Detroit Commuter James Robertson’s Low-Wage Job Reflects New Reality
More: Detroit Commuter James Robertson’s Low-Wage Job Reflects New Reality
James Robertson’s story is emblematic of a new reality in the manufacturing business: Factory jobs no longer represent a guaranteed ladder to economic vitality.
Call it the Robertson economy.
The 56-year-old Detroiter’s story of walking 21 miles each day to an injection-molding job — first told Feb. 1 in the Free Press — captivated, inspired and horrified readers. The public spontaneously raised more than $350,000 for Robertson’s cause — all while raining down contempt through social media on his employer, Schain Mold & Engineering in Rochester Hills, for paying him just $10.55 per hour.
The fact is, experts say and statistics show that low-wage manufacturing jobs are part of a new normal in the labor markets of the U.S. and metro Detroit following decades of globalization and the Great Recession.
Many companies have even stopped hiring full time and are relying more on temporary workers who do not necessarily receive benefits.
“We may not like factory work at $10 per hour when we’re used to them paying $28, but that’s the market wage,” said Lou Glazer, president of the nonpartisan Ann Arbor-based think tank Michigan Future.
Following the explosion of publicity and social media criticism and threats directed at Schain, company managers were reluctant to talk to the Free Press about their business.
Robertson’s extreme commute is shocking and reflects a fundamentally broken mass-transit system. But his job? His job is the new normal in manufacturing. Globalization forces producers into a desperate, penny-for-penny competition for customers.
In the Robertson economy, either the wages stay low, or the work goes away, somewhere overseas or South of the border. Manufacturing wages have stagnated at lower levels because it’s easy for companies to outsource work to low-cost manufacturers around the globe.
Union proponents see Robertson’s compensation as symbolic of a structural problem plaguing America that public policymakers must address.
Cindy Estrada, a vice president of the UAW, decried the impact of low-wage manufacturing jobs on families.
Estrada, who leads contract bargaining with General Motors and multibillion-dollar automotive suppliers, said that, regrettably, a $10.55-per-hour wage is not unusual for workers in the U.S. auto parts industry. Companies such as Lear and Faurecia pay workers less than $15 per hour in some factories, she said.
“The wage is not an anomaly,” Estrada said. “There is a Wal-Marting of the manufacturing sector that people need to learn about.”
But the consternation over low manufacturing wages disguises what has become an emerging trade-off: Low wages breed more jobs.