An economic future you would not pick
Recently, the Inter Lake picked up an AP report of a survey of Harvard Business School graduates, 40 percent of whom were CEOs.
The largest percentage of them saw a dim future for workers. Few of their workers have received meaningful pay raises during the recovery and 41 percent of the responders see lower wages and benefits in the future. About 46 percent prefer to invest in technology rather than employees. And 49 percent favored outsourcing to adding employees.
Through the late 1940s, the ’50s, ’60s and early ’70s, still stimulated by New Deal measures, the median income grew rapidly. Then it turned around and has continued to fall. Since the depression in 2007, it has dropped another 4.6 percent. This trend is predicted to continue as long as more and more wealth is shifted from middle incomes to those wealthiest who don’t use the money to buy things and therefore stimulate the economy.
We can get a glimpse of what the future world of wage earners will look like by checking on the forward-looking Amazon warehouses (Jeff Bezos, owner and operator). Behold the warehouse. It is three stories that would cover 16 football fields. It is full of shelves of products stacked seven high. How does the product get to you? Meet a “picker.”
The picker trots through the maze of shelves picking up products — trotting about seven miles during the average shift. Each picker carries a hand-held computer which tells her/him where to find the product and which conveyer to put it on. (Seven miles of conveyors.) The second the product hits the conveyor, the computer assigns the next mission. You the picker are told exactly how many seconds you are allowed for the mission. No allowance is made for any delay, like a drink of water, getting lost, or delay in a crowded aisle. For missing the mark, the computer assigns demerits. A few demerits and you are counseled; a few more and the computer says, “Bye Bye.”
Then there are penalty points. One minute late for a shift is half a penalty point. Missing a whole shift because the baby sitter didn’t show is 1.5. Six points and the computer fires you. There is a lunch break, of course. Twenty-nine minutes and 59 seconds. This includes running to the lunch room, getting in line for the metal detector (Amazon is, not surprisingly, paranoid about theft.) Getting in line for the overcrowded restroom, and, if you want warm food, getting in line for the microwave. Then running to the next pick spot. Fifteen minute break time? Similar. Off you go on the half-mile to the break room. If everything goes right, and the lines aren’t long an you don’t need to line up at the rest room, you’ll get a good seven minutes to relax.
You are an independent contractor, but you are not contracting with Amazon, but with a front corporation, meaning Amazon has no legal responsibility for working conditions or what might happen to you. However you are still a “contingent employee” (that is, no law or regulations protecting your contract or your status) paid by the hour, $10 to $12.
That gives you, the independent American contractor, almost $25,000 a year before taxes, and if you don’t miss any work, for you to use for baby food, housing, health care, retirement, car repair, etc. When sales periodically slack off, you are let go; when they pick up, you are required to extend your shift to 12 hours on immediate notice, no excuses. Christmas and Easter — no exceptions. Or you are out of a job. No promotions, no regular schedule.
On the other side, Bezos has surpassed Walmart as the king of those retailers who are squeezing the throats of manufacturers. If the manufacturer complains that she/he can’t produce at the price offered, King Bezos can always say, “Hey, man, just treat your employees like I do, and you’ll make plenty of profit.”
I don’t suppose our congressional candidates have anything to say about this.
Robert O’Neil is a resident of Kalispell