Meant to share this with you the other day when I saw it. It was an op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal, sticking up for the NLRB for attacking Boeing’s plans to produce Dreamliners in SC:
We should be aghast that Boeing is sending a big fat market signal that it wants a less-skilled, lower-quality work force. This country is in a debt crisis because we buy abroad much more than we sell. Alas, because of this trade deficit, foreign creditors have the country in their clutches. That’s not because of our labor costs—in that respect, we can undersell most of our high-wage, unionized rivals like Germany. It’s because we have too many poorly educated and low-skilled workers that are simply unable to compete.
We depend on Boeing to out-compete Airbus, its European rival. But when major firms move South, it is usually a harbinger of quality decline. Over and over as a labor lawyer in the 1980s and ’90s, I saw companies move away from Chicago, where the pay was $28 an hour, to some place in South Carolina or Louisiana where the pay was about half that. While these moves aggrieved me as a union lawyer, it might have consoled me as an American if those companies went on to thrive globally.
But too often, alas, it was the beginning of the end, as it was for Outboard Marine Corporation, where I once represented workers. In the 1990s the company went from the high wage union North to the low wage South and was bankrupt by 2000. There are reasons workers in the North get $28 an hour while down in the South they get $14 or even $10. Adam Smith could explain it: “productivity,” “skill level,” “quality.”
Here is yet another American firm seeking to ruin its reputation for quality. Why? To save $14 an hour!…
This gross insult not only to SC workers, but to the ability of our technical college system to train them (which the system is perfectly capable of doing — ask BMW), is apparently supported by nothing more substantial than the fact that in SC, we will work for less money. I don’t suppose you can be in actual need of a job unless you’re a stupid Southerner, huh?
This was so over-the-top that I found myself wondering: Did the WSJ deliberately pick this piece because it was so ham-handed, just to make the NLRB’s case look worse than it already did? Surely not.
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So as his example he picks a company that was always notorious for its lack of quality, and doesn’t stop to think that the union may have precluded 1) good management and 2) R&D investment capital for OMC in the Upper Midwest.
However, we shouldn’t ignore that we cannot deliver a highly skilled workforce in SC – of great depth. That requires a long-standing commitment to education. Its a problem we can’t rationalize away. It takes sustained commitment to raise an entire economy.
Brad,
I belong to the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. That said, I agree that the article is an insult to the workers in South Carolina. There are many fine, capable workers in our state. A better point could have been made that South Carolina has been a thoroughfare in some regards to manufacturers relocating here from union states and then ultimately to other countries. There is a huge misconception about unions particularly down here. Fortunately my company has a healthy relationship with the union. It isn’t always what the talking heads and our “gumment” reps portray it to be.
In a similar vein, I’ll remind you of this 2009 cartoon by David Horsey of Seattle and his description of the controversy that ensued.
Note that in his description, Mr. Horsey included Mike Beckom’s rebuttal cartoon, which Mr. Horsey introduced by saying, “The best response to my cartoon was another cartoon.”
Brad, you have a tendency to lash out at arguments you disagree with without actually engaging in the substantive points of the argument. While we, as southerners, may take offensive with someone dinegrating our workforce the fact is we do make far less in SC than in other parts of the country and our unemployment rate is among the nation’s highest. Seems like the WSJ has a point.
Bud, I should have made this clear. It was an op-ed piece by a guy named Thomas Geoghegan, which RAN in the WSJ. It was not the paper’s position.
And Mark, there is no question that our failure to bring kids in every part of our state, particularly the poor, rural parts, up to an acceptable level of educational attainment is a huge obstacle to our economic development efforts. If we had the workforce of Massachusetts, or even of our neighboring states of NC or Georgia — who have put far more effort and investment into their systems than we have — we not only would attract more investment, but you’d see more viable companies starting up here. When I ponder what the biggest issue is in SC, I think “Education — or economic development… actually, they’re the same thing.”
BUT… there’s a narrower point here, in this specific case. Our technical college system was started by then-Gov. Fritz Hollings to train up workers for industries locating here. That system was a specific reason why BMW came here, and the existence of that proven system played a key role in getting Boeing. Those companies know our tech system can provide them with the workers they need.
While I generally support unions and a living wage, this guy is out of line. Michelin moved here from NY almost 25 years ago and hasn’t imploded. BMW, Haier, and DuPont all seemed to have survived as well. The author is what my students would call a “tool.”
I suppose they mean “a simple tool,” as in a “wedge,” as in… see the link for the old military expression.
Some companies move here because we are cheaper. Some stay here because going elsewhere would increase their shipping costs and adversely affect their bottom line. Other companies–those simply seeking a cheaper deal, will move where labor is even cheaper, until quality suffers sufficiently to reduce sales, if ever. Shoes and clothing are an example of the latter. Heavier items like tires, cars and refrigerators are still made here.
Frankly, a lot of southerners *are* too stupid to realize that often management is not their friend and that they can have some real say in their work lives. It’s like my parents who are afraid to speak up to their doctors, car mechanics, home repair people, for fear that these service providers will “fire” them. In Aiken, back when my parents first moved there in the 50s, it *was* a service providers’ market. This has gradually changed as more people demanded better treatment.
The same can be true in the workplace.
“..just to make the NLRB’s case look worse than it already did? Surely not.”
Don’t forget WSJ is a Murdoch paper now. It’s absurd to think it will not move in the direction of Fox “News”, stirring the pot, manipulating, etc.
Over the past year or so since the training for the Boeing jobs started, I have read comments on some of the Post and Courier’s stories about problems finding qualified people to enter the training and wash out problems once they were in it. Since the NLRB deal started, I have seen on Charleston TV, or read in the P&C, an interview with a woman who had relocated from Tennessee for the training. It made me wonder if they did have a severe problem finding qualified natives. I would be interested to know what the real scoop is on that, if anyone knows.
Darla Moore–Press Baroness!
By the time we could even possibly make a dent in the literacy rate in this state (no matter how much money is spent), Boeing will be mass producing flying cars running on plutonium.
Rather than living in dreamland where no child is left behind and every child can be proficient if we all just work hard enough to help him, we should strengthen the tech school system for those willing to take advantage of it. The carrot works better than the free lunch.
Good point Martin. Perhaps folks are relocating here from other parts of the country and the lifelong South Carolinians are left behind. That would explain the growing population along with a very high unemployment rate.
It could be a tipping point deal–Aiken got taken over by highly educated people back in the early 1950s–there was a bit of displacement of the natives, perhaps, but at least by the time I was in school in the late 1960s, plenty of aboriginal Aikenites were benefiting from the better schools and job opportunities….
Strengthening the tech school system is a great idea, Doug. But if public schools are allowed to wither on the vine, where do the tech school students come from?