The World of Labor - October 25, 2008



	THE WORLD OF LABOR — October 25, 2008 By Harry Kelber U.S. Ranks 30th in the World in Gap between Rich and Poor The gap between the wealthiest and the poorest is wider in the United States than in 30 other developed countries, according to a new three-year study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The study found that in the U.S., the richest 10 percent earn an average of $93,000 — the highest level in the OECD. The poorest 10 percent earn an average of $5,800 — about 20 percent lower than the OECD average. The United States has the highest inequality and poverty in the OECD after Mexico and Turkey, and the gap has widened rapidly since 2000. Meanwhile, France has seen inequalities fall in the past 20 years, as poorer workers are better paid. Surprisingly, the report said that if you were born in the U.S., you would have less opportunity for upward mobility than if you were born in Britain. The OECD study appears to shatter the oft-repeated myth that “ if you work hard and play by the rules, you can achieve the American Dream.” Nationwide Strike in Greece Halts Public Services Air traffic, urban transport and public services have ground to a halt in Greece, where hundreds of thousands of people have walked out on strike. Thousands marched through Athens to protest privatization caps on pay and reforms to the pension system that reduce their retirement benefits. The strike was called by two unions representing 2.5 million members. Nearly 200 domestic and international flights and many train services were cancelled, and ferries were forced to remain in port. Public offices across the country shut down. State hospitals ran on skeleton staffs, while schools, universities and post offices shut their doors. Bank staff, lawyers, journalists and civil engineers also joined the strike. The strikers are strongly opposed to the government plan to reform the country’s debt-ridden pension system that would include elimination of most early retirement schemes, merging pension funds and capping auxiliary pensions. They denounced the government’s rescue package of 28 billion euros ($35.3 billion) to the nation’s banks that have been hit by the international credit crisis. Global Crisis to Force 400,000 Poles to Return Home In the past four years, about 1.3 million Polish workers emigrated to Great Britain and Ireland to find jobs in a booming economy that paid them better wages and benefits than they could earn in their homeland. But because of the global financial crisis, as many as 400,000 are likely to come back home, warns Poland’s leading demographer, Professor Krystyna Iglicka. According to the professor, the returning Poles will be mainly people with average education and those with degrees who worked abroad below their abilities and skills for a comparatively high salary. Now, Iglicka added, the job centers will fill up with unemployed who hold university degrees. The financial crisis will speed up a process already underway. Last week, the U.K.’s minister of immigration said that “it would appear that an estimated 100,000 Polish workers left over the past year.” And a spokesman for the U.K. Border Agency said that half of the eastern Europeans who came to Britain to work since 2004 have gone home. Argentina Plans to Nationalize 10 Private Pension Funds Argentina President Cristina Fernandez has signed a bill that will nationalize the country’s 10 private pension funds. The move will put the government in control of almost $30 billion of investments and is aimed at protecting them from the growing market turmoil. Union leaders have welcomed the nationalization move. The commissions on the pensions and the lack of a guaranteed minimum has made the private system unpopular with many Argentinians. The bill needs the backing of Congress, where the ruling party has a majority. Amador Boudou, head of the National Social Security Administration, which will take over the funds, said the “failed experiment” of private pensions was finished. But the pension administrator defended the system, saying it had a “solid mechanism” that had seen an “almost constant growth trend in the 14 years of its existence.” European Unions Protest Hewlett-Packard Job Cuts Demonstrations are being staged by unions in Italy and Germany to protest the plan by the Hewlett-Packard Co. to cut thousands of jobs in the region, as part of its global cost reductions, after its acquisition of Electronic Data Systems (EDS). Last month, HP unveiled a plan to cut 24,000 jobs or 7.5 percent of its global workforce. Some 9,330 jobs would be eliminated in Europe, Middle East and Africa. Trade unions said HP’s European management failed to inform and consult workers “in line with the spirit” of European regulations before the cuts were decided upon, and they plan further actions in the hope that management would revise its job reduction plan. “The trade unions will not accept that HP and EDS merge in order to downsize,” the European Metalworkers’ Federation and UNI-Europe, a union for skilled workers in the service sector, said in a joint statement. In Italy, a four-hour strike took place at all EDS sites on Oct. 21, while demonstrations were held in front of local headquarters in Rome and Milan, as well as in Roesselsheim, Germany. A spokeswomen for HP in Silicon Valley said “We will treat all affected employees with the highest level of respect and will offer them extensive career counseling and outplacement services." Spain to Build Power Station in U.K. Without British Labor Unite, Britain’s biggest union, says the decision of two Spanish contracting companies not to use any U.K. labor to build a power station in Britain is an absolute scandal and makes no sense, given the present tough economic conditions. The union has been informed by the two Spanish firms working on the Staythorpe power station construction site that they have no intention of employing local labor to undertake the work. The companies told union officials that because they had no direct employees themselves, they would hire their workers directly from abroad, indicating they would give no consideration to employing local construction workers with years of experience in building power stations. Unite’s joint general secretary, Derek Simpson, said: “This is an absolute scandal. The country is in the grip of a credit crunch and the construction industry is one of the worst-hit sectors. We know there are qualified people in the local area who are out of work and are more than ready and willing to do the job. The U.K. needs to upgrade and build new power stations and there are new opportunities to create thousands of well-paid and highly-skilled jobs. It will be a disgrace if U.K. workers are shut out from building their own power stations.” Check our web site: http://www.laboreducator.org

THE WORLD OF LABOR — October 25, 2008

By Harry Kelber

U.S. Ranks 30th in the World in Gap between Rich and Poor

The gap between the wealthiest and the poorest is wider in the United States than in 30 other developed countries, according to a new three-year study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The study found that in the U.S., the richest 10 percent earn an average of $93,000 — the highest level in the OECD. The poorest 10 percent earn an average of $5,800 — about 20 percent lower than the OECD average.

The United States has the highest inequality and poverty in the OECD after Mexico and Turkey, and the gap has widened rapidly since 2000. Meanwhile, France has seen inequalities fall in the past 20 years, as poorer workers are better paid. Surprisingly, the report said that if you were born in the U.S., you would have less opportunity for upward mobility than if you were born in Britain.

The OECD study appears to shatter the oft-repeated myth that “ if you work hard and play by the rules, you can achieve the American Dream.”

Nationwide Strike in Greece Halts Public Services

Air traffic, urban transport and public services have ground to a halt in Greece, where hundreds of thousands of people have walked out on strike. Thousands marched through Athens to protest privatization caps on pay and reforms to the pension system that reduce their retirement benefits. The strike was called by two unions representing 2.5 million members.

Nearly 200 domestic and international flights and many train services were cancelled, and ferries were forced to remain in port. Public offices across the country shut down. State hospitals ran on skeleton staffs, while schools, universities and post offices shut their doors. Bank staff, lawyers, journalists and civil engineers also joined the strike.

The strikers are strongly opposed to the government plan to reform the country’s debt-ridden pension system that would include elimination of most early retirement schemes, merging pension funds and capping auxiliary pensions. They denounced the government’s rescue package of 28 billion euros ($35.3 billion) to the nation’s banks that have been hit by the international credit crisis.

Global Crisis to Force 400,000 Poles to Return Home

In the past four years, about 1.3 million Polish workers emigrated to Great Britain and Ireland to find jobs in a booming economy that paid them better wages and benefits than they could earn in their homeland. But because of the global financial crisis, as many as 400,000 are likely to come back home, warns Poland’s leading demographer, Professor Krystyna Iglicka.

According to the professor, the returning Poles will be mainly people with average education and those with degrees who worked abroad below their abilities and skills for a comparatively high salary. Now, Iglicka added, the job centers will fill up with unemployed who hold university degrees.

The financial crisis will speed up a process already underway. Last week, the U.K.’s minister of immigration said that “it would appear that an estimated 100,000 Polish workers left over the past year.” And a spokesman for the U.K. Border Agency said that half of the eastern Europeans who came to Britain to work since 2004 have gone home.

Argentina Plans to Nationalize 10 Private Pension Funds

Argentina President Cristina Fernandez has signed a bill that will nationalize the country’s 10 private pension funds. The move will put the government in control of almost $30 billion of investments and is aimed at protecting them from the growing market turmoil.

Union leaders have welcomed the nationalization move. The commissions on the pensions and the lack of a guaranteed minimum has made the private system unpopular with many Argentinians. The bill needs the backing of Congress, where the ruling party has a majority.

Amador Boudou, head of the National Social Security Administration, which will take over the funds, said the “failed experiment” of private pensions was finished. But the pension administrator defended the system, saying it had a “solid mechanism” that had seen an “almost constant growth trend in the 14 years of its existence.”

European Unions Protest Hewlett-Packard Job Cuts

Demonstrations are being staged by unions in Italy and Germany to protest the plan by the Hewlett-Packard Co. to cut thousands of jobs in the region, as part of its global cost reductions, after its acquisition of Electronic Data Systems (EDS). Last month, HP unveiled a plan to cut 24,000 jobs or 7.5 percent of its global workforce. Some 9,330 jobs would be eliminated in Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Trade unions said HP’s European management failed to inform and consult workers “in line with the spirit” of European regulations before the cuts were decided upon, and they plan further actions in the hope that management would revise its job reduction plan. “The trade unions will not accept that HP and EDS merge in order to downsize,” the European Metalworkers’ Federation and UNI-Europe, a union for skilled workers in the service sector, said in a joint statement.

In Italy, a four-hour strike took place at all EDS sites on Oct. 21, while demonstrations were held in front of local headquarters in Rome and Milan, as well as in Roesselsheim, Germany. A spokeswomen for HP in Silicon Valley said “We will treat all affected employees with the highest level of respect and will offer them extensive career counseling and outplacement services."

Spain to Build Power Station in U.K. Without British Labor

Unite, Britain’s biggest union, says the decision of two Spanish contracting companies not to use any U.K. labor to build a power station in Britain is an absolute scandal and makes no sense, given the present tough economic conditions. The union has been informed by the two Spanish firms working on the Staythorpe power station construction site that they have no intention of employing local labor to undertake the work.

The companies told union officials that because they had no direct employees themselves, they would hire their workers directly from abroad, indicating they would give no consideration to employing local construction workers with years of experience in building power stations.

Unite’s joint general secretary, Derek Simpson, said: “This is an absolute scandal. The country is in the grip of a credit crunch and the construction industry is one of the worst-hit sectors. We know there are qualified people in the local area who are out of work and are more than ready and willing to do the job. The U.K. needs to upgrade and build new power stations and there are new opportunities to create thousands of well-paid and highly-skilled jobs. It will be a disgrace if U.K. workers are shut out from building their own power stations.”

Check our web site: http://www.laboreducator.org