- BALTIMORE, MD - Stanley
Aronowitz's timing was impeccable! The activist, author and educator arrived
in town, on Friday, May 13, 2005, to talk about a continuing economic crisis.
He labeled it as "The Paradox of the Jobless Recovery," which
is also part of the title of his latest book. (1) On the same day that
he arrived, General Motors' sprawling Broening Highway plant, which had
been in operation for over 70 years, closed its doors forever. It is located
on the east side of the city. Over 1,100 of its workers were permanently
put out of their jobs through no fault of their own. The GM plant's demise,
as a manufacturing colossus, follows hard on the heels of the collapse
of the once-mighty Bethlehem Steel, and its Sparrows Point plant, and the
earlier loss, also on the east side, of the Western Electric facility.
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- "There are about 121 millions jobs in this country
for wages and salaries," Aronowitz began, "in both the public
and private sector. A small percentage of the jobs in the private sector,
however - very small - are tied to the domestic economy. The rest in the
private sector are connected to the global economy. As a result of that
connection, we have lost about 10 million jobs, industrial jobs, the very
best paying jobs, in recent years. Today, we have an estimated 11.5 million
factory jobs left. In the steel industry, back in the late 50s, there were
600,000 steel workers. Today, we only have 175,000 jobs left. We have lost
almost 2/3 of the good paying steel-working jobs that we once had in this
country," he lamented.
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- Aronowitz emphasized that this is all part of "the
bleeding that is going on in the U.S." Referring to the GM plant closure
in Baltimore and a recent plant closing in New Jersey, he added, "Plants
shut down and plants stay open, and the working class, understandably,
gets jittery about what is going on. What is going to happen next? Of course,
outsourcing is one of the main things that is going on." Over the
decades, under Democrats and Republicans, Aronowitz found, as he details
in his latest tome, that economic growth had become "delinked"
from job creation and that the rich have received "financial windfalls"
at the expense of most other Americans as a result of that unfair, deindustrialization
process.
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- To reinforce Aronowitz's argument, the local paper, the
Baltimore Sun related earlier today, what is happening out in Iowa. It's
a state that voted for the "Bush-Cheney Gang," in the 2004 election.
Maytag, an American institution, appears ready to leave the city of its
birth, Newton, Iowa. A maker of popular appliances, Maytag affirmed reports
that it will be closing "the company's flagship factory in this central
Iowa town and moving the jobs overseas." Its CEO, a character by the
name of Ralph F. Hake, confessed at a meeting of its shareholders: "Moving
jobs to Mexico and out sourcing agreements with Asian companies are part
of the company's strategy to compete with low cost imported appliances...The
issue is earnings, margins and profitability," he pathetically whined.
Magtag's main plant employs about 1,200 workers. (2) Their future is, indeed,
looking grim.
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- (Ironically, Iowa, like many other states, is big on
pushing those highly touted "family values" and sounding "patriotic."
It's hard to see, however, how its workers losing their jobs to outsourcing
promotes those goals. When corporations are allowed to force unemployment,
is that a "family value?" Are these same greedy corporations
who abandon the U.S. and their workers for a foreign base, acting "patriotic?"
Four of Iowa's five congressmen are Republicans, as is one of its U.S.
senators. By the year 2015, experts estimate, "3.3 million U.S. jobs
and $136 billion in wages could be moved to such countries as India, China
and Russia." They added that the offshoring trend "is huge."
(3) It should be getting clearer now to more and more folks that when the
Bush-Cheney Gang blabs on about "A Prosperous America," it has
only an elite few in mind.
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- Aronowitz then made a stunning point. He said that many
of wheeler dealers in America's key industries, like in automobile, textiles,
coal, oil and steel, have only themselves to blame for the present predicament
that they, and their workers, find themselves in. In fact, an entire chapter
in his book is devoted to this subject. It's entitled, "It's the Technology,
Stupid!" He argued that the CEOs "screwed up, royally!"
They didn't keep up with the technology and they sold away things, such
as the patents on a hybrid car, to Europeans and to the Japanese. American
industries, Aronowitz insisted, "fell 20 years behind the times! The
Japanese came out with a hybrid car in 2003, while the Americans won't
have one ready until 2009. I think it is the beginning of the end of the
U.S.-based car-producing industry," Aronowitz predicted.
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- The setting for Aronowitz's talk was Red Emma's bookstore
and coffeehouse, which was also the sponsor of the event. Red Emma's is
located in the historic Mt. Vernon area of Baltimore, not far from the
first monument erected in this country to George Washington. A cooperative
effort of activists, Red Emma's has been a success story. It's a really
nifty place to have a good cup of coffee, enjoy lively conversation, check
out the latest radical literature, go online, and to also hear from very
interesting speakers, like Aronowitz, who are generally marginalized by
the Establishment. (4)
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- A native of the Bronx, NY, the 71-year-old Aronowitz,
has played a lot of different roles in his lifetime, primarily as an opponent
of "Vulture Capitalism." He was once suspended from high school
for leading a sit-down strike. An ex-steelworker, he has also been a union
organizer, a political and cultural critic and an author of 18 books. He
has been, too, a strong advocate for the cause of Labor and working class
people. In 2002, he was the Green Party's unsuccessful candidate for governor
of New York. Presently, Aronowitz is the Distinguished Professor of Sociology
at CUNY Graduate Center and the editor of Temple U. Press's "Labor
in Crisis" series.
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- "There have been some job growths in the health
and education sectors, while manufacturing continues to decline, rapidly,"
Aronowitz said. "Another growth area," he continued, "has
been in the retail industry, where the average worker, like at Wal-Mart,
is pulling in $17,000 a year, with jobs that pay around $9.00 an hour."
Unemployment and underemployment are a permanent part of our national economy.
And, the Labor Department's counting of the unemployment numbers "can't
be relied on," whether it's a Democrat or Republican in the White
House, a Clinton or a Bush. He said the country desperately needs a genuine
"jobs and income program." Aronowitz recalling a recent protest
action in New York City involving bicycle enthusiasts, who wanted cars
banned from the cities streets, added, "When in doubt 'organize' and
remember that the best defense is an offense. Go on the offensive!"
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- Finally, the battle to recover the soul of America is
being fought out on different political, cultural and spiritual fronts;
including the movement against the unjust Iraqi War. It is activists, like
Aronowitz, however, who have been spearheading that fight in the economic
arena, going back, at least, to the regime of Richard Nixon. It is a tough
battle against powerful forces that are spending billions of dollars to
brainwash the working class and the poor, also, to vote against their own
interests. (5) Nevertheless, the goal of having a nation where prosperity
is spread out to the many and not just a select few, is worthy of the best
efforts of all of those, like Aronowitz, who are standing up for the "Real
America" against the Plutocrats.
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- Notes:
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- 1. "Just Around the Corner: The Paradox of the Jobless
Recovery," by Stanley Aronowitz, (2005), Temple U . Press. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1592
131379/102-0385450-2536125?v=glance&st=*.
- 2. A.P., Baltimore Sun, 05/13/05.
- 3. http://www.ebstrategy.com/Outsourcing/trends/statistics.htm
- 4. http://www.redemmas.org/.
- 5. "Don't Think of an Elephant!" by George
Lakoff.
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- © William Hughes 2005.
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- William Hughes is the author of "Saying 'No' to
the War Party" (IUniverse, Inc.). He can be reached at liamhughes@comcast.net.
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