On Sun, 14 Dec 2008 07:23:49 -0600, wrote:

On Sun, 14 Dec 2008 07:23:39 -0500, John wrote:


http://www.americanprogress.org/issu...tribution.html

Thunder, do you really believe the 'worker' has increased his output by
20%? Does that line make sense to you?

The fact that you read it in an anti-Bush article doesn't make it true.

As you are clearly too lazy to do your own search:

http://www.bls.gov/lpc/prodybar.htm

Let's see, 7 * 2.5 = 17.5 You could then extrapolate, considering it is
2008. So, yes, I do believe the 'worker' has increased his output by
20%, even though, I probably shouldn't believe anything that comes out of
the Bush government.

Well, that's kind of the point. What data do you trust?

Let's use a real life example. The Frito Lay plant down in Killingly
just put three robots into their packing and shipping department.
Replaced 23 workers who were moved to other positions within the
plant. The bots work 24/7/365, settting up boxes, packing them,
palleting them and moving them to a staging area for the warehouse or
the shipping dock.

Who should benefit from the obvious productivity increase - the
company or the workers?

So if Frito's productivity increased, but the wages didn't, whose
fault is that? Even more to the point, why should be workers get more
money because the company invested in a robotic operation that
improved productivity? Are they better off having a job at the same
wage or unemployment?

What's his point? That the worker is oppressed? Why?

What's the measure of productivity he's quoting? Per unit, per hour,
per what? I would think that if a company over 8 years increased it's
productivity by 20% (which is 2.5%/yr by the way) that's not a whole
lot considering inflation, raw material costs, etc. And if your
company has a high labor quotient to the cost of production, that's
almost negligible.