To the Editor:
Millions of UPS packages throughout the nation are delayed today due to the clash of two titans of today’s economy: corporate America’s need for the flexibility of part-time workers, and America’s workers’ assertion that they cannot raise a family with a mere $9 an hour, when full-time jobs pay on average $19.95 an hour. In the country which has always been the heartland of free markets, the natural ring for this collision of titans would seem to be the market. Given the flexibility part-time workers afford our economy, it would be foolish to reduce their number. But if corporate America needs part-time workers, it sure is not showing it by paying them less than half the wage their ‘inflexible’ counterparts, full-time workers, earn. The logical solution to the UPS crisis appears to be to raise the wages and benefits of part-time workers. Are profits insufficient to do that? It seems unlikely, given UPS’ tremendous growth in the past few years. But if they were, then the wages of full-time workers should be lowered accordingly (something that does not seem impossible given they are reportedly the highest in the industry). If America needs part-time workers, it cannot afford to pay them less per hour than full-time workers.
This crisis is not specific to UPS, but a result of the increasing demand for flexibility in the work force. Now more than ever, workers have to be prepared to have more than one job during a lifetime, or even during a day. America’s labor legislation should be updated: there is no reason for a part-time worker who works full hours divided between two or more companies should earn any less than his counterpart working in only one company.
ALEJANDRO BÄCKER
Pasadena, California, August 5th, 1997