The Spark

the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist

“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx

Wages of Manufacturing Workers Decline

Dec 8, 2014

According to a study done by the National Employment Law Project, many factory jobs nowadays pay far less than what workers in almost identical positions earned in the past. Real wages for manufacturing workers fell by 4.4 percent from 2003 to 2013.

According to the report, this drop in real wages is accounted for by the fact that companies more and more have outsourced their parts operations where workers are paid about one third less than assembly line workers. And parts jobs account for 72 percent of all auto sector employment. Companies have also more and more increased their use of temporary workers.

The auto industry’s “impressive recovery” has been on the backs of the people who do all the work. Because not only are parts plant and temporary workers making less, their lower pay has been used against the rest of us to hold our wages down.