Workers Seeking More Pay Have Few Options

* Whenever any wage increase is proposed, every avenue and type of media is flush with pundits from the business-interest think tanks telling us that we simple people just don’t understand the basic laws of business: First, the worker has to be more productive, then from this increase in productivity and profits, the worker can be paid more.

But “U.S. Productivity Still on Uptrend” [June 7] documents how things really work: The last quarter of 1999 and the first quarter of 2000 saw year-over-year increases in productivity of 3.7%, while the labor cost increases for the same period went up “barely 0.6%.”

To explain how increases in productivity fail to produce a real raise in wages, the management flacks trot out a different spiel, that “all increase in profits must go to increase shareholder value,” to quote a “suit” from my own company.

In other words, most of us live a carrot-and-stick existence, and if we seem dumb as donkeys to keep chasing that carrot, it’s only because in our “corporatocracy” there are no other options.

KENT SOUTHARD

Dana Point