Labor’s Winning Ticket

Times have changed since 19th century class warfare gave birth to organized labor and the world, in the words of Andrew Carnegie, was divided between “masters” who lived on profits and “servants” who depended on daily wages. Today, half of America’s families own shares in companies, making them, at least technically, members of the masters’ class, and some labor unions are making stock options part of their collective bargaining deals. Working Americans, and there are more of them than ever before, have something to celebrate this Labor Day.

The United States is in the midst of its longest period of economic growth in half a century. The economy is creating hundreds of thousands jobs each month and unemployment, which stands at a still-low 4.1% nationwide. In Southern California, including Los Angeles County, the economic downturn that followed the upheavals in the aerospace industry in the early 1990s is a distant memory. Unemployment in L.A. County stands at 5.2%, way down from the 8% levels of the mid-1990s. The jobless rate in Orange County is down to just 3%.

However, not all workers are on top of the world. The explosive growth of technology and resulting shifts in the international division of labor--which send more and more manufacturing jobs to low-wage countries--are dramatically changing the employment scene. In 1960, fully half of the work force in the United States and other industrialized countries was engaged in manufacturing. Today only one out of eight workers holds a manufacturing job.

This shift places a premium on skills and education. Skilled workers--especially in computer sciences, engineering, construction, professional services and transportation--are in short supply and their pay has been rising. The wages of unskilled workers relative to others are declining. There lies a problem; Los Angeles County has a growing number of unskilled workers, many of them recent immigrants.

But the changing face of the work force, with more immigrants, has also contributed to a new energy in labor organizing. Labor unions--particularly in the service industries--have defied predictions of their demise and, after three decades of dwindling membership, are seeing their numbers grow and scoring some victories. In Los Angeles, about 5,000 janitors walked off their jobs last March and, after a three-week strike, won substantial wage concessions. Hollywood’s screen actors are determinedly striking to get control of how they’re paid for commercial work. Labor is also making headway both in Sacramento and in Washington, pushing for minimum wage increases and local living-wage ordinances.

But ultimately the winning ticket to a higher standard of living in today’s economy is knowledge, education and training. That’s what helped lead more of today’s workers to become stockholders.