Gerhard Stoltz's Library tagged wages → View Popular

12 Nov 09

But today, the New England growers are being boxed out of the European markets by China, which can offer larger apples at smaller prices.

The reason, says Carlson, is cheap labor. He says the Chinese pay their workers less than 50 cents an hour.

11 Nov 09

04 Nov 09

in half of the 35 countries for which data is available, real monthly wages fell in the first quarter of 2009 compared to their 2008 average, in many case due to reductions in work hours.
the administration is publicly foreswearing any programs to directly employ jobless workers and insisting that no measures be taken to address the jobs crisis that impinge on the capitalist market and the profit interests of big business.
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- Orszag painted a dire picture of prolonged mass unemployment and lower wages for years and even decades to come.
- Obama reiterated his position that government policies must be subordinated to the profit interests of private corporations.
- The board, which is dominated by corporate executives, agreed wholeheartedly, stressing the need to increase US exports as a percentage of the gross domestic product.
  
  How is this to be accomplished? Precisely by permanently reducing the wages of American workers and increasing labor productivity.

31 Oct 09

The fall in consumer spending, the largest since December, is in part the result of the end of the government’s cash-for-clunkers program on August 24. Economists have said that this program, among others, accounts for much of the increase in third-quarter consumer spending and GDP.

11 Oct 09

This is precisely the role played by the FDP. The party leadership immediately moved to repudiate statements by CDU politicians that the new government would not contemplate changes to laws restricting the firing of workers.
There are to be rates of just 10 and 25 percent taxation, as well as a top tax rate of 35 percent. At present, the top tax rate is around 42 percent. Prior to the government of Gerhard Schröder (SPD) taking office in 1998, the top level of tax was around 53 percent.
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- The FDP also rejects the minimum wage: “Free collective bargaining must be protected against state wage dictates.” The FDP is even floating the idea of establishing special economic zones (so-called “model regions”), where the state governments can flout existing labour laws and regulations.
- At its federal party congress in 1951, it called for the release of all “so-called war criminals.”

06 Mar 09

A former member of the Communist Party of Britain, he joined the Labour Party in 1994, the same year the party's new leader Blair told conference that he intended to ditch Clause IV committing Labour to "the common ownership of the means of production and exchange".
Hicks is the only candidate who makes any pretence of being left wing. In his election address he says, "We are at a crossroads in our relations with the government, employers, and between the union and its members. Despite being the country's biggest union, instead of offering strength and resistance, we appear as onlookers while employers confidently cut jobs, break agreements and ignore us".
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- Hicks' description of Unite's policies is in reality a fig leaf. Far from being onlookers, Unite has played an active role as an industrial policeman, strangling any independent struggle by working people. Again and again they have agreed to and overseen all attacks on their living and working conditions.

16 Oct 08

More
than 21 million children now live in low-income working families—an
increase of 800,000 in four years.
The report notes that working poor families “lack the
earnings necessary to meet their basic needs—a struggle exacerbated
by soaring prices for food, gas, health and education.
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- It shows that poverty-level
  jobs are increasingly common and are held by broad sections of
  the population.