Asian American Workers in the New Economy

By Doug Brugge and Lydia Lowe
2000

There is no longer much question that there is a new economy, characterized by increased global interdependence and the centrality of computer-based technology. Further, it is widely reported that the new economy has ushered in the longest economic expansion in the U.S. Clearly, capitalism is in ascendancy, having pushed beyond the borders of Eastern Europe and the former USSR and having made inroads into China. Few countries are any longer outside of the increasingly interwoven world marketplace.

What does the new economy mean for workers, and--with the unionization rate down to about 14 percent of the workforce--what is the future of organized labor? Will Asian Americans be part of building a new and revitalized labor movement?

The context of the new economy
While it is clear that the economy has changed shape in many respects, it is important to not let all the glitter and glamour hide the reality of economic experience for the majority of people. The economy is, at its core, still the same market capitalism that it has been since it was forged during the industrial revolution. As such, it is based on competition that produces winners and losers. Therefore, most people have not shared in the economic expansion. Indeed the gap between the wealthy and poor in the US has grown to the highest that it has been since before the Great Depression. One need not look far to see Chinese immigrants working for subminimum wages in the restaurants and Southeast Asian day laborers handling hazardous substances without training or safety gear.

While the changes in the economy are real and have profound consequences; for many workers things are much as they always have been, or worse. Working people, and especially the lower stratum of the working class which consists largely of Blacks, Chicanos/Latinos and Asians, still work for low wages and under difficult and dangerous conditions. Owners still get a disproportionate share of the wealth that is created through their labor. There is still abject poverty amidst unbelievable wealth in this country. For example, although his wealth has declined a bit this year, Bill Gates was personally worth more than the entire bottom 45% of US households in 1998. Compared to such wealth, the high unemployment, poverty and concomitant ills of inner city, rural America and the Indian reservations appear as a huge contradiction to the overall growth in productivity and wealth.

More so than ever before, education is the gatekeeper to economic advancement. Education in the Post World War Two period was supposed to be the great equalizer. Through education, the children of working class parents were sometimes able to ascend into the professional classes (although the path to true wealth was success in business, which was less often brought about by schooling). Some individuals have been able to use education as a steppingstone to economic security. Indeed, education levels have been rising, with more and more youth completing at least some college. The requirement for computer skills, combined with larger numbers of educated workers translates into an expectation of higher skill levels for many previously nontechnical jobs. Secretaries, for example, are no longer qualified if they cannot minimally use a computer and ideally they must know how to do more than word processing. It is harder and harder to get into the middle class the way many uneducated industrial workers did in previous generations since industrial jobs are in decline.

But education is not everything. As noted above, employers are also seeking more temporary, immigrant and low paid workers to fill the tedious and often menial jobs that provide the not so glamorous underbelly of the new economy. With current popular sentiment set against increased permanent immigration, temporary worker passes are again becoming fashionable and demands are rising by business to let foreign graduate students stay in the U.S. to work after graduation. At the other end of the spectrum, low-skilled immigrant workers, who are less aware of their rights and can be employed at lower wages, are also in demand. The polarization of the workforce is clearly illustrated in the Asian American communities, where the economic and political disparity between highly educated "nerds" and low-paid drones is growing.

Corporations have also moved much of their production outside of the US. Little apparel production remains inside US boundaries because manufacturers can make products cheaper elsewhere. With the internationalization of more and more corporations has come the demand for increased free trade between nations. The NAFTA agreements, the African trade initiative and recently Permanent Normal Trading Relations for China all are designed to open markets to corporations that are less and less tied to any one nation. Thus the duality of the US economy, epitomized by the growing gap between rich and poor, is played out in even greater extremes on the world stage. And of course, the resulting disparities ratchet up pressure to immigrate to the U.S. in search of a better life.

With these changes come adjustments to working life that include reduced stability, more frequent job changes and a constant pressure to update skills to remain competitive. Because of the highly decentralized nature of today's corporations the old model of a factory town is gone. Companies carry out production at dozens of sites, often far removed from each other. Relocating production in search of cheap labor is easier than in the past because of massive global transportation systems and instantaneous communications. Flexibility is key. Management seeks to move workers to where they are needed when they are needed and to minimize the inefficiency of having full time employees standing idle.

What happens to organized labor in such an economy? The present day labor movement grew out of the industrial revolution and cut its teeth on factory organizing. Despite moving heavily into the service sector as manufacturing declined, labor has largely maintained an industrial structure. The model of organizing workers company by company is still relevant, but made more difficult by the constant turnover in the workforce and the spreading of workers with related tasks across great distances and frequently multiple countries. The idea of building worker solidarity, through years of struggle side by side for common goals, is undercut if workers do not interact physically and do not stay in their jobs for a lifetime. Further, the internationalization of business begs the question of how labor organizing can remain tied to unions organized country by country. At the same time, many of the lowest paid workers, a large majority of whom are people of color, and who stand to benefit the most from unionization, are in small workplaces not prioritized by union organizing departments.

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