Michael Moore

[Rakesh Bhandari]

Yes leftist intellectuals would be better off if they would at least
supplement the holy trinity of race/class/gender with that analytical
trinity of individual piece wages/team piece wages/time wages. In an
interesting headline story in the WSJ today, one learns of Levi-Strauss'
attempt to dispense with individual piece wages because of the high injury
rate due to the rapid repetitive motions to which workers were subjecting
themselves; Levi's wanted workers to rotate tasks in teams paid on the
basis of the pieces they collectively produced. The transition to team
piece wages in the Nashville, TN plant failed to reduce unit costs (the
reporter discusses the problems in the system) and Levi Strauss seems now
poised to return to individual piece rate wages and/or relocate more
production abroad (or perhaps to US states with more eviserated workers'
comp, one imagines). I believe Erik Olin Wright has shown that minorities
and women make up a disproportionate share of factory operatives.

Best, Rakesh