The Blogazine

The Editorial: Work Well!

This week, much of the western world is observing some version of a worker’s day. While not a usually a cause for festivity, it usually means a much-needed day off to sleep late and give thanks to the world’s workers. And, what a sorry state those poor workers are in today. Wages are in the gutter and not getting any better. In the name of cost cutting, employers and governments are cutting jobs and slashing the pay and benefits of those who get to stick around. All while executives take home salaries thousands of times greater than their struggling dependents. From FIAT’s plans to gut its workforce and shuffle its factory infrastructure as it consolidates itself with its recently bankrupt lovechild, Chrysler, to evil, evil, evil Wal-Mart’s active quashing of unions (and any trace of worker rights along with them).

Anyone with half a mind for business understands the arguments profit-seeking corporations must make to justify their actions. They are legally accountable to their shareholders, afterall. (A hell of a vicious cycle!) But it takes neither a bleeding heart Keynesian activists nor Hans Rosling infographics to make it clear that workers the world over are being progressively made worse off by a system in which the health of institutions is prioritized over the health of the individuals they ostensibly exist to serve. And it’s a point driven home by the American Supreme Court’s terrifying decision to allow corporations to contribute unlimited amounts of money to political campaigns, as well as Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s infamous remark about corporations being people. They’re really not, Mitt. But regular Joes – from young college graduates to life-long factory workers – are getting smacked repeatedly in the face by the short end of a very hard stick.

But, I’ll throw a ray of hope out today in lieu of a real tirade: The slash and burn impetus that has sent countless jobs from union-backed, well-monitored factories in the west to contracted, hellish, anything-goes sweatshops in the east and south seems finally to be reaching a limit. A decade after backlashes against the labor practices of big brands like Nike and The Gap brought a new form of consciousness to consumers, Apple – the sterling darling of our generation – is having to answer some similarly serious questions about its own.

And we’re reacting: small-scale factories for all sorts of goods are springing up in LA, Brooklyn, Milan, Berlin… And while the jobs they create may not bring six-figure salaries, they certainly are going a long way towards creating the impression that we’ve at last had enough. Organizations like SFMade, which is seeing San Francisco become a major hub of small-scale production are setting the tone for all sorts of others that continue to crop up in major cities. The pendulum is swinging back in the right direction. Let’s keep pushing.