[lbo-talk] labor could get tagged

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Fri May 6 10:06:38 PDT 2005


Ed Hyman, Wall Street's favorite economist (whose skill is producing tomorrow's conventional wisdom today) writes in today's commentary:


>LABOR COULD GET TAGGED IN 2005
>
>There are a number of reasons 2005 could be a negative year for
>labor, similar to Reagan's air-traffic controllers firings in 1981.
>
>1) Assuming the economy slows, airlines and autos, two cyclical
>industries, will come under more intense pressure to obtain labor
>concessions.
>
>2) Like today, the 1995 mid-cycle slowdown was preceded by a jobless
>recovery, ie, labor was relatively weak going into the slowdown, and
>this could perhaps explain why the ECI [employment cost index - DH]
>slowed sharply.
>
>3) If the economy slows, layoffs could accelerate - IBM's 13,000
>announcement yesterday could be the start of a string of trophy
>layoffs.



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