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Stand With Postal Workers This Thursday In A National Day of Action

Stand With Postal Workers This Thursday In A National Day of Action

When a big-name retailer finds its sales in a slow downward spiral, the geniuses in the executive suite often try to keep their profits up by cheapening their product and delivering less to customers.

To see how well this poorly thought-out strategy works, look no further than the declining sales at Walmart and McDonald’s. When the geniuses in charge of these behemoths applied the cutback strategy, their slow decline turned into a perilous nosedive. You’d think their experience would keep other executives from making the same mistake, but here comes an even bigger — and much more important — retail behemoth saying, “We have to cut to survive.”

That was the pronouncement last year by the head honcho of the U.S. Postal Service, which has been eliminating employees, closing facilities, and reducing services for years. Each new round of reductions drives away more customers, which causes clueless executives to prescribe more cuts. In a January decree, USPS virtually eliminated overnight delivery of first-class mail, and it’s now planning to close or consolidate 82 regional mail-processing plants. This means fewer workers handling the nation’s growing load of mail, creating further delays in delivery. The answer to this, say the slaphappy executives, is — guess what? — to cut even more “service” out of postal service. They want to close hundreds of our local post offices and eliminate Saturday mail delivery (which is one of USPS’s major competitive advantages).

And speaking of competitive advantages, we can now buy rolls of “Forever” stamps from our local post offices, protecting us from future price increases (and mailing a letter from Texas to Alaska for 49 cents is a great deal — FedEx and UPS can’t offer us anything remotely close to that). But We The People now need to put a “Forever” stamp on the post office itself, protecting it from a cabal of privatizers and the Postal Service’s own executives.

This cabal of corporate predators, congressional anti-government ideologues, and pusillanimous postal officials is dismantling this invaluable public service, piece by piece — an agency that literally has delivered for America from the very start of our country. Yet in the name of “saving” the U.S. Postal Service, they’ve been gutting its services, intentionally driving away business. Having fewer customers will give the cabal an excuse to make more cuts … and ultimately to kill it as a public entity. This is like a boss telling workers: “The beatings will continue until morale improves.”

Post office workers, letter carriers, and mail handlers are tired of the beatings, so they’ve launched a nationwide campaign with dozens of other grassroots organizations to rally public support to Save Our Public Postal Service by revitalizing and expanding the services that this venerable American institution can and should provide. Under the uplifting banner of “I Stand with Postal Workers,” the American Postal Workers Union is coordinating a National Day of Action this Thursday, May 14. Workers are fed up with the deliberate degradation of this vital public service, so they themselves are putting forth a bold vision and innovative plan not merely for USPS to survive, but thrive. With more than 70 other national groups, they’ve forged “A Grand Alliance to Save Our Public Postal Service.” To be part of its actions, go to: AGrandAlliance.org.

Some 70 public demonstrations and rallies will take place Thursday at post offices in 30 states — from Alaska to Florida, Maine to California. Join me this Thursday in standing with postal workers — for the benefit of all the people. Each of us can be a symbolic “Forever” stamp to protect our public post offices from the privatizers. To join this spirited stand for restoring the common good in America, you can find the exact location, timem and contact number for each local event at www.apwu.org.

To find out more about Jim Hightower, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Web page at www.creators.com. 

Photo: Kevin Dooley via Flickr

Private-Sector Job Growth Slowed In May To 179,000, ADP Reports

Private-Sector Job Growth Slowed In May To 179,000, ADP Reports

By Jim Puzzanghera, Los Angeles Times

Private-sector job growth slowed in May to 179,000, the lowest level since January, payroll firm Automatic Data Processing said Wednesday.

The figure was below analyst expectations for 210,000 net new jobs. ADP also revised down its April estimate by 5,000, to 215,000.

“After a strong post-winter rebound in April, job growth in May slowed somewhat,” said ADP Chief Executive Carlos Rodriguez.

Still, the May figure was an improvement over the 163,000 net new jobs a year earlier and was in line with the average over the previous 12 months, he said.

The ADP report comes two days before the Labor Department’s monthly report on private- and public-sector job growth. But it can be an unreliable indicator.

For example, ADP initially reported 220,000 net new private-sector jobs in April. The Labor Department said the figure was 273,000.

Some of that April growth was a bounce back from sluggish hiring in the winter because of extreme weather in much of the country. Economists have been expecting a slowdown in May.

The consensus forecast is that the Labor Department will report Friday that the economy added 213,000 net new jobs in May. The unemployment rate is projected to rise 0.1 percentage points to 6.4%.

May’s private-sector job growth was disappointing, said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, which assists ADP in preparing the report.

“The job market has yet to break out from the pace of growth that has prevailed over the last three years,” he said.

The slower growth last month came largely from less hiring by professional and business services companies, which added 46,000 net new jobs compared with 75,000 the previous month, Zandi said.

Companies that provide temporary workers in those fields might have become more cautious after aggressive hiring during the past year, he said.

Construction, another important industry, saw job growth drop by 2,000, to 14,000, in May, the lowest level since August, ADP said.

In a positive sign, hiring by manufacturing firms increased sharply, with 10,000 net new jobs in May compared with 2,000 the previous month, ADP reported. It was the best job growth for that sector since December.

Photo: Samuel Huron via Flickr

Report: Lower-Wage Jobs Continue To Grow, Mid- And Higher-Wage Jobs Lag Behind

Report: Lower-Wage Jobs Continue To Grow, Mid- And Higher-Wage Jobs Lag Behind

A new report by the National Employment Law Project reveals the slow and ongoing jobs recovery that the private sector has experienced since the 2008 recession, and underscores the notion that an economic recovery has not yet been fully achieved.

As the NELP report notes, in the months leading up to the 2008 financial crisis and the months that immediately followed, “employment losses occurred throughout the economy, but were concentrated in mid-wage and higher-wage industries.” Specifically, 3,579 higher-wage private sector jobs were lost at the time of the crisis, accounting for an overwhelming 41 percent of total job losses. An additional 3,240 mid-wage private sector jobs — accounting for 37 percent of the total losses — were lost at the same time.

Significantly fewer low-wage jobs, however, were lost during the same period. NELP reports only 1,973 lost lower-wage jobs in 2008 – accounting for 22 percent of job losses during the Great Recession.

Since 2008, private-sector employment has experienced job growth in all three wage industries — but low-wage industries have seen the greatest, and quickest, recovery.

According to the NELP report, lower-wage industries — which employ 1.85 million more workers today than at the start of the 2008 recession — now account for 44 percent of the jobs gained since 2009.

Higher-wage industries now account for only 30 percent of job gains since 2009, despite accounting for the highest number of lost jobs. Mid-wage industries are experiencing the slowest recovery, comprising only 26 percent of the job gains made over the past four years.

In total, there are now 2 million fewer jobs in mid- and higher-wage industries than there were prior to the recession.

NELP explains that in 2009, slow economic growth could be attributed to “specific drivers of the Great Recession” — such as the housing bubble collapse and the financial crisis “as well as a continuation of the long-term decline in durable and nondurable manufacturing and telecommunications.” Consequently, lower-wage industries, like the foodservice industry, were less affected by the complex factors that contributed to the financial crisis and overall recession than their better-paid counterparts.

While lower-wage industries recover, though, higher-wage and mid-wage industries’ slow job gains have larger, negative implications that lower-wage jobs growth cannot reverse or counter. Hence, even as mid- and higher-wage industries continue to create and add jobs, the rate is not fast enough to fill overall employment deficits.

Though these latest numbers serve as further evidence that a full economic recovery is still a few years away, they also offer a silver lining; according to NELP, “private-sector employment has increased for 49 months,” resulting in employment levels finally reaching their previous peak — which was just before the 2008 economic crisis. Moreover, this recovery has not only been quicker than that which occurred following the 2001 recession, but it has also resulted in stronger employment gains in the private sector.

And despite the slow pace of its recovery, the private sector is still responsible for all employment growth since 2009. As private sector industries have steadily added jobs, the public sector has continued to report job losses. NELP reports that government employment declined by 627,000 jobs over the past four years — a loss that made it more difficult for the private sector to add more jobs during the recovery period.

Ultimately, NELP concludes that a pattern exists, as evidenced by the 2001 and 2008 crises and the subsequent recoveries: When the labor market suffers, mid- and higher-wage industries are hit hardest. And as the economy recovers, the lower-wage industries recover more quickly.

Chart via National Employment Law Project