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(COOLLIST) class.war@silicon.valley
The May 27, 1996 issue of _The Nation_, the venerable journal of
progressive politics, has a fascinating article about the plight of
low-skilled workers in Palo Alto. The article,
"class.war@silicon.valley", details how janitorial workers for
companies like H-P, AMD, and Sun were able to unionize, eventually
boosting their hourly wages from $5/hr to $6.92/hr, a yearly salary of
less that $15,000. While Silicon Valley's average family income was
near $60,000, one third of the workers in the area make less than
$15,000. The bottom 20% of the workforce makes 3.6% of the total
salary or the area.
I know many of the readers of this list are either technology
professionals or studying to become TPs. While we will most likely be
treated well in the job market, please remember that there are people
who perform essential tasks but are not adequately rewarded. The
C.E.O. of AMD, W.J. Sanders 3d makes 717 times the salary of his
entry-level janitorial staff. Some inequity is a result of the
free-market nature of employment in America, but a lot of it is
completely unfair.
Check out the Nation online at <URL:http://www.thenation.com/>. Its
too late to download the text of the article (their archives might be
working soon), but they have a lot of other interesting and useful
thoughts.
Peace and love,
--
Benjamin L. Combee (combee@techwood.org) <URL:http://www.yak.net/combee/>
that public-access-TV-making, video-game-collecting, cryptography-pushing,
World-Wide-Web-explaining, fem-music-loving, bad-pun-creating guy in Austin
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