Call it “Cartrina.” GM has announced layoffs of 30,000 workers; Ford is cutting at least 4000. All right, the numbers are a lot less than the nearly 60,000 displaced by Katrina. And when a mass layoff hits, as opposed to a hurricane, you do get to keep your house. At least for a while. But then, after months without income or health insurance, you’ll probably have to surrender that too. Corporate policy can be as devastating as any tempest ever brewed in the Caribbean.
I’m wondering whether the victims of Cartrina will get even a tenth of the sympathy that goes, at least rhetorically, to Katrina victims. Will Oprah give them baskets of her “favorite things,” like those she distributed to ecstatic Katrina volunteers this week? Will we find canisters in which to donate at Starbucks cash registers? Will Whole Foods collect canned goods for them?
All right, much of the Katrina sympathy is little more than kitsch. In a burst of holiday compassion, FEMA has extended the Katrina victims’ right to live indoors until December 15. Then they get evicted from their Hampton Inns, just in time to acquire Santa suits and try panhandling with bells on the streets.
The Cartrina victims are every bit as innocent as Katrina’s. No Latin Quarter mojo man brought the flood waters raging into New Orleans. And it wasn’t the average assembly line worker, or even middle manager, who decreed that GM would focus on gas-devouring, planet-eating, SUVs. No, in our flagrantly undemocratic system of corporate governance, that decision was made in the boardrooms and C-suites. But has anyone noticed GM CEO Rick Waggoner’s resume up on Monster.com?
Speaking of Katrina, last month Wal-Mart scored PR points by donating over $17 million to post-storm relief -- and hired one of the world’s largest PR firms, Edelman Public Relations, just to make sure that the news of its good deed got out. Then Wal-Mart got hit by its own perfect storm: a combination of the new documentary “Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Prices” (get your own DVD at www.walmartmovie.com), plus a series of leaked memos on how the mega-retailer has been scheming to cut health insurance costs by discriminating against the elderly and obese.
Coincidentally, a Wal-Mart worker in Iowa, a Nickel and Dimed reader, has just written me to say:
You may have taken note of the enormous praise heaped on Wal-Mart in the past month for the Katrina relief efforts . . . certainly well deserved, but the starting wage in our store is still $6.00/hour. (Maybe they needed the money for Katrina relief!! J) And long-time associates, 15-20 years, still tend to vanish from time to time because of termination. And if you do get hurt at work you try your best to just work through it in order to keep your name from being circulated as the person who brought a black mark to the associate-accident-free record.
This Wal-Mart employee also notes that workers hurt on the job are subjected to a urine test for drugs before help is sought: “You pee, then the injury is treated.” Another clever way of reducing health insurance costs, on a par with “terminating” the elderly worker: Try to blame the accident on the victim.
So what will happen to the tens of thousands displaced by Cartrina? Decent-paying, union jobs in manufacturing have pretty much emigrated, leaving the laid-off auto-workers to low-paid service and retail jobs at places like Wal-Mart -- where, if they’re lucky, a teeny-tiny fraction of their teeny-tiny wages may someday help the victims of another Katrina.
One of the news tidbits I picked up this morning regarding "Cartrina" was the closing of Line 1 at the Spring Hill, TN plant. Saturn fanatics like me will recognize that immediately. It was GM's effort to go head-to-head with Toyota and Honda, and its closing is tantamount to an admission of failure.
I've driven Saturns religiously for 10 years, and been responsible for many in my family doing the same. I've done this not just because they made a good car, but because the Spring Hill plant represented something special -- a new way for management and labor to work together.
Now that Saturn has been folded back into the mothership, and Spring Hill is to be partially shuttered, I'm sorry to say I can't see any reason to lean toward American cars any longer. GM continues to push bigger, less efficient vehicles. Ford's best efforts are still light-years behind their Japanese and European competitors. And Daimler-Chrysler? Don't make me laugh.
I say all this because it's representative, I think, of what's killing Detroit. They're living in the economy of the late 90s, with relatively cheap gas and a huge demand for huge vehicles. They haven't learned to move with the times -- to recognize the realities that have been driving the Japanese and European markets for years, and are going to be driving ours soon enough.
As usual, the little guy is going to pay for their lack of foresight. Here's hoping some of those laid off by Detroit can find work with Toyota, Honda or BMW.
Posted by: Brian Little | November 22, 2005 at 01:58 PM
People point to Walmart and cry "anti-union".
Unions enable disfavored people to live satisfactorly without addressing their disfavor. This way their family's problems are never resolved. Without the union they would have to accept the heirarchy, their own inferiority.
Unions serve to empower.
Walmart is anti-union because they are good. They try to help people address and resolve their problems by creating an enviornment where there are fewer hurdles.
Media ridicule and lawsuits are creations to reinforce people's belief that Walmart is evil in a subsegment of the industry dominated by the middle and lower classes.
Low-cost disfavored Chinese labor is utilized by corporate america to maximize margins. They all do it. Only WalMart gets fingered because they are the ones who help, and those who seek to create confusion in the marketplace want to eliminate the vast middle class who have a real chance and instead stick with lower classes who may not work otherwise. So they dirty him up while allowing the others to appear clean.
The coining of the term "Uncle Sam" was a clue alluding to this::Sam Walton's WalMart is one of few saviors of the peasant class.
Posted by: Uncle Sam | November 22, 2005 at 06:43 PM
It is sad to see so many people losing their jobs.
Many people blame the Japanese imports, but most of the Japanese cars in NA today are made in NA by NA workers. Interestingly, Toyota is about to displace GM as the #1 auto maker.. and there are no unions in Toyota. Unions were once a good thing, bringing the working man a decent wage and improving working conditions. I think they may have become too powerful, and certainly have to shoulder some of the blame for the big 3's market share loss.
Posted by: Paul | November 22, 2005 at 08:54 PM
Yeah, Uncle Sam. Unions are bad. Bad, bad, bad.
That stupid 40 hour week they won for the peasants just makes them lazy. Stupid child labor laws just coddle brats that should be working instead of playing or going to school.
More Walmarts! Abolish living wages! All profits to the richest!
Posted by: MisterC | November 22, 2005 at 08:56 PM
Uncle Sam, what kind of fantasy world do you live in? Wal-Mart -- and any other large corporation -- has no interest in paying its employees anything more than the bare minimum required by law or the local market. It's not there to protect them, which is precisely what unions do.
Nothing like some crackhead libertarian troll making the rounds.
Posted by: Brian Little | November 23, 2005 at 05:42 AM
I remember when they closed the Camaro/Firebird plant in Boisbriand, just north of Montreal (outsourcing to a developped country); the towns nearby suffered a serious blow to their local economies. The lesson to be learned is "Build it well, they will come". Camaros and Firebirds
were a automotive anacronism once their owners stopped parting their hair in the middle.
Posted by: Paul Olioff | November 23, 2005 at 06:10 AM
I grow more dismayed every day at how increasngly acceptable it is for large corporations to execute massive lay offs. There are entire cities that will be devestated by the GM cuts, yet the handful of people who are responsible for running the organization into the ground are still taking home their million dollar paychecks.
As a certified resume writer and President of AspirationsResume.com, I would like to show my support by offering discounts to employees affected by the GM cuts http://www.aspirationsresume.com/GeneralMotors.html
Posted by: Marie Plett | November 28, 2005 at 07:27 AM
great a cheezy pitch for resume service..(hint-resume's for dummies-not a paid endorsement & I'm not affiliated)
Barbara, enjoying you're blog, and will look for your books up in in Canada, the socialist workers paradise(not as much as we'd like) walmart is plying its ways here, dragging down small business,lowering wages,introducing the mean spirited right wing american way of doing things, one mega box at a time. Individuals in Canada, were appalled at the way the poor and disadvantaged have been treated throughout the katrina debacle. Now US business shows us again, with the G.M. closures that the so called "market force" way of doing business, shows that large U.S. corporations lack the ability to react to changes. The only reaction gm seems to have to high gas prices and falling sales is to ..close down.. what happened to ingenuity, flexibility and good old american know how??? NO... just lay off all the workers, roll over, and let toyota, and honda lead the way with hybrid vehicle sales. Followed by outsourcing every north american job to world labour where there are no piddly problems like health care issues, or paying more than 5 bucks a day.
Posted by: dc | December 01, 2005 at 08:53 AM
to "Uncle Sam":
you say "The coining of the term "Uncle Sam" was a clue alluding to this::Sam Walton's WalMart is one of few saviors of the peasant class."
first: in your use of the word "peasant", you give away your sympathies to the rich. classism is truly alive and kickin'.
second: if walmart is the savior, why is the state paying for walmart employees' needs in the form of medicaid, food stamps, and WIC programs? try and answer, cause there isn't an easy way out of this question...
Posted by: sapphic_beats | January 23, 2006 at 10:21 PM