Before the Fall of 2008: It seems like another epoch ago

Think back to four years ago.

Spurred by a corrupt housing market and easy credit, the economy was in a nosedive amidst credible fears of a total collapse. By October 2008, billions of dollars of wealth had disappeared, a lot of it from the already modest retirement accounts of everyday people.

The world of work was about to be profoundly affected. Job losses and layoffs started mounting quickly, first in the private sector, then in the public and non-profit sectors. Within a year, the official unemployment rate would edge on double digits. Those fortunate to keep their jobs would experience added stress at work and, very possibly, reductions in pay and benefits.

The presidential campaign was occurring against this backdrop. There remained the looming question of whether America was ready to elect a black President. Sarah Palin would experience a meteoric rise and fall, the latter with a big assist to Tina Fey. The Tea Party and Occupy movements weren’t even a part of our vocabulary.

For me, before the Fall of 2008 looks a lot like September 10, 2001: The day before our world changed.

Fast forward

Four years later, we’re still paying for the greed, excess, and irresponsibility that led us into this mess. And I challenge anyone, regardless of political affiliation, to find anything genuinely uplifting in the substance and rhetoric of the current campaign season. As for many of our business leaders, they continue to rake it in — the wealth gap in American keeps widening — while they vigorously oppose regulatory safeguards intended to prevent yet another meltdown.

I honestly don’t know how we’re going to chart a new course, but I’m certain that we must if the coming decades are to be good ones for the vast majority of people. As I’ve suggested before, for a lot of reasons — political, economic, psychological, environmental, spiritual, you name it — we’re at a fork in the road, choosing between a New Enlightenment and a New Dark Age.

I fear the latter but hope for the former.

Working Notes: September 5, 2012

 

From TCB Review article on workplace bullying

Periodically I use this Working Notes feature to highlight a variety of odds & ends worthy of mention:

1. The Conference Board Review on workplace bullying

It’s a good thing when The Conference Board Review, the flagship publication of The Conference Board – an influential, global research organization promoting best practices in business – runs a major feature on workplace bullying. That’s why I’ve been meaning to share this thorough, well-written article about workplace bullying by Vadim Liberman from the Summer 2012 issue:

Bosses have tormented workers ever since there were workers to torment, but only recently have we become sensitized to what studies indicate is four times more common than sexual harassment. Most workplace bullying doesn’t climax at the point of a pistol, but it can be devastating nevertheless to morale, productivity, and HR departments, strongly affecting not only the target but his whole department—and even the entire company.

Vadim interviewed me at length for the piece, and I am pleased that he dug well beneath the surface to present a lot of information and different points of view to his readers.

2. Brian Austin, Madison WI detective and labor activist, on Labor Day

Here’s a thoughtful, substantive, bracing blog post about the meaning of Labor Day 2012 from Brian Austin, a Madison, Wisconsin detective and labor activist:

Today is labor day.  This should be a day of celebrating the achievements of the labor movement in providing dignity and a voice for all workers, yet this year I am filled with a sense of both urgency and alarm.  Workers in this nation are in real trouble, and many don’t even know it.

Amen. Keep reading.

3. Sara Horowitz, Freelancers Union founder, on Labor Day for independent workers

Sara Horowitz, pioneering founder of the Freelancers Union, looks at the meaning of the labor movement for independent workers in this blog piece for The Atlantic:

At Freelancers Union, we’ve been heavily influenced by [labor leader Sidney] Hillman’s vision. It’s why we built our own social-purpose insurance company to serve our independent workforce. It’s why we’re sponsoring new nonprofit health plans in New York, New Jersey, and Oregon next year. And it’s why we’re opening a bricks-and-mortar, zero-co-pay medical center in Downtown Brooklyn this fall.

Sara and the Freelancers Union are blazing trails to create support for, and solidarity within, the growing sector of independent workers.

4. Employment lawyer Jon Hyman on preventing workplace violence

Ohio employment lawyer Jon Hyman has penned a concise, useful blog piece on preventing workplace violence for Workforce Management that discusses the importance of organizational culture:

1. Treat employees with respect—while they work for you, during a termination, and even after they are no longer your employees.

2. Flag at-risk employees for assistance.

3. Offer employee assistance programs for those who need them.

4. Involve security personnel and local law enforcement at the first hint that an employee might turn violent.

Over the years, Jon and I have had spirited exchanges over the need for workplace bullying legislation. His excellent Ohio Employer’s Law Blog is a terrific resource for employment lawyers and human resources administrators.

Labor Day 2012 soapbox: Workers, meltdown politics, and workplace bullying

Recent annual editions of What Color Is Your Parachute?, the hugely popular job-hunting manual by Richard N. Bolles, open with a new chapter titled “How to Find Hope.”

It’s a not-so-subtle admission in this otherwise upbeat book that many people have been so demoralized by the economy and job market that they must first pick themselves off the ground before diving back into the search for work and a fulfilling livelihood. As this Labor Day weekend approaches, I take it as yet another small sign of how things have changed.

Four years ago, on the eve of Labor Day 2008, we were just weeks away from a rapid escalation of the economic meltdown. When things really started to go bad, they did so at a surreal pace that taught us how quickly a 401(k) plan can disintegrate. (Do you remember the news coverage back then? How many of us were asking, what the —- is going on?)

This catastrophe was not caused by school teachers, assembly line workers, retail clerks, firefighters, nurses, labor unions, radical professors, or even — heaven forbid — trial lawyers. No, this was courtesy of the financial masters of the universe on Wall Street, with a big assist from their allies in Washington D.C.

And today, we’re still sorting through the human rubble.

Disappearing middle

Thank goodness we’re not Greece. There still are millions of Americans who have good jobs with decent pay and benefits.

But those numbers are dwindling. In particular, our middle class is shrinking, with a few moving into the top, and many more joining the economically vulnerable.  A major study recently released by the Pew Research Center (link here) concluded that we are living in the “lost decade of the middle class.” The official unemployment rate hovers at around 8 percent, and the unofficial rate — including the vastly underemployed as well as discouraged job seekers no longer tallied in the official one — falls anywhere from 15-20 percent.

New vocabulary

The times even have spawned additions to our economic vocabulary:

Four years ago, the term “99ers” may have sounded like the name of a sports team. But now it refers to individuals whose unemployment benefits — extended during the recession to 99 weeks — have expired.

Four years ago, “underwater” was an aquatic term. Now, of course, it refers to a mortgage balance — in many cases, despite timely payments — that exceeds the declining value of the home.

Four years ago, I’m not even sure if “new normal” had a common meaning. Today it refers to accepting a higher official unemployment rate, say, 8 or 9 percent, as the new normal, replacing the “old” normal of maybe 3 or 4 percent.

Let’s get political

How targeted is this assault on everyday workers? Folks, it’s no longer about shared sacrifice or belt tightening when times are tough. Rather, in some circles it’s about paying rank-and-file workers as little as possible while top executives and shareholders reap the benefits of their labor.

If you need evidence of this, look at the recent strike at the Caterpillar plant in Joliet, Illinois. As reported by Steven Greenhouse for the New York Times (link here), management strong armed the union into accepting wage and pension freezes despite record profits and a 60 percent raise given to the CEO! Need more? Talk to veteran employees of major commercial airlines, who in the post-9/11 world of air travel took huge pay cuts to help the industry survive, while in many cases high-ranking airline executives were collecting obscene bonuses.

Perhaps you’re not surprised that I’m very concerned about the economic and social policies supported by the Romney-Ryan ticket. The hard right has so taken over the GOP that mainstream conservatives of 30 years ago would be branded as traitors to the cause today. Of course, I can’t promise that re-electing President Obama is going to result in dramatic progress either. But at least the Democrats aren’t serving up — as a featured convention speaker — the likes of South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, who repeatedly boasts proudly about being a union buster.

Workplace bullying and politics

I respect the fact that some readers do not subscribe to my generally liberal political beliefs. But especially for those who found this blog because of their own experiences with workplace bullying, I ask them to consider the possible connections.

No, I’m not claiming that all Republicans are bullies and all Democrats are nice people. Far from it. I don’t see hard correlations between individual political beliefs and how people treat each other at work. Applied to my own political leanings, I readily admit there are some liberals I wouldn’t want to work for in a million years, while there are some conservatives I would trust and respect as my boss without qualification.

Nor do I suggest that workplace bullying is limited to the big bad corporations. As I’ve noted here, some of the worst workplace abuse can be found in do-gooder non-profits, labor unions, and government agencies.

But on a systemic, policy level, yes, differences emerge.  For example, the two most powerful organizations opposing the anti-bullying Healthy Workplace Bill (HWB) are the Chamber of Commerce (a GOP favorite) and the Society for Human Resource Management. In Massachusetts, another powerful business lobby, the Associated Industries of Massachusetts, opposes legal protections for bullying targets.

In the meantime, labor unions and civil rights groups have been the leading sources of organizational support for the HWB.

It’s not as if opponents of the HWB are promising to discipline or dismiss the aggressors, in return for us dropping our support for legal reform. To the contrary, some are claiming that existing laws are sufficient to protect bullying targets, which they know isn’t true unless they’re listening to lawyers who don’t understand employment law.

Others complain that legal protections against severe workplace bullying would serve as “job killers” by undermining productivity and the spirit of healthy competition. But what’s “productive,” “healthy,” and “competitive” about interpersonal abuse?

There are honest differences of opinion as to where the law should draw the line on legal claims for workplace bullying. But shouldn’t it be wrong to treat another human being so abusively as to destroy one’s psyche and livelihood?

What will it take?

Yup, as we approach this Labor Day weekend, the world of work and workers faces very serious challenges.

And the stakes are too important for us to throw in the towel. Somehow, we must forge a more humane consensus about how people should be treated at work. Let’s claim human dignity as our starting place for employee relations and go from there. That embrace still leaves us to sort out the complicated questions of workplace laws, policies, and practices, but at least it recognizes the essential humanity of labor.

After all, it’s hard to get the details right when the core values are absent.

***

My law review article, “Human Dignity and American Employment Law” (free download here) contains a more detailed exposition on human dignity and the workplace. Ironically, I was completing the final manuscript right at the time the economy was melting down in Fall 2008.

Working Notes: August 15, 2012

Dear Readers,

From time to time I’m going to use this Working Notes feature to briefly flag items of interest, especially if I’m pressed for time and not able to write up a full blog post about each of them.  Here goes:

Massachusetts Readers — Friday morning, October 19 — Save-the-Date Announcement

The New Workplace Institute will host a program on workplace bullying on the morning of Friday, October 19, at Suffolk University Law School in downtown Boston. Details to follow!

The event will be sponsored in conjunction with Freedom from Workplace Bullies Week, October 14-20, sponsored by the Workplace Bullying Institute.

WBI Instant Survey

And speaking of the Workplace Bullying Institute, the latest WBI instant survey gathered online responses from 516 self-selected respondents, who were asked what health impairments they’ve experienced due to bullying at work. Here’s the summary:

In the fourth 2012 WBI Instant Poll (single question), 516 visitors to the site were asked how bullying affected their health. Bullying drove 71% of targets to seek treatment from a physician. Psychological problems included, in rank order: Anxiety (80%), Depression (49%) and PTSD (30%). Many physical stress-related problems were also reported. Suicide was considered by 29%.

For more, go to the WBI blog post, here.

Working in the airline industry

Working for a commercial airline — flying the friendly skies and all that — once was seen as a glamour job for those who wanted to see the world. It can still offer that sense of adventure, but in the aftermath of 9/11 and the ongoing economic crisis, it can be very, very stressful to work in an airborne tin can.

Lisa Shames, writing for Time Out Chicago, offers this piece on the new realities of angry passengers, stressed out flight attendants, ever-present safety concerns, and huge pay cuts even as airline executives reap huge bonuses.

Who was Ayn Rand?

The late Ayn Rand, ultra conservative author and philosopher, is one of the intellectual heroes of the far right. She is back in the news because of her formative influence on GOP vice-presidential designate Paul Ryan. Her influential writings, especially the novels Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead, preach a gospel of selfishness and contempt toward any kind of public safety net programs for those in need.

Jan Frel, writing for AlterNet, dissects the essence of Ayn Rand here.

When Boomers bloviate to Millennials

Paul Campos, writing for Salon, suggests that Baby Boomers need to think twice before blithely offering career and life advice to a generation facing very different challenges than they did.  He explains his “list of four things a baby boomer should never say to a millennial” here.

The problem with the $75,000 sweet spot

In an opinion piece in last Sunday’s New York Times (link here), psychology professor Elizabeth Dunn (University of British Columbia) and business administration professor Michael Norton (Harvard) tackle the question of how much money we need to be happy and suggest that once we’re at a certain income level, we’ll likely get more satisfaction out of giving than receiving.

$75,000

The authors are quick to acknowledge that “there is a measurable connection between income and happiness” and that “people with a comfortable living standard are happier than people living in poverty.” But they go on to suggest that “additional income doesn’t buy us any additional happiness on a typical day once we reach that comfortable standard,” which in the U.S. “seems to fall somewhere around $75,000″:

Using Gallup data collected from almost half a million Americans, researchers at Princeton found that higher household incomes were associated with better moods on a daily basis — but the beneficial effects of money tapered off entirely after the $75,000 mark.

If you have it, share it

Dunn & Norton summon this survey data to make a deeper point. Instead of falling for the all-too-common American practice of overindulging when our coffers fill up, why not underindulge and find better ways of using our money, like giving back to the community and to those in need? They even cite studies showing that we may get more pleasure by sharing than by keeping it all for ourselves.

They close their piece by suggesting:

But rather than focusing on how much we’ve got in our bowl, we should think more carefully about what we do with what we’ve got — which might mean indulging less, and may even mean giving others the opportunity to indulge instead.

I’m glad that Dunn & Norton are telling us to be generous, for our own sake and — more importantly — for the sake of others. At a time when the official unemployment rate is holding steady at just over 8 percent, and the “real” unemployment rate (including the seriously underemployed and discouraged job seekers who are no longer counted) is roughly double that, those reminders cannot come too often.

Uh, wait a minute

But before we get carried away, let’s break from the financial profile of the average Times reader and look at the bigger picture:

According to the most recent U.S. census data, individual yearly earnings from 2006-2010 (in 2010 dollars) averaged a little over $27,000. And household earnings averaged barely under $52,000.

In other words, most folks aren’t earning anywhere near $75,000. In fact, according to this handy calculator, that income level is at the 88th percentile of American earners, circa 2010. If we’re talking total household income (the measure of the study cited by Dunn & Norton), it would be at the 68th percentile. Even taking into account geographic cost of living differences, there simply aren’t a lot of people making 75Gs or more.

Where does this leave us?

If a $75,000 household income is indeed the magic number for feeling relatively comfortable, then something’s badly amiss when some 68 percent of the population may not enjoy that level of tranquility or satisfaction. We must address the larger economic, social, and political concerns that have brought us to this precarious place, such as the issues discussed in the recent AlterNet interview with Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz that I excerpted earlier this week.

And finally, at an individual level, if you’re fortunate to have some discretionary income — however you choose to define it — think about how you can use some of it toward the greater good and to help those in need. You have a chance to make a difference in the lives of others.

***

[Note: This is a corrected version of the article originally posted and distributed to subscribers. I mistakenly published a version that did not properly reference the average individual and household income data.]

Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz warns of gated communities, deep insecurities, and political extremism

In an interview with AlterNet’s Lynn Parramore (link here), Joseph E. Stiglitz — Nobel Prize winning economist and author of the newly published The Price of Inequality: How Today’s Divided Society Endangers Our Future (2012) — urges that massive economic inequality in America threatens the nation’s very core.

It’s a lengthy, substantive interview, well worth a full read. Here are some highlights:

Deepening inequality since 1980

Stiglitz notes that although comparative figures to other eras are not available, data going back to 1980 clearly show the widening wealth gaps between the wealthiest Americans and everyone else:

But we do have data sets that go back more than 30 years and what is clear is that the share of the top 1 percent has almost tripled since 1980. So, this kind of inequality at the top has unambiguously gotten much, much, much worse. We also have data on the extent to which there’s been a hollowing out of the middle class. The data that recently came out from the Fed indicated that we’ve wiped out 20 years of increases and wealth for the middle American.

The nightmare scenario

And more of the same will lead us to a very bad place:

But if we go down the route that we’re going, we’re going to a world where people live in gated communities. We already have by far the largest fraction of our population locked up in prison. We will have an increasingly insecure society. Americans will be facing insecurity, of economic insecurity, healthcare insecurity, a sense of physical insecurity. We will be worrying politically about the role of extremism. Extremism on the right, extremism on the left.

On capitalism

Stiglitz isn’t ranting against capitalism. Rather, he’s looking at who has benefited from massive inequalities, and at what costs:

Well, capitalism does have a lot of strengths, including producing things that are very innovative. But what drives capitalism is the profit motive. You can profit not only by making good things, but also by exploiting people, by exploiting the environment, by doing things that are not so good. . . . And if you look at the people at the top, what is so striking is that the people who’ve made the most important creative contributions are not there.

Younger voices

Student responses to his book talks have been telling:

I guess the thing that was most moving in a number of the talks that I’ve given is the large number of young people that have come to the microphone and asked questions where you can sense their sense of despair, their sense of frustration at being saddled by student loans, their sense of job prospects being not very good.

. . .And these were, you know, intelligent kids, who obviously played by the rules, done everything right, worked hard at school. But they were hitting the kind of frustration that you shouldn’t be getting from young people. To me, that was really heart-rending. And it came from not just one kid. Not in just one talk.

Paths toward change

Will the American people start to get it and demand a fairer economic system and appropriate regulation? Stiglitz sees two paths toward understanding and eventual responses:

In my book, I described this very comprehensive economic agenda. . . . What I try to put forward are two hypotheses of how that might happen. In one of them, what I call the “1 percent” will finally realize that it’s in their enlightened self interest, rightly understood, to care about the rest of society. . . . And the other one is that the 99 percent realize that they’ve been sold a bill of goods. And they realize that some of these ideas that we’ve been talking about — trickle-down economics that destroy the interests of the poor, the middle class — are just wrong.

So what’s new?

To anyone paying close attention to economic trends over the years and the impact of the Great Recession, much of what Stiglitz is saying is hardly news. And yet, it’s important when leading thinkers validate what people are seeing and experiencing in their day-to-day lives.

This helps to remind us that many of the economic challenges that folks are dealing with are not due to their own failings, but rather are elements of systemic forces that threaten our individual and collective well-being.

***

AlterNet has become the leading online source for news and commentary from a progressive angle, bringing together original content (such as the Stiglitz interview) and materials published elsewhere. You can read more about AlterNet’s mission, content, and readership here.

Collegiate reflections: Graduating into a severe recession

A not-too-artistic shot of Brandt Hall dorm, my collegiate home for almost 3 years, until departing for the real world.

Before commentators invoked the (wholly accurate) mantra that the Great Recession marks the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s, they typically observed that this was the worst meltdown since the severe recession of the early 1980s.

I remember that time well. In 1981, I graduated from Valparaiso University in Indiana with a bachelor’s degree and a political science major. My plan was to work for a year, live at home with my parents, and file my applications to law schools.

Although I presented excellent grades and a strong list of extracurricular and community activities, the entry-level job market in northwest Indiana was not very welcoming to newly-minted college graduates. The nation was in the midst of a deep recession. Locally, the labor market in the region was in especially bad shape, thanks to the sharp decline of the steel industry, which once served as a steady source of good jobs.

Back to retail

Given my extensive experience on the college newspaper and a long list of courses requiring intensive writing, I applied for jobs with newspapers and other positions that required strong writing skills. The best I could come up with was a very part-time position reporting on local town government meetings for a weekly community newspaper.

Ultimately, after several months of unsuccessful hunting for a full-time job befitting (in my mind) a college graduate, I contacted the local drug store chain I had worked for as a retail stock clerk during college summers and asked if they needed help. Fortunately they were opening a new store in the area, and they took me on. I would spend the next year working there, unloading trucks, stocking shelves, checking inventories, and assisting customers.

Lessons

A year later, when I headed east to law school at New York University and heard about what my classmates had done with their time after college, I was wholly intimidated. Many sported impressive internships and fellowships, jobs with prestigious-sounding employers, and the like. By contrast, my job at the drugstore and the part-time gig writing articles for a local paper sounded pretty ordinary.

With the gift of hindsight, however, I look at that interim year and realize that I learned valuable lessons that are relevant to my work today:

First, I experienced the indignity of having my hours (and thus pay) slashed without notice when sales figures were less than anticipated. To this day I remember how it felt to report for work one day and to see that one of the company executives had taken a red pen to our work schedule, brutally cutting hours.

Second, I saw how some of the female employees, earning wages similar to mine, became primary family breadwinners after their husbands lost their jobs in the steel mills. They assumed these burdens without whining or drama.

Third, on a more positive note, the experience buoyed my work ethic. I’m not claiming that I found any deep meaning in working retail. This was a non-union employer, and the wages were pretty low, hovering a dollar or so above the minimum wage — with no employee benefits that I can recall.

But the store managers were hard workers, they weren’t jerks, and oftentimes they’d join us to do the heavy lifting that needed to get done. (Later in life I would discover how this is not necessarily the norm!) Even though this was far from my dream job, I gave it a good effort almost every shift.

I’ll stop short of calling it a “humbling” year, because I honestly didn’t expect the world to hand me a high-paying professional job on a platter, but I certainly learned that sometimes you have to take what you can get if you want to earn some money.

Why today is worse

So, when talking to graduates today, do I use my career successes to blithely assure them that things will get better? Absolutely not. Besides the fact that, like many of my peers, I am one job loss away from genuine financial struggle, here are reasons why today’s graduates have it harder:

Structural recession

The current meltdown shows strong signs of being more structural than cyclical. By that I mean certain financial and labor markets are in the throes of downward restructuring, translating into a likely permanent shedding of jobs. The recession of the early 80s had some of that quality — the demise of the steel industry is one example — but the outlook for college graduates remained optimistic.

30 years of “trickle down”

Today’s economy reflects the cumulative effect of “trickle down” public policies that triggered a sharply growing gap between the wealthiest Americans and everyone else. These policies, ushered in by the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, were just starting to redefine the landscape at the time I graduated from college.

Student debt

People today are graduating from various degree and vocational training programs with enormous amounts of student loan debt, as I have observed often on this blog. The shift from grants to loans as the primary form of financial aid was occurring before our very eyes during the 1980s, and it has continued unabated since then. It means that graduates are carrying heavy monthly repayment obligations into a difficult job market.

Older workers remaining on the job

As I wrote earlier this month, the entry-level job market for graduates increasingly will be restricted by a growing number of older workers who remain in the labor force because they cannot afford to retire.

Summing up

I do believe that opportunities are out there. It’s not like we’ve run out of work that needs doing. But the current economic landscape is much different than that of the early 80s. We are facing very tough times for the long haul. It’s one more reason why we need to think and act wisely about how to rebuild our economy in a lasting and sustainable way.

***

Note: With Commencement season coming to a close at colleges and universities across the nation, I beg my readers’ indulgence as I use a short series of posts to reflect upon my own collegiate experience and its immediate aftermath to address topics pertinent to this blog.

Other posts in this short series

Collegiate reflections: Working on the campus newspaper

Collegiate reflections: Studying the liberal arts

Suicides spike as Europe’s economy crumbles

The meltdown of the European economy has been linked to rising suicide rates of workers who see no escape from their plight.

Barbie Latza Nadeau reports for Newsweek (link here) on increasing suicide rates in countries such as Italy, Greece, Spain, and Ireland – all of which are in the throes of severe economic crises. She observes that “(i)n the countries most affected by the euro-zone crisis, depression is on the rise and suicides are spreading.” In addition, amid widespread unemployment in these countries, governments are cutting back on social support services for the jobless and those in need of assistance:

“The main reason for the rise in suicides is the recession and now austerity—both making hard times more difficult and reducing funding for mental-health services,” says David Stuckler, a Cambridge professor who coauthored a report on the health effects of the economic crisis in Europe. “Usually an epidemic is thought of as a short-term increase in a disease—by that criterion, suicides would be an epidemic.”

Nadeau begins her piece with three stories of three Italian workers who committed suicide due to their personal financial struggles. I suggest checking it out if you want a clearer sense of the human costs of this recession.

Cutting back when the need is greatest

Austerity can be a sound philosophy and practice when you need to cut back on spending, and surely many individuals and organizations manage to do so when times are tough. But in this context, austerity has meant sharp cuts in government support of those who most need assistance, including social services to help people who are struggling with life’s harsh challenges.

When America faced the Great Depression of the 1930s, the federal government enacted the New Deal legislation that created a stronger social safety net, including the minimum wage, Social Security, and public insurance for our bank accounts. Ironically, it was this influx of government spending, followed by the huge increase in public expenditures necessary to fight the Second World War, that saved capitalism and put America on path for its greatest era of prosperity.

The European economy today is different from that of the U.S. during the 1930s, but the point about government support is no less relevant. When people have nowhere to turn, some choose the most terrible option.

On suicide

It pains me that suicide comes up so often in discussions of depression, desperation, and despair related to work and livelihood. Before I began to understand the psychological impact of work and the economy, I did not comprehend how severe setbacks and traumatic experiences linked to employment (or lack thereof) might be related to suicide.

I get it now. The increasing suicide rate in Europe is horrific in itself, as well as the canary in the coal mine. We must pay attention.

On Wisconsin

When Wisconsin governor Scott Walker launched his broadside against public employee collective bargaining rights, he triggered a protest movement that attracted international attention. Unfortunately, the attempt to remove the governor from office failed two weeks ago, as millions of conservative dollars poured into the state to defeat the recall effort.

“We Are Wisconsin”

But the public outcry spurred by Walker’s assault on working people has not gone away. At the biennial convention of Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) this weekend, I had the pleasure of meeting one of the everyday heroes of the protest movement, a Madison, Wisconsin detective named Brian Austin.

I grabbed from Brian’s Facebook page this photo from the ADA Convention: Brian on the left, joined by two other progressive stalwarts, Congresswoman and ADA President Lynn Woolsey and Communications Workers of America president Larry Cohen:

Brian appeared at our convention to discuss the extraordinarily moving documentary “We Are Wisconsin,” which chronicles the grassroots protests that immediately followed the filing of legislation to strip most Wisconsin public workers of their core collective bargaining rights. He is one of six individuals featured in the film, which follows his participation in a “Cops for Labor” group in support of the protests — despite that police officers were expressly exempted from Gov. Walker’s legislative attack on collective bargaining rights.

The screening of the film put tears in our eyes. It’s the story of everyday people standing up for their dignity and their basic rights. It’s dramatic, uplifting, sad, and outrageous. You can rent it via short-term download ($4.99 for 48 hours) here. Do so; you won’t be disappointed. The documentary soon will be available on DVD as well.

Down but not out

The defeat of the recall election was a setback and disappointment, without question. The results demonstrated the power of big money in politics and the relentless determination of the far right to diminish worker dignity.

But watching “We Are Wisconsin,” I saw the making of new activists before my eyes on the screen. Walker and his friends showed that what they’re about is not belt-tightening during tough economic times, but rather a desire to destroy the labor movement and the rights of everyday working people. For thousands of Badger state citizens like Brian Austin, that struck a chord. If their energy and commitment can be harnessed for the long haul, the anti-labor forces of the far right will have met their match.

***

For more

You can read Brian Austin’s blog, “Badger Blue, Times Two,” here.

Americans for Democratic Action is a liberal advocacy group with historic ties to the labor movement. I just completed a two-year term as its Chair, and I remain on its board. For more information about ADA, go here.

Boomers vs. Millennials: More early shots in the generational war

Are the older boomers or the younger millennials facing a tougher time in today’s melted-down workplace?

Matthew Philips, in a piece for Business Week (link here), sees both sides of the argument, noting that “in terms of who has it worse, old or young workers, it’s worth measuring the differences between the two age groups to see which is more in need of help.” He assesses the situation this way:

Older

A recent report by the Government Accountability Office comes down on the side of easing the plight of older workers, more than 50 percent of whom have actively sought a job for more than half a year.

. . . In a recent OpEd for the New York Times, Dean Baker of the Center for Economic Policy Research and Kevin Hassett of the American Enterprise Institute point out just how devastating unemployment can be for older workers, leading to significantly higher rates of death and illness. Also, once they lose a job, older workers have a much harder time getting back into the workforce.

Younger

Yet there’s evidence that the real jobs crisis is taking place a generation or two down the food chain. Unemployment rates for young Americans are significantly higher. . . . Not only are young people coming out of college with an increasingly heavy burden of student loan debt; they’re coming into a job market where they’re less likely to earn enough money to pay that off in a reasonable time.

That has far-reaching consequences. Today’s young workers are likely to have lower earning . . . potential over their careers, and their inability to pay off their student debt will keep them from buying homes and cars and a whole lot of other stuff that helps juice the economy.

Commencement season

Around the country, newly-minted graduates are taking their bows at Commencement ceremonies and entering the workforce. As an educator, I am ever aware of the difficult job market they confront. Joseph Kahn, writing for the Boston Globe (link here), captured the challenges faced by many:

Those not drowning financially are often treading water at best, according to surveys like the one released last month by WSL/Strategic Retail, a consulting firm that tracks shopping and retail trends.

Millennials now represent “the highest percentage of Americans lacking enough money to meet their basic needs,” outdistancing Gen X-ers and baby boomers in that dubious regard, according to the survey.

Burdened by $1 trillion in college debt, millennials seek the lowest price on most of their purchased items (80 percent say), shop for lower-priced brands whenever possible (60 percent), and do much of their bargain hunting online (57 percent), the WSL survey found.

. . . Facing them is “a perfect storm of a weak job market and the fact that those who do have jobs have seen minimal pay increases,” says WSL president Candace Corlett. Unlike previous generations, she adds, young adults are starting out their professional lives by piecing together part-time and temp jobs, or freelancing for low pay. Full-time jobs with benefits? Not many.

Two years ago, I wrote a piece for Perspectives on Work (link here) titled “The Looming 21st Century Generation Gap: Economic Challenges Facing Younger Workers.” I wouldn’t change a word of the opening paragraph:

Younger adults preparing to enter today’s workforce face a confluence of economic challenges unknown to many of their predecessors. These include rising student loan debt, barriers and higher thresholds to entry-level jobs, reduced wages and benefits, and heavier responsibilities for funding their own retirements and those of preceding generations. Many of these concerns were in play before the recession, but the economic meltdown has intensified all of them. Although the exact mix of these factors remains speculative, potentially we face a long period of generational strife that will play out in our workplaces, boardrooms, and legislatures.

Peers

Nevertheless, as a tail-end Baby Boomer, I fully comprehend the challenges and fears of a generation that has weathered the Great Recession during a time when our earning capacities are supposed to be at their peaks.

Many workers in their 40s and beyond have paid a heavy price during these past five years. At some employers, layoffs have targeted more experienced (and expensive) employees. And the older one gets, the more difficult it becomes to obtain a comparable position. Wages and salaries have flatlined, and pay cuts and freezes have become the norm.

In addition, quiet but devastating forms of age discrimination confront many workers who attempt to rebound from a layoff or to switch careers. The federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act prohibits age discrimination against individuals 40 and over, but proving such claims is extremely difficult.

The economic consequences of the meltdown on older workers are significant, especially in terms of retirement savings and planning. But the oft-neglected psychological impacts have exacted a heavy toll as well, ranging from the stress caused by uncertainty about job security to outright despair, desperation, and depression over a job loss.

Are we all in this together?

Call it a wash.

In any event, I foresee a lot of generational strife in the years to come. Boomers, concerned about economic security during their later years and (in some cases, at least) fueled by expectations of maintaining certain standards of living, will exercise their clout in boardrooms and legislatures. Millennials, many of whom are burdened by enormous student debt as they sail straight into a bad job market, will not want to pay extra levies to fund the retirements of generations preceding them.

I firmly believe that this scenario will get worse, perhaps substantially so, before it possibly gets better. The latter will require a fundamental revisiting of how we live, spend, and consume.

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Graphic courtesy of Free Clip Art Now.