Maybe the strike at General Electric Jan. 14-15 was an isolated event, one company's problem. Or maybe it was something more.
Eighteen thousand GE workers, representing 5.5% of the company's workforce, took part in the work stoppage, slowing operations at 48 locations in 23 states.
They were protesting a company decision to pass along some of its rapidly rising costs of health insurance.
GE estimated the cost of its decision to workers at $200/worker/year. Union officials said it would be twice that amount.
The strike, by members of two electrical workers' unions, provides a rocky framework for contract negotiations beginning in June between GE and the United Auto Workers and International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
It's also a manifestation of impatience among US workers.
One strike doesn't make a trend. But renewed assertiveness of labor shouldn't be surprising.
Through the 1990s, a zooming stock market generated rewards that work did not. Headcounts, wages, and benefits routinely gave way to profitability in service to price appreciation of corporate stocks.
The phenomenon enjoyed unusual tolerance in both politics and the workplace—probably because so many more individuals own stock now than in earlier times.
While the stock market boomed, demographics combined with economics to give managers extraordinary latitude in dealing with employees. Workers stiffed by employers on salaries or benefits at least could find solace in growth of their 401(k) programs.
The stock market's bust has changed all that. With stock values and dividend payments in decline, wages and salaries reclaim their share of personal income across the economy.
And with the economy sputtering, incomes are stagnating while costs of health care and other necessities are rising.
This doesn't mean a worker revolt looms. But the climate is changing. Workers are restive. Management as an institution has been weakened by corporate scandals.
The evolving climate will make squeezing labor for profits increasingly difficult.
Good. It should be difficult.
Healthy economic systems reward both work and capital. The latter claimed more than its share of wealth in the 1990s. Labor is about to reclaim its share.
(Online Jan. 17, 2003; author's e-mail: [email protected])
