The Midwesterner: Blogging the Global Midwest

New Midwestern Labor Wars

Earlier this year, the battleground in Midwestern labor wars involved public sector workers. This summer, the front line has shifted to private-sector manufacturing unions, especially in the cornerstone industries of steel and heavy equipment.

In Joliet, Illinois, most of the 780 union workers at a Caterpillar factory have been on strike for twelve weeks, to protest company demands for a six-year wage freeze for top-tier workers, plus sharply increased worker contributions to health care plans. At the same time, the Wall Street Journal reports that ArcelorMittal, the world's biggest steelmaker, is demanding that wages and benefits be cut for all workers by no less than $28 per hour, or 36 percent. U.S. Steel, the nation's biggest steelmaker, is heading into contract talks with the United Steelworkers Union (USW): U.S. Steel will be focusing on pension and health-care costs, but apparently is demanding fewer union concessions than is ArcelorMittal.

The two steel companies employ 26,000 workers nationwide, but more than half -- 15,000 -- work at two big mills in northern Indiana, the U.S. Steel Gary Works and the ArcelorMittal plant at Burns Harbor. ArcelorMittal is headquartered in Luxembourg and its Burns Harbor plant, originally owned by Bethlehem Steel, is the largest steelmaking complex in the western hemisphere.

The details -- pay scales, profit margins and significance -- differ widely between Peoria-based Caterpillar and the two steel companies. But the background noise is the same. All three companies, like their industries, have gone global. Midwestern workers compete with workers around the world. Unlike their companies, they can't pick up and move to some other country. The USW, like the International Association of Machinists Union in Joliet, says it will strike if necessary, but in the global economy where jobs are more mobile than unions, this strike threat often is an empty one.

Chicago Regional Unity? Milwaukee Takes The Lead

We've written here before about the report earlier this year from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which urged closer cooperation between the balkanized towns and cities in the Chicago economic area, around the south end of Lake Michigan.

Now, one of those cities, Milwaukee, has taken the lead. But Chicago also is paying attention. Good things might be about to happen.

Jobs and the Soft Skills Gap

In this time of economic downturn and high unemployment, an amazing number of employers complain that they have jobs to offer but can't find qualified workers. Often, these are extremely high-tech jobs that require specific and intense training. But the problem may be more basic than this.

Too many young people are simply unprepared to enter the work world, at any level. Is this the fault of the schools, of businesses, of parents -- and how do we fix it?   

A fascinating article in two newspapers serving the northern Illinois towns of Sterling, Dixon and Rock Falls said that too many young people -- high school graduates, largely unlikely to go on to college -- simply have no idea how to apply for a job, or any clue as to the impression they make on a potential employer. These are "soft skills," the reporter, Bridget Flynn, wrote, as opposed to the "hard skills" of running machinery, but they are as crucial as math or science when it comes to getting a job.

Some Summer Stories

Vacation's over and it's time to catch up on the news. There's a lot of it, from the weather, to ethanol, to vacant airports: whatever happened to the dog days of summer? Herewith some thoughts on stories that popped out of newspapers awaiting me on my return.

Every Midwesterner knows we're in a hot dry summer. But it's farmers, suffering through a drought after that hot-and-cold spring, who are truly singing the blues. Talk to vendors in farmers' markets and you hear nothing but woe. Peaches are all but wiped out. The apple crop is down. U-Pick-Em blueberry farms are turning away tourists: the crop this year is too small.

The corn crop is the big story. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says about 40 percent of the crop in Iowa is in "good or excellent" shape, compared to 82 percent last year. Other states report the same. If we don't get big rains soon -- not just showers, but true soakers -- it's going to get worse.