Timesizing® Associates - Homepage

---

Timesizing News, November 16-29, 2002
[Commentary] ©2002 Phil Hyde, Timesizing.com, Box 622, Porter Sq, Cambridge MA 02140 USA 617-623-8080

11/29/2002  timesizing consciousness in the news, aka flickerings of strategic hope -

• UK health staff to get 10 pct pay rise, by Michael Holden, Reuters 11/28/02 12:37 ET.
  LONDON...- The British government announced on Thursday it planned to award a minimum 10% pay rise [US: raise] over 3 years to 1m National Health Service (NHS) workers from nurses and therapists to support staff. The proposed increase comes at [a] time when the government has rejected a 40% pay demand from striking firefighters on the grounds it could not afford to set a precedent by awarding a big pay increase to one group of public sector workers.... All staff will get at least a 10% rise with most getting an average rise of 12.5% over 3 years.... The [London] Times newspaper said the pay rises would cost Britain around £4B ($6.2B).
  [At least it will be going to 10,000s of people who will actually spend it instead of just a few 1000s in the top income brackets who won't. Thus it will have a stimulating effect on the British economy.]
  The plans mean the complex system of staffing grades will be swept away and replaced with 8 pay boards based on a standard working week of 37.5 hours....

• Interview - Surgeon criticizes sending patients abroad, by Richard Woodman, Reuters 11/27/02 09:56 ET via AOLNews.
  A top surgeon on Wed. criticized as "window dressing" British government plans to offer patients on long hospital waiting lists the chance to be treated abroad. Prof. Sir Peter Morris, Pres. of the Royal College of Surgeons, called instead for an end to hospital closures and for major changes in the way hospitals and surgeons operate.... He said Britain currently needed another 2,000 surgeons and would still be short [by] 1,500 [in] 2009 despite increasing the number of surgical trainees.
  [Streamline the terminology and slash the pompously long training times. Look at the training miracles done with native nurses before and during the War by Gordon Seagrave, related in "Burma Surgeon" (Norton: NY, 1943).]
  A major worry was the impact of the EU directive limiting working hours [to 48 hours per person per week including overtime] which comes into force in Britain in 2004....
  [This isn't a "worry." This is a recruiting tool. Who in hell wants to operate on people more than 48 hours a week and who wants to be operated on by such a zombie?!]

• Gov't, Keidanren, Rengo agree to work harder on job security, Kyodo News 11/26/02 02:28 EST via AOLNews.
  TOKYO...- Top representatives of the government, corporate executives and labor unions agreed Tuesday to work harder on stabilizing the nation's job security through such efforts as promoting work sharing. Participants of a meeting of the government-private sector forum on employment, held at the Prime Minister's office, included Health, Labor & Welfare Minister Chikara Sakaguchi, Japan Business Federation (Nippon Keidanren) Chairman Hiroshi Okuda and Kiyoshi Sasamori, president of the Japanese Trade Union Confederation (Rengo).... Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda and Economy, Trade & Industry Minister Takeo Hiranuma also took part in the day's meeting..\..
  Prior to the start of discussions, PM Junichiro Koizumi called Rengo chief Sasamori and Nippon Keidanren head Okuda to his office and asked the two to try to secure cooperation between labor and management in working on employment issues. Koizumi later told reporters he believed the two "understood the importance of cooperation" between labor and management "at a time when the nation's economic and employment situations are severe." ...The jobless rate stayed unchanged at 5.4% for the 5th straight month in September, down just 0.1 percentage point from the postwar high registered in December last year..\..
  The forum held a meeting a year ago [see 11/29/2001 #1].... The government, labor and management reached a basic accord to promote work sharing at the end of March this year [see 3/27/2002 #1].
  The participants of the day's forum meeting agreed to compile a document at their next meeting, to be held Dec. 4, encompassing agreements reached between the three sides....
  [Cultural background is provided today in -]
  Tokyo Journal - Teaching Japan's salarymen to be their own men - An effort to help corporate warriors live outside work, by Howard French, NYT, A4.
  TOKYO -...Not so long ago it was acceptable, even cool, here to introduce oneself as an "average salaryman" [sarariman].... But those were the days of Japan's world-beating economy, when many women dreamed of nothing more than raising a family with a man with a lifetime job.
  During the 12 years of flat growth, women have stampeded out of the kitchen and into the workplace.
  [So it seems that Japan's depression the last 12 years has been caused not only by its switching from lifetime employment to America's self-cannibalization via downsizing, but also by the kind of of labor glut-worsening flow of women into the workforce that the U.S. experienced starting especially in the 1970s.]
  Now...there are suddenly few things less hip in Japan than to be an oyaji, or typical middle-aged man. ...For younger women, the dark-suited company men...are dasai (uncool) or nasakenai (clueless). For the[ir] wives...they are the nure-ochiba zoku (the wet leaf tribe) - clingy, musty and emotionally spent [compare our "wet Kleenex"].
  ...Mr. [Masayoshi] Toyoda...has built a national network of men's liberation groups. \He thinks\ Japanese manhood has fallen on terrible times.... Beyond encouraging communication, Mr. Toyoda wants to change the Japanese workplace. "My generation entered the workplace at the end of the bubble era, so many of my contemporaries are being hit by jobcuts," he said. "My father's generation lived in a bullish era and enjoyed the fruits of their labors. Men stretch themselves today simply to avoid being sacked." ...Men in their 20's are famously rebelling against the grim, anything-for-the-company sacrifices made by their fathers [recall when the Japanese averaged the most working hours per year] by dropping [or being shut?] out of the job market, working a succession of part-time jobs and living off their parents for years after college.
  But a sweeping reappraisal of work has quietly made inroads among men in their 40s as well. "I am not an ideal father or husband, but to me the most precious moments are the time I spend with my family, four of us, [hav]ing fun [with] each other or watching TV and playing," said Shinichiro Yamamoto...a friend of Mr. Toyoda's who works in a large auto manufacturer. "I have no special program or ideology. I just enjoy my life. I have to work five days a week, and I do it simply because I need money."
  [Sounds like this man has taken to heart the "work to live, don't live to work" concept, is into work-life balance and is ready for Timesizing.]

1. Labor Ministry seeks 931.4 bil. yen from extra budget, Kyodo News 11/25/02 23:45 EST via AOLNews.
   TOKYO...- The Labor Ministry on Tuesday called on the government to spend 931.4B yen out of a planned supplementary budget to fund employment-related measures and other welfare steps.... In its proposal outlined Tuesday, the Labor Ministry calls for setting aside 168.2B yen to provide subsidies to create jobs in districts hit particularly hard by increased joblessness and to provide subsidies to companies that adopt work-sharing arrangements....

2. Factbox - A decade of French trucker protests, Reuters 11/25/02 04:28 ET via AOLNews.
   PARIS...- French truckers launched their 6th round of protest roadblocks in a decade on Sunday night, raising the prospect of serious disruption to international freight, travel and business. Extensive blockades have in the past hit petrol and food supplies, forced manufacturers to halt output, stranded tourists and prompted other countries to demand compensation for losses. Following are details of the main protests....
   • Sept 2000 - Truckers set up blockades for 6 days in protest against soaring fuel prices, caused by...increase in government fuel tax.... French government gives way, reducing state fuel levies.
   • Nov 1997 - Truckers set up extensive roadblocks for 6 days in dispute over implementation of 1996 deal on pay and working hours.
   • Nov 1996 - Truckers set up widespread roadblocks for 12 days to back demand for right to retire at 55 instead of 60, and over other contentious issues like sick pay, bonuses, pay for hours worked rather than hours behind the wheel.
   • July 1992 - Truckers mount extensive blockades for 10 days to express their anger at the imposition of a system of penalty points to improve road safety. Government orders use of army assault tanks and armoured cars to break key blockades....
   [Though one of the two main goals of the latest trucker blockades has been shorter working hours, interestingly, some American news media have not mentioned that little factoid. For example -]
   Striking truckers block traffic in France - France's center-right government warned it would break up the blockades by force if the drivers tried to disrupt trade, NYT News Service via Island Packet - Southern Beaufort [NC] County's Newspaper, 10-A.
   [9 column inches with no mention of one of the two main goals of the strike spells persistent time blindness in the American media.]

1. 11/25  The business mayor finds his city is pretty well run - Bloomberg rejects simply making cuts, by Michael Cooper, NYT, A22.
   [Contrast the Wall Street Journal's "Big Apple crisis" assessment, "New York is unraveling...," by Steven Malanga, WSJ, A14; "And it's worse than the last time," by Richard Ravitch, WSJ, A14, apparently blaming the Journal's simplistic all-purpose villain, higher taxes. Back to the NYT -]
   ...When the businessman-turned-mayor went to City Hall, he surveyed the government and decided that it was, well, pretty efficient. That assessment underpins his approach to plugging the gaping deficit with more money from higher taxes, including an 18% increase in the property tax rate, than from service cuts. Further cuts, he argues, would harm core services.
   "You can't just say let's go cut out corruption, waste and the meaningless programs," the mayor said earlier this month when he unveiled his latest budget proposal, "because fundamentally, they're not there."
   ...Is NYC government really efficient?
   • Studies consistently put the city's tax burden as one of the highest among the nation's big cities. [But] NYC has the largest local government in the nation, one that performs many services that are provided for other cities by county and state governments.... It is bound by the courts to shelter the homeless, its school system educates 1.1m children, 4 in 10 New Yorkers were born abroad and many New Yorkers need social services. Its police officers guard Wall Street and the UN, and now, since 9/11/2001, 1,000 of them are assigned to counterterrorism..\..
   • The city workforce...is now 1/7 the size of the federal government's, without the military. ...By the time [Giuliani] left office last year, the [work]force had grown back [from 235,069 during his first term] to 250,489, the 5th-highest level since 1975. [But] the Parks Dept., for example, had 6,800 workers in 1975, falling to 4,600 in 1989 and 1,961 now. [And] city officials say many jobs...are paid fully or partly by the state or federal government. So in some cases the city would stand to lose all the service without saving all the money.
   • Many city employees work 35 hours a week by contract. ...While few people would argue that most city workers are overpaid, some fiscal analysts - and, increasingly, officials at City Hall - are questioning the amount of time city workers spend at work. Most of the city government's civilian workforce works only 35 hours a week, which is not only less than in business but less than for state workers, who work 37.5 hours a week. City workers get 12 paid holidays a year, while private workers get an average of 9, according to federal labor statistics.
     The Citizens Budget Commission, a budget watchdog group financed by the city's business community, is preparing to release a report estimating that if all city workers not working 40-hour weeks were required to do so, the city could potentially eliminate 8,500 positions and save $498m a year while getting the same amount of work done.
     [Great, un-timesizing. Except that there'd then be 8500 more unemployed people in NYC plus their dependents on welfare, disability, the streets and the prison system. And at the end of the day, their support would wind up much more expensive for taxpayers than the status quo. Note that for those who argue that human employment is not like toothpaste that workweek reduction can squeeze out onto more people, the above paragraph is a counterargument, because if it works one way, it works the other way as well. If you can suction the employment "toothpaste" back in onto fewer employees by lengthening the workweek, then you can spread it onto more employees by shortening the workweek. Especially if you increase skill liquidity with overtime-to-training conversion.]
     In some agencies, budget analysts say, the problem is that the workdays are too long. Police officers work 8 hours and 35 minutes a day, with the extra time for getting in and out of uniform and roll call. But police officers get to work 18 fewer shifts a year to make up for the extra time. When vacation, holidays and sick leave are factored in, that means many officers with 5 years' experience work only about 200 days a year, not counting overtime.
     ...Teachers with 14 years of service are entitled to one-year sabbaticals, with 70% of their pay plus their regular benefits. Eliminating the practice would save about $74m a year, but could make teacher recruitment more difficult.... Some incentives - like shorter workweeks, good vacation packages and sabbaticals - help the city recruit better candidates for jobs with salaries that are not very high. The teachers' contract that was passed this year brings the starting salary for teachers, $39,000, into line with the salaries in surrounding suburbs. But the teachers' union notes that the suburbs pay experienced teachers 8-15% more....
     [And including shorter hours in a list of inefficiencies is highly debatable anyway, when the whole purpose of "efficient" - that is, work-saving - technology is to reduce the amount - that is, the hours - of human labor.]

2. 11/23   Unions rally at Wal-Mart stores, by Caryn Rousseau, AP 11/22/02 10:22 EST via AOLNews.
   A coalition of unions and nonprofit groups staged rallies at Wal-Mart stores in 100 cities in 40 states to protest labor practices at the nation's largest retailer. "Behind that smiley face is a single mother who makes $7.50 an hour and can't afford health insurance for her family because Wal-Mart charges her $400 a month for it," said Rian Wathen of United Food & Commercial Workers Local 700 in Indianapolis.
   [With the ecological age adawning, we really must get a better argument for centrifuging spending power than overpopulation and "The Chiiildrennn."]
   ...Said Donna Dewitt, head of the South Carolina AFL-CIO, "It's not the company that Sam Walton founded." Walton, who founded Wal-Mart in Arkansas in 1962, died 10 years ago.
   ...Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is the world's largest private company with 3,200 US stores and 1,100 other locations worldwide. The company posted $218B in sales last year..\.. Wal-Mart now has more than 1.3m employees.... Wal-Mart spokesman Bill Wertz said the workers are nonunion by choice, but organizers say the company keeps out unions by intimidation.   31 National Labor Relations Board [NLRB] cases involving Wal-Mart are pending before administrative law judges, NLRB spokesman David Parker said.
   Wal-Mart also is fighting state and federal lawsuits filed by workers who accuse the company of forcing them to work hours off the clock.
   [See the frontpage NYT story on 6/25/2002 #1.]
   More than 400 employees from 24 of Wal-Mart's 27 Oregon stores are involved in a class-action lawsuit in court now that alleges the retailer cheated employees out of overtime pay....

3. 11/23   French trucker union calls for action Sunday, Reuters 11/22/02 11:59 ET via AOLNews.
   PARIS... - A key trade union called on French truck drivers to prepare for action on Sunday evening, after crisis talks with haulage bosses aimed at averting nationwide road blockades were suspended on Friday.... The talks were aimed at averting roadblocks of the kind that crippled freight and supplies in France several times in the 1990s..\..
   Fresh negotiations have been scheduled for Saturday, but CGT union representative Alain Arquier said "a miracle" would be needed for them to reach an agreement over demand for better pay and shorter working hours....
   [Again, unions worldwide have sabotaged themselves by focusing on higher pay instead of shorter hours, because fight for higher pay and you wind up with neither because you're fighting market forces, but fight for shorter hours and you wind up with both because you're creating a perceived scarcity of labor and harnessing market forces to flexibly raise pay and benefits. It's time unions around the world smartened up and started swimming with the current and using its power instead of swimming against it.]

4. 11/23   Southern Peru Copper sees 2002 sales up 3.4 percent, by Eduardo Orozco, Reuters 11/22/02 18:39 ET via AOLNews.
   LIMA...- Peru's leading copper producer, Southern Peru Copper [SPC] Corp. said on Friday that sales would nit $680m this year, up from $657.5m in 2001. "This year we estimate (sales) of $680m due to low metal prices...and $740m in 2003 with the expansion of the Toquepala concentration plant and a probable improvement in metals prices," SPC President Oscar Gonzalez Rocha told Reuters....
   Earlier this month unions ended an 11-day strike at the Toquepala mine over working hours and an early retirement initiative. The strike [was] the first there in 14 years....

• French farmers block depots, trucker threat looms, by Mark John, Reuters 11/21/02 08:31 ET via AOLNews.
  PARIS...- Several thousand farmers erected blockades outside food warehouses around France on Thursday, disrupting deliveries to supermarkets they accuse of abusing their power to squeeze prices on fruit and vegetables. The government called emergency talks in Paris to resolve the row. It fears an escalation in the protest which comes 2 days before truckers are threatening to cripple the French economy in the run-up to Christmas with their own roadblocks in a separate pay dispute. ...Truckers threaten to mount their 4th campaign of road blocks in 6 years. Truckers, who are seeking an extra month's pay, shorter working hours and bonuses, crippled freight and large parts of the economy for two weeks in 1996 and a week in 1997 by blockading ports and borders in France....
  [Essentially the same story was released later with a slightly different headline -]
  Farmers block French depots, talks start Friday, by Mark John, Reuters 11/21/02 18:25 ET via AOLNews.
  

1. Working for a living or living to work? Some help for the workaholic spouse, by Sue Shellenbarger, WSJ, D1.
   ...Being married to a workaholic is a high stakes game. Amid mounting workloads and layoff fears, more family members are seeing loved ones plunge into a cycle of overwork. When hard work crosses the line into workaholism - the popular term for the compulsive drive to work above all else - the consequences for health, relationships, and home life can be devastating....
   Figuring out when your partner has crossed that line and dealing with it head-on can be crucial to saving your marriage and the health of both your partner and yourself. The emotional pain caused by workaholism must be addressed to avoid irreparable damage. That requires not only getting around the workaholic's ironclad defenses, such as "I'm doing this because I care about your"; it also demands superb communication skills, plus the patience to remind the workaholic regularly of the life priorities you share....
   Have a problem balancing work and family? E-mail me at sue.shellenbarger@wsj.com....

2. [And the Aussies are worried about this too -]
   ACTU summit told working hours affecting families adversely, Australian Broadcasting 11/20/2002 13:55 AEDT via AOLNews.
   An Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) conference has heard lengthy working hours are impacting adversely on family life. The ACTU convened the summit, concerned that excessive working hours has become one of the biggest issues facing Australians.
   [Actually, it is THE biggest - all over the world.]
   Earlier the Federal Opposition leader, Simon Crean, called for more flexibility in the workplace, saying people should not have to choose between being a good worker and a good parent. He offered tentative support to the prospect of capping the working week at 48 hours, with a recent ACTU survey showing about 2 million Australians are working more than 50 hours a week.
   Rev. Tim Costello talked of the social impact of working long hours, including relationship breakdowns and adverse behavioural effect[s] in children.
   [And a slightly later story -]
   Govt, ACTU at stalemate over working hours, Australian Broadcasting 11/20/2002 20:35 AEDT via AOLNews.
   The Federal Government and the ACTU have ended a forum in Melbourne having achieved little consensus on the issue of working hours. Federal Workplace Relations Minister Tony Abbott says it is up to individuals to decide their working hours.
   [Oh sure, like they've always done when the people offering the jobs push them longer and longer.]
   "What the ACTU would rather have is a general rule governing everyone," he said.
   [Read your history - it's the only thing that's ever worked. Do sports players each define their own rules individually?]
   The ACTU claims broad brush legislation may be the only way to enshrine the rights of individuals, especially lower income workers, who are powerless to refuse employer demands to work excessive hours. "At the end of the day, we have got to look at what is a universal guarantee that people can balance their life between work and family," ACTU Pres. Sharan Burrow said. The ACTU will continue to debate a cap on overtime, a move Opposition leader Simon Crean said he would consider.
   [At the 48-hour level, we ASSUME they're already talking about overtime. God help them if they still have a standard workweek longer than South Korea's!]

3. Strike urged at France's Brit Air airline on Monday, Reuters 11/20/02 02:48 ET via AOLNews.
   PARIS...- Trade unions said on Wed. they have called a strike next Mon. at French regional airline Brit Air, an Air France subsidiary tha[t] operates about 220 flights a day...between many French cities and also between French cities and other European destinations.... Unions objected to management attempts to change working schedules, notably the amount of rest time given to staff between flights, the union said in a statement..\.. The strike call coincides with a risk of major protestss and road blockades throughout France next week by truck drivers over pay and working hours....

4. Blockade looms as French trucker talks fail, by Paule Bonjean & Joelle Diderich, Reuters 11/20/02 15:03 ET via AOLNews.
   PARIS...- French truckers and bosses failed to resolve a pay dispute in talks on Wed., leaving one more round to avert the threat of blockades strangling France's road network in the run-up to Christmas.... During 5 hours of talks, truckers seeking an extra month's pay, shorter working hours and bonuses rejected an employers' offer of a 9% salary hike....

1. RehabCare Group to pay employees $2.85 million, US Newswire 11/19 12:17 via AOLNews.
   WASHINGTON...- A total of 7,883 current and former temporary healthcare workers in 37 states employed by subsidiaries of RehabCare Group Inc. headquartered in St. Louis, Mo., will share $2.85m in back wage compensation as part of a major settlement reached on Nov. 7, 2002, between the US Labor Dept. and the nationwide firm, its 10 subsidiaries and Maurice Arbalaez, all known as StarMed. Arbalaez is the former president of the staffing division for StarMed....
   The Dept.'s Wage and Hour Division conducted an investigation at 4 StarMed facilities in the spring of 2001, and found that some temporary workers were being paid "straight time" for all hours worked, and were not paid overtime as required by the Fair Labor Standards Act [FLSA]. For example, the temporary workers often worked at more than one location during the week, and RehabCare's payroll systems did not track the total number of hours employees worked during a week. During the investigation, RehabCare realized that this problem existed in other facilities, and approached the Dept. to discuss ways in which to correct it. RebabCare made changes to its payroll systems, and then conducted a self-audit to determine which employees were entitled to back pay for overtime hours. The Wage and Hour Division confirmed this self-audit process and the resulting back wage amounts....
   [Once again, the fox guards the henhouse.]

2. 2002 Shiftwork Practices survey shows 24/7 workforce overworked, undersupported, PRNewswire 11/19/2002 07:01 EST via AOLNews.
   Management actions taken during the 2001-2002 economic recession have significantly challenged 24/7 operations, stretching staffing levels to dangerously low levels and placing employees at an increased risk for accidents, injuries and performance errors. This is according to Circadian Technologies' 2002 Shiftwork Practices survey of the 24/7 workplace.
   "The survey underscores the challenges posed by record levels of overtime, increasing risks due to human-error accidents, and limited workplace provisions for the unique needs of those in 24/7 shiftwork positions, such as childcare, employee training, and rest facilities," stated Dr. Martin Moore-Ede, Pres. and CEO of Circadian Technologies Inc. "Addressing these demands should be an early priority in the recovery cycle or it will hamper business recovery."
   [How right he is!]
   Managers from 623 facilities, representing nearly 120,000 employees, participated in the survey. Responses accounted for a range of 24/7 operations, including manufacturing, process production, utilities, public safety, healthcare, and service industries. The survey results reflect insufficient staffing, higher overtime levels, increased human-error-related accidents due to stress and overwork, limited employee involvement in shift schedule changes, and inadequate childcare, training and workplace napping provisions for those who work non-traditional hours. Key results include:
   • Overtime: The number of shiftworkers working more than 400 hours of overtime each year has increased by 45% since 2000.
   • Holdovers: 73% of facilities reported using holdovers, where the shift length is increased or doubled, to cover necessary overtime. Other studies have already demonstrated that mandatory overtime is costing US employers $150 billion per year in stress and fatigue-related problems....
   • Overwork: Employee fatigue, a direct outgrowth of overwork and work stress, has increased 101% since 2000, while the number of workplaces reporting no employee fatigue has decreased by 52%....
   • Napping: 44% of companies permit napping in the workplace, down 4% since 2000.
   A comprehensive report of the results of the 2002 Shiftwork Practices survey is available from Circadian Technologies at *Circadian.com....

3. MEA pilots sign new work contracts, threaten court, Reuters 11/19/02 08:16 ET via AOLNews.
   BEIRUT...- Pilots at Middle East Airlines (MEA) said on Tuesday they had signed on to new contract terms with Lebanon's flag carrier after the chairman threatened to replace them with foreigners as part of reforms to cut losses.... MEA Chairman Mohammed al-Hout gave MEA's 124 pilots an ultimatum last week - sign new contracts that cut benefits and increase working hours or be replaced by foreign pilots..\..
   "We had no choice but to sign as individuals," senior Lebanese Pilots Assoc. official Mohammad Hassoun told Reuters. "But the association does not agree and is doing what it can to counteract this."... "We don't want to strike but we oppose these conditions and believe there are international standards that Lebanon should not breach," said Hassoun, adding that new contract terms over night flight hours could endanger safety....

• Workers not included - In lights-out factories, machines still make things even when no one is there, by Timothy Aeppel, WSJ, B1.
  [This development should give the coup de grace to the notions that "technology creates more jobs than it destroys" and the "infinite employment fallacy," obviating the need to divide up and share the vanishing work.]
  ...Faced with the need to raise productivity to survive, especially against low-cost competitors in such nations as China,
  [- apparently disregarding damage to consumer markets and marketability -]
  more companies are pushing toward so-called lights-out manufacturing. Once a science-fiction dream, the phenomenon is emerging in plants and factories throughout the U.S. as machines become more reliable in making flawless parts on their own.
  [So maybe Jeremy Rifkin's title, "The End of Work," isn't too radical after all. Maybe it's just the wake-up call a lot of top executives need to whack them on the side of the head and get them to substitute systems like Timesizing that share and spread the vanishing work for the downsizing fad that is taking out so much of the national and global consumer base and sending the economy goes into a tailspin.]
  New computer technologies also have broadened possibilities by linking plant equipment to the Internet where supervisors can check operations at any time and from any place; even do repairs from a distance..\..
  • VERNON, Conn. - It's the stuff of fairy tales: Every morning workers at a plastics plant here owned by ABA-PGT arrive to find boxes filled with gears that were mde overnight as they slept. Of course, elves have nothing to do with it. Fourteen giant injection-molding machines worked in the dark, forming gears used in such things as lawn sprinklers and computer printers, and dropping them into boxes waiting on conveyor belts. Workers at the closely held company come in, collect the finished parts and prepare them for delivery.
  • Something similar happens at closely held Evans Findings Co. in East Providence, RI, where metal-stamping machines that make parts, such as the tiny cutting devices mounted on dental-floss containers, run without people for one shift each day. ...Only machines have worked the 2nd shift from 3 pm to 10:30 ppm since the beginning of the year..\.. The company's goal is do as much as possible with no labor.
    [Will they also be able to do without markets? As Reuther retorted when Henry Ford challenged him to "unionize these robots" - "let's see you sell them cars."]
  • Air Products & Chemicals Inc., an industrial-gas maker in Allentown, Pa., calls its lights-out system, "unattended operation with remote access." The company no longer needs full-time operators at its many small plants that produce gases fed directly into larger, neighboring factories, such as steel mills. Instead, the company's machines send a signal to alert operators miles away when a motor overheats or a valve sticks. Safety systems automatically shut the plant down if a problem poses imminent danger.
    An operator working from home and assigned to monitor several plants scattered in his region first will try to fix the problem from a computer at home by sending signals through a telephone line to restart processes, just as the operator would from inside the plant's control room. If that fails, the operator then drives to the site to fix the problem.
    "We can leverage one individual [human employee] over a large geography this way," says David Fritz, general manager of North American product supply. Air Products' gas plants never had large payrolls - at most, a few people on each shift. But in this industry, Mr. Fritz says, savings from operating with fewer people are crucial to be competitive.
    [More crucial than markets? What if in making these kinds of "savings," Mr. Fritz and thousands of other managers wind up "saving" - meaning not having to deal with (and not having available to deal with) - the markets for any of their products, or services?]
  ...Increasingly companies are adopting "lights out" with a gradual approach. For instance, a portion of a plant may run unattended, with the rest of the facility staffed. Or a factory my staff one shift, then run the next shift with just machines.... In a lean economy, many companies aare nervous about trying lights-out manufacturing because of the financial risk and fear that it will rile already fretful workers who feel it threatens their jobs.
  [Reedickyooluss! Where would they GET such a silly idea?!]
  Yet, most companies now don't see lights out as eliminating people entirely....
  [That's "now." "Now" it will just eliminate people mostly but not entirely. In the future it will eliminate people entirely. Then unless we're worksharing, we'll be splitting into a few workers and multitudes of parasitic drones.]

1. House, Senate OK benefits bill, by Janelle Carter, AP 11/15/02 01:09 EST via AOLNews.
   WASHINGTON - The House and Senate approved separate unemployment benefits bills Thursday night as lawmakers rushed to get their legislation approved before adjourning the postelection session and heading home for the year.... The House's bill also extends a welfare law.... The welfare provisions would extend the welfare law through March 31 to give lawmakers time to pass legislation renewing it. Lawmakers have negotiated for months on how best to renew the landmark 1996 bill that overhauled the nation's welfare program. But they remain hung up over issues like whether welfare recipients should be forced to work more hours each week....

2. Feature - Canada's "just-in-time" [JIT] work force has a downside, by Gilbert Le Gras, Reuters 11/15/02 16:16 ET via AOLNews.
   OTTAWA -...Ilse Schamp, \a\ goldsmith...knows all about cost savings from JIT [production], having ordered expensive precious precious metals to fix jewelry.... Schamp says the practice now appears to have spread to Canada's job market [despite its being] the most vibrant this year among the Group of Seven rich countries..\..
   She was shocked when the new...JIT Canadian labor market cost her her job.... "It seems no one wants to hire you full time any more. They want to give you contract work with no benefits," said Schamp, 51, who has been looking for work since mid-September.
   Canada's economy has created 459,000 jobs so far this year, easily outperforming other countries.... [minus how may job losses?? and how many of these new "jobs" are straitened self-employment and part-time?? - ed.] ...Self-employment and part-time work account for much of the good news.
   • Part-time jobs - defined by Statistics Canada as less than 30 hours of work per week - have grown four times faster than full-time positions, up 8.2% compared with 1.9%. One in five people, 2.9m, now work part-time.
   • Annualized growth in self-employment is 4.6%, well ahead of the 2.8% rate of growth in the number of new employees [of others].
   The common[ly offered] reason...behind this year's trend is that domestic companies are avoiding hiring full-time workers because of global uncertainties, including a spotty recovery in the U.S. - Canada's top trading partner....

3. French truckers repeat blockade warning after talks, by Paule Bonjean, Reuters 11/15/02 15:50 ET via AOLNews.
   PARIS...- Emergency talks to try to avert threats by French truckers to blockade roads, ports and borders in a pay dispute ended in stalemate on Friday, union leaders and employers said.... Joel Le Coq, a representative of truck drivers at the large CFTD union...and other union delegates reiterated warnings that they would block roads from Nov. 22 or in the following days if employers continued to reject their demands..\..for a higher monthly salary and an extra month's pay per year....
   In a separate protest in the northern city of Rouen, driving instructors jammed traffic in protest over work hours and fears they will be exposed to irate clients due to rule changes which oblige them to say instantly if people fail driving tests.
   [Gee, we didn't know they had driving instructors in France!]

4. Independent Monitoring Council [MIMCO] completes audits of Mattel manufacturing facilities in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand - Audits find plants in overall compliance with company's Global Manufacturing Principles [GMP], PRNewswire 11/15/2002 12:00 EST via AOLNews.
   NEW YORK - ...MIMCO today released results from audits of Mattel Inc. mfg facilities representing follow-up audits of 2 mfg facilities in Indonesia, 2 in Malaysia and 1 in Thailand. The reports are part of an ongoing audit program of the company's mfg facilities conducted every 3 years by [MIMCO]....
   Follow-up independent audit reports
   
   • Mattel Jakarta Sadu [MJS] (Indonesia) &nbnp; ...MJS exceeds the regional wage mandated by local labor law and the audit found no violations of compensation for hours worked, though a small percentage of employees feel pressured to work overtime....
   • Mattel Jakarta Dua [MJD] (Indonesia)   ...While management has begun adjusting break times to align them with Islamic prayer schedules, which vary according to lunar phases, MIMCO continues to assert that half an hour is insufficient for both meals and prayers.
   • Mattel Bangkok [MBK] Ltd. (Thailand)   ...Interviewed employees indicated a high level of satisfaction with...job training programs....
   • Mattel Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. [MMSB] (Malaysia)   ...Interviewed workers [expressed] satisfaction with regard to the training they received in safe handling of machinery and hazardous materials...and time for prayers.... MMSB management has agreed to implement 2 key recommendations by MIMCO:
     1. To re-institute clocking-out after overtime work and
     2. improve employee knowledge and access...to variouis skill enhancement programs.
   • Mattel Tools Sdn. Bhd. [MTSB] (Malaysia)   ...With regard to pay and working hours, MTSB was in complete compliance with the Malaysian law and GMP.... All those interviewed by MIMCO unanimously indicated that they had received training and could operate their equipment free of hazard to themselves and the facility....
   [Ruy Costa, former asst. head of the Massachusetts Council of Churches, supports shorter work time in order to give people time for their spiritual lives.]