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Indeed, many critics pointed to the cheaper labor employed by Japanese firms as the factor behind the relocation of jobs in the consumer electronics sector, but by the mid-1970s the Japanese advantage in labor costs had almost disappeared. In 1963, U.S. wages were six times higher than those in Japan, but by 1977 the difference between the two had shrunk until U.S. wages were only 1.5 times those of Japan. As early as 1966 Television Digest declared that Japan's rapidly developing economy was no longer the "low-cost, high-laborcontent bargain basement of [a] decade ago." In 1973 Sony could even claim that the two countries' wage costs were about the same once the elaborate system of Japanese fringe benefits was calculated into the equation. The "Japanese cheap labor" argument for moving U.S. production abroad held what little merit it could claim only until the mid-1970s, when it became clear that the Japanese government's investment in industrial policy, in the form of subsidized and targeted development strategies under way since the 1950s, was what was really paying off. By that time, however, the foreign labor against which U.S. workers competed did not belong to foreign firms but could be found on the payrolls of their own companies. Every U.S.-owned television manufacturer had become a transnational manufacturer by 1977.
The 1970s were difficult times for the company as the combined effects of the recession, foreign competition, and poor management eroded RCA's competitive position. After a dramatic sixty-year history of expanding sales and product innovation, Fortune magazine pronounced the corporation one of the worst-managed companies in the United States. Investment in research declined precipitously, a string of relatively short -lived CEOs followed Robert Sarnoff's resignation after his short but disastrous reign, and the company, burdened by nearly $2.9 billion of debt, finally divested itself of its various subsidiaries. "I am anxious to get back to the roots of this company," announced Chairman Thornton F. Bradshaw, who was imported from Atlantic Richfield to restore order to RCA. "We'd like to spend more on our production lines to bring them up to the Japanese level of investment." Some observers believe that if the company had been investing in its productive cap abilities rather than buying other companies and searching out cheap labor, both the workers' and the industry's future would have been quite different. By moving production abroad so early in the face of international competition, the industry made an implicit decision to embark on a long-term strategy that would eventually end domestic production. "A decision to battle imports with automation and radical technological change" earlier on, argues one industry analyst, "could have resulted in a dramatically different outcome.
Few things demonstrate the process of silent integration more effectively than the fact that about 75 percent of the Bloomington RCA jobs had been lost before the acronym "NAFTA" even entered the political discourse. Indeed, the threat of capital flight had hung over all labor relations at the plant since the late 1960s, but by the 1990s, with global pressures increasing and labor law turned against the workers, it became a weapon wielded aggressively against the dwindling numbers of RCA employees. In 1991, during standard contract negotiations between the Bloomington union local and the company, for instance, RCA-Thomson demanded a wage cut of $2 an hour or it would relocate all of the 20-inch sets, one of the factory's staple products, to Mexico, where it could save nearly $80 on every set produced. Rather than submit to extortion and surrender 20 percent of their members' paychecks, the union representatives decided to call the company on their threat. Their response clearly demonstrated the distance the Bloomington workforce had traveled since the early days. "We caucused back in the room," reported an exasperated Bill Cook, and decided, "Fuck it! Move 'em! And they did."
The union made its bold decision to call the company's bluff in the context of events it had closely observed unfolding at Zenith's operations in Missouri. Their competitor had followed a similar migratory path, moving from industrial Chicago to Springfield, Missouri, and finally to Matamoros and Reynosa, on the Mexican border. Having just witnessed the Zenith IBEW local make painful concessions on the promise that the workers would get to keep what remained of their jobs, only to see them transferred to Mexico six months later, the RCA local was not in the mood to offer much in the way of concessions. "The story going around the [Zenith] plant was, if you didn't give them the wage concession, they were going to move to Mexico," explained a former Zenith employee who had worked at the plant over twenty-four years. All of the concessions they granted to keep the plant open, however, "just gave them an extra five years to finalize their plans to move. We just helped pay for it." [...]
Before the company made its demands, events may have led the employees to believe that their jobs were safe for at least a little while. Two years earlier the city of Bloomington had granted the company an "enterprise zone" status that had already saved it over $1 million in taxes. As one city official remarked in the wake of the threat to relocate, however, "You don't buy loyalty when you buy a company through tax breaks." In addition, Thomson had announced substantial profits just the day before the meeting in the parking lot and had recently committed $10 million to have the name of the Indianapolis Hoosier Dome changed to the RCA Dome for the next ten years. The company, however, still talked tough about the need for "bold actions to cut costs" and argued that it had to "think and act globally." RCA-Thomson managers announced that their actions would be "swift" because their options were "limited" and their time "short."
motherfuckers
In the first recorded labor skirmish at RCA, workers tried to break through the turnover system. In the spring of 1977 the employees publicly condemned the company's policy of forcing workers to resign when they reached the age of twenty-five or accumulated five years on the job. The "mass demonstration," however, was quickly and efficiently defused and defeated. RCA's systematic manipulation of turnover clearly indicated that it preferred to absorb the substantial costs of rehiring and retraining personnel rather than allow wages to rise to market levels or allow workers to acquire inefficient habits and "dangerous" levels of commitment to their jobs.
sounds extremely familiar
[...] A worker with a punctual record over the course of many months received a T-shirt emblazoned with a slogan (in Spanish) such as "RCA and me," "RCA and I are one team," or "I am part of RCA," and won an opportunity to participate in a raffle that might even lead to a free trip into the interior of the country. As in Bloomington, RCA also tried to construct a family atmosphere (una gran familia) through a variety of extracurricular activities-team sports, birthday parties, production awards, dances, exercise groups, drill teams, the celebration of festival days, and educational courses. Workers could even enter the plant beauty contest for the title of Miss RCA, the winner to compete against Miss Sylvania, Miss GTE, and so on for the coveted title of Miss Maquiladora; or they could enter the Maquilolimpiada, the Maquila Olympics, and compete in athletic events against company teams from all over the country. In later years, with the revival of the company mascot, the line with the highest production numbers won the "privilege" of displaying a giant stuffed Nipper in their work space.
[...] To remind the workers of the new climate of"enforced responsibility," large signs on the wall declared: "Quality is the number one priority in our business, there are no exceptions!" and "Gain confidence through customer satisfaction!" The new system ingeniously encouraged workers to monitor each other's behavior rather than be under the constant supervision of management. An RCA employee explained, "We're trying not to have mistakes and to fulfill the quality [goals], because here we achieve teamwork and respect the others' work." Another echoed, "We're all important, because our job depends on quality."
why do these slogans sound like someone ran Chinese propaganda through google translate
When electrical firms searched for labor across the economic globe, they sought a simple package: low wages, a peaceful industrial relations environment, and an abundance of young, unemployed women. The circumstances that caused a firm to choose a given community, however, were fundamentally transformed by the very presence of the factory. As one of the RCA managers in charge of finding new plant locations explained, these changes become unacceptable to corporate leaders, and once again they search for a new location. Many managers, he said, "say a plant should never be at one location more than twenty years, because of the development of habits, of wage structures, of seniority, and you should move those things every twenty years .... There is some sanity, some credibility to that statement." In contrast, he continued, "There are some older manufacturing sites that are still productive. A lot of it has to do with the mentality that had developed in the workforce." The power to decide whether a community's "mentality" was acceptable or not remained the right of the corporation as workers' local actions could be countered with the simple existence of what to them was a distant and abstract alternative to their own place.
i love the idea of 'mentality' used as a euphemism for discussing workers who demand what they are entitled to
Even though protectionism appeared to be a ready solution to the globalizing labor market, U.S. trade unionists remained hamstrung by their push for higher tariff barriers. Protectionist restrictions tended to offer little to workers on the community level, and tariffs often actually insulated corporations from competitive pressures and still left management free to squeeze its workforce. Most important, protectionism tended to erect "barriers of ill will" between the wage earners of different nations-particularly those of the First and Third Worlds. The lessons that might have been learned from the migration of capital to the U.S. South-that regulatory mechanisms that ensured an upward, rather than downward, harmonization of regional economies may be the only solution-were lost when it came to formulating strategies for the transnational level. Although the flight of jobs to foreign lands indicated that business and the state had abdicated their ends of the postwar bargains, organized labor continued to try to uphold the entire framework through protectionist measures until a Democratic president put his full weight behind the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement, signaling the bitter end. The PATCO strike, when President Reagan permanently replaced striking air-traffic controllers, is frequently cited as the symbolic end of labor's political clout. Labor's power had been dwindling since the 1970s, and the passage of NAFTA by a member of"labor's own" party demonstrated just how marginal organized labor had become to the political process. [...]
And then the kind-voiced lawyer says the same thing the not-so-kind-voiced lawyers have said before Jeanette hangs up: "Bill you for the hours later, or do you want to place a credit card on file?"
It's a disappointment, maybe it's selfish, but Jeanette holds on to the word dear like a blip of accidental humanity caught in a stranger's throat, a version of the dust that drifts in a sunbeam that lands across her bed.