Working More For Less (Page 1 of 5)

Corporate profits and CEO salaries have never been higher, but the good times aren’t trickling down to the millions of workers across the country struggling to pay ever-increasing living expenses with stagnant wages.

East Tennessee employees are feeling the crunch of an unbalanced economy, and are fighting the effects of this national trend that leads to growing disparities in worker compensation.

The average CEO makes more money in one day before lunch than a worker earning minimum wage makes all year, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank.

Recently released figures from the Commerce Department reveal that the share of total national income going to wages and salaries is at the lowest level ever recorded in 77 years of data collection.

Meanwhile, the $5.15 federal minimum wage is approaching its longest period of stagnation since the Fair Labor Standards Act was passed in 1938. Inflation has increased 26 percent in the ten years that the current minimum has lay dormant, leading to a considerable decline in its real value, currently the lowest level seen since 1955.

According to Bureau of Labor statistics, although the minimum wage has not been increased since September 1997, the cost of food has increased 23 percent, housing 29 percent, medical care 43 percent, and gasoline 134 percent in the same time period.

Twenty-one states and the District of Columbia have established state minimum wages that exceed the federal requirement, but Tennessee is one of only six states with no minimum wage law, despite a bill proposed this year to implement a state minimum of $6.15.    

Even workers earning slightly higher than the minimum are suffering at a time when the cost of living has steadily increased, but wages have not. Many in East Tennessee are turning to union efforts to insure their interests are protected when company policies regarding compensation and wages are at stake.

    

Employees of The Knoxville News Sentinel and The University of Tennessee are currently negotiating with management and administration for adequate compensation and just pay-raise policies in an effort to bring earnings closer to a living wage. The UTK Council for a Living Wage defines it as the minimum “income that includes little or nothing in the way of amenities such as entertainment, travel or educational enrichment, but allows a working family to live with dignity, free of dependence on public subsidies such as TennCare, food stamps and public housing.”

The bargaining team of the Knoxville Newspaper Guild, Local 33076, representing 85 Knoxville News Sentinel editorial staff, met with News Sentinel management Sept. 27 - 28 in an attempt to return to the bargaining table following a six-month stall in contract negotiations.  

Michael Burrell, chief negotiator of the Guild and International Representative for the Newspaper Guild-Communications Workers of America, said the Guild’s contract with the News Sentinel expired Nov. 3, 2005, and bargaining between the two sides reached a halt in March 2006, when the company presented its “final” offer following fourteen rejected Guild proposals.

“The idea is that we’re coming to the table from a standpoint of attempting to bargain it to conclusion – this can’t be a one-sided effort, and both parties must come with an idea of compromise,” Burrell said. “But the company did not bargain, they provided a one-way street that was not in the spirit of negotiation.”

According to Burrell, the main issue of disagreement has been the company’s plan to replace the current system that provides annual across-the-board increases with merit-based pay raises that are given to select employees following a performance evaluation.

In last week’s meeting, the company proposed an interim pay increase of 1 percent across-the-board retroactive to the Nov. 2005 contract expiration, coupled with a 1.5 percent potential merit pay increase. The company set a deadline of noon Sept. 29 for the union to make a decision.