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As a part time writer who works
for free, I can sympathize with all the part time temps (temporary workers)
across the nation and around the world. Victims of a corporate culture
that squeezes profit from low wage employees do, at least, get small paychecks, but
being self employed makes it more possible for me to work for less.
Just for the heck of it, I may
double my writing salary!
(Critics may counter that if I
wrote better, I’d get more.)
Temp workers, while offering a
boost to profits seem now to be slowing the economic recovery in places like Japan, where
low wages combined with an aging population have dropped auto sales by
percentages in the teens, and generally seem to be contributing to a broad
economic slow-down
Meanwhile, here in the States, Big
Business (and some smaller ones too) say that immigrant labor provides a
valuable service by keeping labor costs low.
Too bad Japan doesn’t have a people-porous
southern border like us. If they did their economy would thrive on discounted
workers who shop at discounted discounters on their way to pick up a bite to
eat at a discounted fast food outlet. Perhaps if Japan had Wal-Mart and McDonalds
they would share in our minimum wage prosperity.
Maybe not.
It seems that employment
opportunities right here at home are slowing down, with many jobs being cut
back from the prescribed 40 hours to something less. And many US
manufacturers rely on the temp status of full time workers to avoid health care
and retirement coverage while keeping wages below the mean.
With rail cargo and intermodal
freight volume declining the first week of the year, this writer could make a
case for the fact that higher energy costs, the falling dollar, and lowering
worker income is having an effect on trade in America, too.
Not only treating workers with
respect, but paying them a fair day’s wage, has strong economic as well as
moral implications. Even as that connection seems lost on management at this
point, the truth will always, sooner or later, bear itself out.
While US
ingenuity and business sense may have reignited Japanese manufacturing
following the war, it seems that birds of a feather, both the student Japan and the teacher US, have forgotten those lessons.
Maybe at some future point Fair
Trade could be a tasty sauce for all manner of fowl.
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