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Pundits will debate the wellsprings of Donald Trump's election triumph for years. Right now, cultural explanations are in the lead. Multiple researchers and journalists are stressing the role of "racial resentments" and xenophobia as the deepest sources of Trump's appeal. And such explanations cannot be dismissed.
But the decades-long decline of U.S. manufacturing employment and the highly automated nature of the sector's recent revitalization should also be high on the list of explanations. The former is an unmistakable source of the working class rage that helped get Trump elected. The latter is the main reason Trump won't be able to "make America great again" by bringing back production jobs.
The Rust Belt epicenter of the Trump electoral map says a lot about its emotional origins, but so do the facts of employment and productivity in U.S. manufacturing industries. The collapse of labor-intensive commodity manufacturing in recent decades and the expansion in this decade of super-productive advanced manufacturing have left millions of working-class white people feeling abandoned, irrelevant, and angry.
To see this, one has only to look at the stark trend lines of the production data, which show a massive 30-year decline of employment beginning in 1980. That trend led to the liquidation of more than a third of U.S. manufacturing positions. Employment in the sector plunged from 18.9 million jobs to 12.2 million.
[...] In fact, the total inflation-adjusted output of the U.S. manufacturing sector is now higher than it has ever been. That's true even as the sector's employment is growing only slowly, and remains near the lowest it's been. These diverging lines—which reflect the sector's improved productivity—highlight a huge problem with Trump's promises to help workers by reshoring millions of manufacturing jobs. America is already producing a lot. And in any event, the return of more manufacturing won't bring back many jobs because the labor is increasingly being done by robots.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday November 21 2016, @04:40PM
You're most likely absolutely correct. The unions up there have effectively priced themselves out of the market. I expect the same will eventually happen with the industries in the south too, because unions have no history of being able to tell when they are about to go a step too far.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Monday November 21 2016, @09:48PM
Worker safety (equipment, clothing, training, etc) time off for family issues, overtime pay, holiday pay, breaks, those unions just have to give up on having workers have quality of kife! It is BAD for the US!
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 22 2016, @12:08AM
If the economy will not support a business that pays what they're demanding, they do themselves no favors by demanding it. Short term gain, long term unemployment.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Tuesday November 22 2016, @12:33AM
Not having to work with a machine that can take your hand off?
8-hour day?
Time to see your family?
Yep. Definitely short-term.
Some unions may be money-grabbing, but generally, daddy or mommy are less likely to die at work because of them.
Also, paying people somlittle they need food stamps or other charity to be able to eat is evil.
If middle and senior managers only got paid up to 200% of the lowest paid worker, there would be enough to pay everyone a bit better.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 22 2016, @01:14AM
Very much short term if it causes the business to move the shop overseas or go out of business entirely. Yes. The union's objective should be to provide the highest sustainable standards for its workers. Most unions forget the word "sustainable".
My rights don't end where your fear begins.