2.27.2006

NYTimes Misses an Important Part of the Story

I urge you to read this story about the falling wages and middle class hopes for manufacturing in the midwest. They mainly focus on Caterpillar.

They discuss in depth the two-tier contract forced on the UAW workers where new workers will gat half the pay of older workers:

"I remind them they are making more now than they were before they came to Cat," said Mr. Doty, who spends part of his day at the one-story union hall of United Automobile Workers Local 974 arguing that $12 to $13 an hour is good pay here. "And I assure them that five years down the road, when the present contract expires, we in the union are going to improve their lot in life."

That does not seem likely. After more than a decade of failed strikes and job actions — mainly in Illinois, where Caterpillar has its biggest factories — the U.A.W. reluctantly accepted a two-tier contract that provides for significantly lower wages and benefits for newly hired employees. The new second tier is as much as $20 an hour below the cost of employing Mr. Doty, 50, and a dwindling band of other veterans.


The CEO of Caterpillar responds with:

"What we've done is reposition ourselves to actually grow employment in our Midwestern plants," said Jim Owens, Caterpillar's chief executive. "We finally have a labor cost that is viable."


This leads to a long discussion of the workers wages and opportunities for growth.

What's missing?

What is the CEO's wage? What multiplier of the average wage is it? What multiplier of the average wage was it 20 years ago?

What % of pay change and bonus has there been in management and executive overall?

By leaving out this part of the story, they have neglacted a major part of the reasons for the growing divide in America and the disolution of our middle class.

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