American workers feeling labor pains

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By ERIN ANDERSEN / Lincoln Journal Star

On Sept. 5, 1882, 10,000 New York City laborers declared an unpaid holiday and took to the streets to celebrate the achievements of the American worker.

And to highlight the conditions under which they toiled:

Seven-day work weeks, 12 hours a day.

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Dangerous conditions.

Child labor.

No health care.

No vacations.

No sick time.

No overtime.

No rights.

In the 126 years since, much has changed.

We are in a new era of workplace struggles.

Although today’s American workers are more passionate about and more dedicated to their work than ever before, many hate their jobs. Or at the very least they are greatly dissatisfied, said David Kusnet, former speech writer for President Bill Clinton and author of the newly published book, “Love the Work, Hate the Job: Why America’s Best Workers Are More Unhappy Than Ever.”

For many Americans, their work is their life’s calling, but they are not happy with the circumstances in which they are doing their work, Kusnet said in a telephone interview from his Washington, D.C., office at the Economic Policy Institute.

Stagnant wages, uncertain pensions, insecure jobs, shrinking benefits and a trend toward benefit-ineligible hiring of temporary part-time workers leave them disillusioned.

 A growing number of workers feel unappreciated, undervalued, overworked and downright cheated, according to national and state employment surveys.

Nebraska WomenWork! found similar sentiments in its statewide employment survey of women, released Aug. 26.

One woman wrote:

“I love my job. I have a tremendous sense of satisfaction and pride in the work we do, but the expectations are unrealistic and unattainable. Frequent feelings of being overwhelmed and burned out causes high employee turnover, which just adds more work and perpetuates the stress level for those who remain.”

 Said another:

  “I’ve sacrificed a lot to be in the job market over the years — giving up time with my children. It just doesn’t seem worth it.”

In some ways, the growing discontent of the 21st century worker is eerily reminiscent of those days in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Kusnet says.

But it’s also different.

Employer cutbacks and demands are not solely driven by that nasty five-letter word — g-r-e-e-d — but an even more frightening reality — s-u-r-v-i-v-a-l.

Business in America is struggling to balance itself in a perfect storm of global proportions, Kusnet said.

“First, the economy has become very competitive. (And) we are not only competing with each other in this country, we are competing all over the world.”

Deregulation and outsourcing have made it possible for companies to offer similar services at a fraction of the price.

The structure of business also changed, Kusnet said. Once upon a time, institutions such as health care and education were insulated from the harshest forms of competition and money-making. Today, in order to survive, they are being taken over by corporations that provide fiscal security predicated by a bottom-line mentality.

And the pace of change is on fast forward, Kusnet said.

“Monday you are hired to do one thing and by Wednesday you are doing  something else,” he said. “While adaptability is a good thing and variety is exhilarating, it is also devaluing of someone who knows how to do one thing well and cares very much about doing that one thing.”

“These days there is a tendency to cut corners, not just budgets,” Kusnet said. “That goes against the grain for people who believe in doing the best job possible.”

More than money

Most workers would wholeheartedly welcome higher wages — especially in the current economy.

But wages are just part of the equation. People want family-friendly policies, flexibility, better benefits and the feeling of being valued.

Unfortunately, these are often among the first things to go when companies tighten their belts.

In his book, “Love the Work, Hate the Job,” Kusnet follows the history of four “good” Seattle companies with strong reputations: Boeing, Microsoft, Kaiser Aluminum and a local hospital. All four encountered conflicts when management reduced spending to what workers deemed a detriment to themselves and consumers. Microsoft hired “perma temps,” temporary workers doing the work of permanent employees but without the benefits and social standing of regular workers. Hospital staff complained that cutbacks were harming patients who might not be receiving the best medical care. And at Boeing, workers eventually went on strike, complaining a reduction in safety tests could lead to unsafe airplanes.

But for some companies, the operating philosophy is that happy, appreciated and well-treated employees will boost productivity, employee retention and the bottom line.

 State Farm’s Work Life Council, made up of employees from all departments, meets regularly to assess workers’ needs and desires, said Jessica Staehr,  public relations specialist with the Lincoln regional office.

The goal is to help workers achieve a balance between work and their personal lives. Among State Farm’s employee benefits: employee discounts to various retailers, restaurants and businesses, wellness programs, classes for expectant parents, and family vacation planning/savings programs.

It also offers car pool/van pool options, tuition reimbursement, family and maternity leave, time off for community volunteering, as well as numerous “alternative work arrangements,” including compressed work weeks and job sharing.

“Obviously, there is some financial impact,” Staehr said of these programs’ cost to the company. “But most of these things we do are relatively inexpensive. We just want to make sure that our employees are the happiest they can be at work.”

The story is similar at Ameritas Life Insurance, where there are lactation rooms for nursing moms, 24 hours of parental leave a year so moms and dads can participate in their children’s school and extracurricular activities, eight hours of paid time off a month for volunteering, and up to $5,250 in tuition reimbursement.

Like State Farm, flexible work hours have long been an option for Ameritas employees. But the company stepped up the offer this year in response to employee concerns over rising gas prices, said Sherri Wimes, second vice president in human resources for Ameritas.

In exit interviews this year, employees said transportation and commuting costs were a factor in their decision to leave the company.

“That is the first time we’ve seen that,” Wimes said. “If that is true, we thought the converse ought to be true in helping with retention.”

So managers encouraged employees to take advantage of flexible schedules such as four-day work weeks (at 10 hours a day) and working from home one or more days a week.

Just how many employees have taken the company up on its offer has not been calculated, but Wimes estimates that in some areas it could be as high as 25 percent.

Such workplace flexibility is key to the U.S. economy’s success, concludes a report by the Institute for  Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) and the Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California.

Yet, in the United States, high quality flexible work arrangements such as alternative scheduling, employee leave, education and gradually reduced hours for retiring employees are more the exception than the rule, the report states.

That makes it especially hard on women workers, who generally are the primary caregivers in the home.

“In the U.S., the choice tends to be either to work full-time all the time, or work reduced hours, with low pay, no benefits and little opportunity for advancement,” said Barbara Gault, vice president and director of research for the IWPR. “Faced with that choice, and the high cost of child care and elder care, many women are forced to leave the labor market.”

What women want

Women make up 46 percent of the U.S. workforce. In Nebraska, 48 percent of the state workers are women, said Lisa Good, vice president of Nebraska WomenWork!

Increasingly, women are leaving work, not to stay home with the kids, but to get away from crummy jobs, the Economic Policy Institute states in a July press briefing.

Historically, women’s wages have always been lower than men’s. And while both sexes are being asked to take pay reductions in the current economy, the EPI found the median pay for women ages 25-54 was $14.84 an hour in 2007 — down from $15.04 in 2004, as adjusted for inflation. For men, the similar wage is $2 an hour more.

As America’s economy gets worse, women will get the worst of it, claims the Washington, D.C., based IWPR.

“By almost every measure, women are more worried than men about economic security — and with good reason,” said Heidi Hartman, IWPR president. “They have already felt the economic squeeze more often than men. In the last year, one out of five women had a medical prescription they couldn’t afford to fill, while only one out of eight men had that happen.”

Nebraska women expressed similar woes in the Nebraska Women Work! employment survey. More than 1,000 women from across the state participated in the survey. Although not scientifically representative of all women in Nebraska, the survey found women work long hours — more hours than most of them want — for inadequate rewards and limited satisfaction.

Forty-one percent of those surveyed said they were dissatisfied with their jobs. They were most unhappy about the workplace environment (52 percent) and compensation (44 percent). They expressed frustration over low wages, inadequate health care and vacation benefits, workplace harassment and sexual discrimination, and a sometimes overwhelming struggle to balance work and family life.

“People need to know Nebraska women are working their butts off,” Good said.

So what is the answer?

Ironically — or perhaps not so ironically — workers and employers often want the same thing.

They want the company to be successful, their product to be the best, and they are willing to do what it takes to get there.

How to get there is where they differ.

Kusnet said employers need to take a lesson from Kaiser Aluminum founder Henry Kaiser. Once a hard-driving boss, Kaiser did a complete about face after several employees working on his Hoover Dam project died and others on the workforce went on strike.

Kaiser adopted the philosophy: If you treat workers right, they will do right by you. He gave his workers sabbaticals. He offered prepaid health care, on-site child care, employee sabbaticals and started an HMO. Many became models for New Deal social programs.

“In a sense his life is a parable for what may happen (today),” Kusnet said. “Kaiser was every bit as ambitious as today’s CEO. He thought the way to get something out of a worker was to be a slave driver, and that didn’t work. Only then he tried other things. Maybe what happened in the late 1920s and 1930 will happen in this country now.”

But that kind of change will take whole-hearted commitment, Kusnet said.

A commitment that could pay off in the long run, says Tom Gilliam, co-author of “Move It. Lose It. Live Healthy: The Simple Truth About Achieving & Maintaining a Healthy Body Weight.”

“Cutting benefits is demoralizing. It does neither your employees nor your company any favors. The last thing you want when you’re trying to stay afloat in the tough economy is a team of disgruntled employees,” Gilliam said in a press release. “Now, more than ever, employees need to be loyal, focused and on top of their game.

“But the main reason to invest in your employees’ health is that your organization will benefit financially over the long haul.”

Reach Erin Andersen at 473-7217 or eandersen@journalstar.com