The Disposable American: Layoffs and Their Consequences

by Louis Uchitelle

Book Overview

A timely, eye-opening account from an award-winning reporter that reveals how layoffs in America are counterproductive and what companies can do to avoid them and help create jobs, benefiting workers, corporations, and the nation as a whole.

"Effectively wrecks the claim that all this downsizing makes the country more productive, more competitive, more flexible.... A strong case that the whole middle class is at risk." --The New York...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1400034337
• ISBN13: 9781400034338
• Release Date: April 2007
• Publisher: Vintage
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.2" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

Masterful exposition on employment issues

This excellent book examines the phenomenon of job insecurity in America. Author and newspaper reporter Louis Uchitelle traces the development and decline of the American expectation of stable, remunerative, virtually lifetime employment. Republicans may have taken the boldest steps in rolling back the expectation of job security (Ronald Reagan's firing of the air traffic controllers spoke eloquently for the new order), but they did not do so alone or unopposed. Democratic presidents and politicians did not make preventing layoffs a major campaign issue or administrative priority. Uchitelle writes smoothly and evocatively, particularly about the individual experiences of laid-off workers for whom the surviving avenues of American opportunity were dead ends. We recommend this book to anyone who wants to know what killed the historic American trust between workers and employers, and how to staunch the bleeding caused by layoffs.

Excellent analysis of the true costs of layoffs to workers and society as a whole.

According to the "Who Moved My Cheese" myth and popular American groupthink, if you become involuntarily separated from your job, there's something kind of wrong with you, or at least your portfolio of skills and/or attitude. You're supposed to buck up, improve your education and attitude, bust your butt looking for a job, and by golly there will be one for you, at approximately your old salary if not a higher wage. This is one of three major myths journalist Louis Uchitelle does a spectacular job debunking through via in depth interviews with laid off workers, CEOs,headhunters and others; labor statistics, and an investigation into the history of the American work force, unions and labor laws. The other two major myths are: 1. "Payoff" That in exchange for the approximately 30 million full-time workers who lost their jobs since the early 1980s, "a revitalized corporate America will emerge, once again offering job security, full employment, and rising incomes." 2. The dollar and cents savings in labor costs justifies the layoffs. Rather than recapping Uchitelle's arguments, I refer you to the book which commendably argues all these points, and brings to life the employment situations of blue collar and white collar workers from all walks of life. One chapter that epitomizes our economy is chapter 3, "Retraining the Mechanics -- But for What?" Here we meet a conference room full of United Airlines mechanics, mostly family men in their 30s and 40s, typically making at least $25 an hour who are about to be laid off. They're cheerfully given post-layoff survival instructions including how to deal with creditors, collect unemployment, and retrain for other jobs. By the spring of 2004, of more than 800 United mechanics who had gone through this program (one of the best-funded in the country), only 185 were working again. Of these 185, only 15 (8%) regained or exceed their United wage, primarily young beginning mechanics who were making $19 to $20 an hour. The majority earned $14 to $20 in a variety of jobs including auto repair, repairing heating and air-conditioning units, computer maintenance, conducting freight trains or long distance truck driving. Eighteen percent earned less than $13.25 an hour (poverty level for a family a four), in jobs including warehouse or restaurant work, or retailing. In addition to the financial and psychological losses suffered by these men and their families, members of the flying public may be at increased safety risk as airplane maintenance is outsourced to less skilled workers at lower wages or offshore with less oversight by the FAA, especially in light of recent wage freezes for air traffic controllers. I add these examples to the many examples Uchitelle provides of the society-wide ramifications of layoffs. The layoffs are not limited to blue collar workers. Among others we meet a former bank vice president who resorted to pumping gas to make ends meet, before he could find a more stable job

Powerful Tome on the Unspoken Shift of Economic Burden from the Company to the Individual

New York Times economics reporter Louis Uchitelle has written a vital, sometimes quite emotional book about the polarizing topic of layoffs. While corporate leaders have concluded layoffs to be acceptable business behavior as a means toward increasing the bottom line, the rationale behind such decisions comes into question, and Uchitelle provides a most compelling case against taking such drastic measures. He accurately views layoffs as the consequence of companies intent on nonstop expansion. A longer-term solution against a down market is not even considered, and the author provides substantive data to prove that cuts in staffing do not lead to better stock performance. In fact, what receives much of the author's well justified ire is the myopic aspect of CEOs intent on building the perception that they are proactively responding to business performance. Employees are treated as short-term commodities, while many CEOs not only continue to pad their own compensation packages but also ignore huge non-staff costs that are comparatively more difficult to implement. Uchitelle focuses on the area that companies refuse to take accountability, specifically the psychological fallout on employees once they no longer are employees and the broader effect on society as a whole. What I like about his approach is that it is not simply theoretical rhetoric that he espouses but empirical evidence that he presents, both historical and contemporary. In particular, Uchitelle focuses on several corporations in Cincinnati, Indianapolis and New Britain, Conn., interviewing the executives who opted for layoffs while continuing to live in luxury and researching the laid-off workers. What he finds out is that there simply aren't enough well-paying jobs with decent benefits to meet demand. Official statistics on the number of jobless omit the people who through severance packages are bought out but really exiled, as well as those who end up contracting and consequently become free agents who shift from company to company under the dictates of often substandard market rates. He raises the basic philosophical question that needs to be answered - Will there be a return to post-WWII values when basking from victory, people feel an obligation to take care of one another, or has a new mindset developed which emphasizes the individuality and self-absorption necessary not only to survive but thrive? The latter camp asserts that layoffs will bring about a rejuvenated economy that will ultimately lead to an even stronger era of true equilibrium with a hierarchy based on performance. This line of thinking would make sense if we have a social infrastructure that's supports it but we still live by the rules sets by men dedicated to their companies. Until Uchitelle brought it to light with this book, what remains unspoken is the shift that has occurred in who actually carries the economic burden. It's the worker, not the company. The author has me leaning toward his position, that

Uchitelle is Empathic and on the Mark

The Disposable American is passionately written and and a must read. Uchitelle skillfully debunks a long-cherished American belief that if you work hard, and are educated, you will have job security and/or ease in finding comparable work with another company. The Disposable American addresses the economic challenges layoffs cause for the middle class just as Ehrenreich's book, Nickel and Dimed, addressed those trying to survive in this country while working at minimum wage. Uchitelle makes his points about layoffs by getting close to his subjects and empathically describing their challenges. The book addresses the negative impact that layoffs have on the financial and psychological structure of the family. This vulnerability adversely affects the community, and increasingly , the economic security of the middle class throughout this country. Highly recommended!

Workers blame themselves, while CEO's snicker....

I'm writing this review to correct some misconceptions made by the previous reviewer, who is obviously making a statement ideological faith supported by mis-statements of fact about labor growth in the US. Obviously, this reviewer has not even read the book whose ideas he asks us to dismiss! Most of the economic analysis by free market fundamentalists written by the on the problem of displaced workers and outsourcing of factory jobs are more statements of ideological faith then economic analysis. What economic analysis that is presented is based on misstatements of fact about labor growth in the US. So Uchitelle's book is welcome addition to the massive misinformation campaign by the big Ivory Tower think tanks like the CATO Institute that dominate the Internet and the mass media. This book documents the problem of layoffs. And clearly it's a problem---as Uchitelle thoroughly documents---since layoffs are widespread, and the great majority of laid off workers either drop out of the labor market, or take jobs with less skills and lower pay. Another fact of the layoffs that is often dismissed by free marketeers is that most of the layoffs in last 10 years were a result of management incompetence and short-term vision, not worker productivity. As a result, American is left with an economy that is weaker and less productive. Worse, our economic growth has become completely dependent on monetary policy slight-of-hand tricks that Alan Greenspan pursued for over 10 years. Greenspan's economic plan is hardly a "free market" solution, as it consists of creating unsustainable economic bubbles with financial deregulation and artificially low interest rates. Worse, the low interest rates that the free market fundamentalists are so fond of are an illusion, made possible by massive deficit spending financed by foreign governments, first the Japanese and the Arabs, and recently to the Communist Chinese government. Uchitelle proves that the force behind the massive layoffs of the last 10 years have been American management's unwillingness and inability to innovate new products, and instead taking the easy path of farming out their product development and manufacturing to contract manufacturers who outsource to offshore manufacturing plants. Since ultimately the standard of living of Americans is based on it's output and productivity---not financial insolvency and deficit spending that the politicians have been relying on for years. Thus the decadence of the American management classes has endangered the viability of our democracy. As Uchitelle puts it, "Rather than try to outstrip foreign competitors in innovation, a costly and risky process, management gave up in product after product." On the other hand, companies with management that took responsibility for innovation and refused to layoff at all, like Southwest Airlines, are the stars of what's left of America's productivity based economic strength. Uchitelle's most important message---which i