com/2013/12/23/the_presidential_hack_list_ranking_barack_obamas_favorite_columnists

Barack #Obama loves newspaper columnists. He reads them, because he thinks they offer smarter commentary than one hears on cable news, and he invites them to the White House regularly, so he can influence their writing. Unfortunately, judging by media reports of his favorites, he has terrible taste in newspaper columnists. Every columnist ever specifically named as an Obama favorite, with one exception, is white. None are women. Nearly all of them, to a man, vigorously supported the invasion of Iraq in 2003

2. #Thomas_Friedman, The Davos Herald-Register. Possibly the dumbest human being ever to write a column for a major newspaper. It’s terrifying that a president would take him seriously.

Crush GOP obstruction, and reduce inequality now!
▻http://www.salon.com/2013/12/20/crush_gop_obstruction_and_reduce_inequality_now

President Obama’s last speech on income inequality was by far his best. He linked rising inequality, and declining social mobility, to the growing low-wage work swamp, in which one in four workers makes little enough that they qualify for public assistance.

“We know that there are airport workers, and fast-food workers, and nurse assistants, and retail salespeople who work their tails off and are still living at or barely above poverty,” he said, adding, “It’s well past the time to raise a minimum wage that in real terms right now is below where it was when Harry Truman was in office.” Obama supports hiking the federal minimum wage from $7.50 to $10.10, but such a push is stalled for the time being by congressional Republicans.

Obama didn’t mention the one move he could make himself: issuing an executive order mandating that federal contractors pay their workers a higher wage. Back in August, the New York Times editorialized on behalf of such a move, pointing to new research showing that hundreds of billions in federal contracts go to firms paying low wages and offering no benefits. An estimated 2 million low-wage workers are employed by federal contractors, making the federal government the largest employer of low-wage workers in the country.

“In effect, tax dollars are being used to fuel the low-wage economy and, in the process, worsen inequality,” the Times argued.

#obama #théorie et #pratique #état #salaires #sous_traitance