Page 4-Wednesday, June 27, 1979-The Michigan Daily
t Mchigan Daily
Eighty-nine Years of Editorial Freedom
420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, Ml. 48109
Vol. LXXXIX, No. 34-S News Phone: 764-0552
Edited and managed by students
at the University of Michigan
President's solar
plan too cautious
W HEN PRESIDENT CARTER dedicated a
solar-powered water heater for the White
House staff and unveiled a plan to increase the
role of solar power in the nation's energy policies
last week, his actions were mainly symbolic. But
Congressional support for the plan Mr. Carter
outlined and a push for more current research will
encourage the development of solar power, which
is a prerequisite for a responsible national energy
policy in the future.I
During a well-orchestrated media event on the
White House roof, Mr. Carter asked the nation to
strive to meet 20 per cent of its energy needs with
solar and other forms of power by the year 2000.
The core of his plan is a $400 million Solar
Development Bank, which would help finance
private projects. Mr. Carter's outline includes
development of other energy forms such as
gasohol, wood, and water. Currently these sour-
ces provide approximately six per cent of the
nation's energy supply.
Experts estimate, however, that even without
Mr. Carter's plan, about 13 per cent of energy
needs in 2000 will be met by the forms covered in
the president's proposal.It appears that Mr. Car-
ter's plan may be too conservative to make the
sun a major source of this country's power.
Mr. Carter suggested funding most of his
program with an Energy Security Fund,
established with taxes collected from oil com-
panies' windfall profits following the removal of
federal controls from oil prices. The windfall tax
proposal has been controversial in Congress, and
its passage is not assured. Mr. Carter already has
placed what should be a top priority energy
development program on a shaky financial-base.
More definite steps are needed to encourage solar
development.
Mr. Carter also recommended a $1 billion solar
energy budget for the government's fiscal year
beginning Oct. 1. This is not enough to put solar
energy within the reach of the general public.
More government money and private investments
are needed to make solar power the viable energy
source it must be in the future.
BUSINESS STAFF
USAC ULBERSON ......................... Business Manager
ARLENE SARYAN ...... ................. Sales Manager
BETH WARREN.............Display Manager
BE'TH BASSIER.............. Classified Mnager
STAN BERKMAN.......... ati lA .tisig Managr
RANDY KELLEY ...................... Operations Supervisor
PETE PETERSEN ..................,Advertising Co-ordinator
SPORTS STAFF
SEOFF LARCOM......Sports Editor
BIIL.Y SAHN........................ Executive Sports Editor
BILLY NEFF ......................... Managing Sports Editor
DAN PERRIN. .... Managing Sports Editor
SAN FRANCISCO -She works i
as an investment analyst on Mon-i
tgomery Street, goes with her
friends to moderately priced0
French restaurants, and drives a f
diesel Rabbit.
He heads the tax section of a th e
corporate legal firm, takes flying in
lessons on the weekend, and
THEY JOG AFTER work nearU S
the Marina, buy grass and
cocaine, and almost never eat at
home. labor
'She" and "he'represent two of
the fastest-growing occupational
groups in the U.S. - professionalf
workers and managersa. The
Current Population Survey for
1977 shows 13.7 million workers in
the "professional, technical and
kindred' category. This com-
pares with 7 million, shown in a By THOMAS BRON
comparable data source, for 1958
- a 97 per cent increase in a
single generation. The
managerial category has in-
creased about 42 per cent since
195to9.7millionworkers. mid-1970's, the foreign sales
Together, the two categories the Fortune 500 firms in the top
account for over one quarter of cities totalled an incredib
all U.S. workers. The occupations $213 billion.
range from doctors, lawyers,
writers, teachers and accountan- A RECENT Columbia Univ(
ts to dieticians, computer sity study of the "corporai
specialiststand corporate headquarters complex" in Ne
managers. White collar workers, York City found that nearly 100,
including those in clerical and the Fortune 500 list of large
sales, now comprise one half of corporations have headquarte
the labor force, up from 41 per in the city. This complex accou
cent just 20 years ago. ts for over one-fifth of all wa,
4
of
50
le
er-
te
ew"
of
est
rs
g-
Lge
"WE ARE witnessing a basic
restructuring of the domestic
economy," says Bureau of Labor
Statistics IBLS) economist
Richard Rosen.
According to the BLS, the per-
centage of white collar workers
in major cities is still greater -
70 per cent in Washinton, D.C., 62
per cent in Nassau and Suffolk
counties on Long Island, 62 per
cent in Denver-Bolder, and 60 per
cent in San Francisco, San Jose,
and Seattle. Professionals and
managers alone constitute more
than 30 per cent of the workers in
Washinton, D.C., Boston, New
York, Denver, Minneapolis, Los
Angeles, San Jose, San Fran-
ciscoand Seattle.
"San Francisco has always
been a financial and trading cen-
ter," says Merlin Meyer of the
BLS West Coast office. "But
there is definitely a major shift
going on."
WHO HIRES these white collar
workers, and why do they
migrate primarily to the coastal
cities? the BLS refuses to
speculate. "We just provide
data for other people to analyze,"
says Rosen of the BLS Office of
Employment Structure and
Trends.
But Merlin Meyer pointed out
the importance of New York,
Boston, Hartford, Houston, and
many of the West Coast cities as
administrative, financial, and in-
surance centers. In fact, many of
the jobs so, attractive in the
coastal cities involve
professional and managerial ser-
vices for the global operations of
U.S.-based multinational cor-
porations.
U.S. direct investment abroad
rose to $149 billion in 1977, in-
cluding investments of at least 10
per cent of the voting stock of
foreign companies as well as
loans to foreign affiliates. In the
and salaried workers, and one-
fourth of total payroll ($8.7
billion).
"As such," the report stated,
"the complex represents the
largest aggregation of economic
activity in the City, considerably
larger in terms of jobs and in-
come than manufacturing,
municipal government, or non-
profit enterprise."
Despite the much-reported in-
dustrial decline of the Northeast,
nearly one half of the Fortune 500
largest corporations still have
their headquarters in the region's
10 largest metropolitan areas.
THE STUDY found, however,
that corporate headquarters are
increasingly mobile. Some have
moved to the Sunbelt extending
from Atlanta to Los Angeles,
where wages, rent, taxes, and
living costs are substantially
lower than in the Northeast.
In the process, they have
spread the distribution of
professionals and managers like
seeds in the wind. Each corporate
headquarters requires its own
network of service companies,
together providing jobs for the
nation's well-bred and well-
educated.
Barbara and John Ehrenreich,
authors of "Between Labor and
Capital," see the rapid growth of
white collar jobs as the emergen-
ce of a new class, the
professional-managerial class
(PMC). Ranging in occupation
from engineers and teachers to
social workers, the PMC's fun-
ction is the direct or indirect
management of the working class
on the job, in schools, and
through the mass media.
THE EHRENREICHS believe
the attitudes of professionals and
managers combine hostility
toward their employers with
dislike of most other workers.
These conflicting attitudes define
a unique set of political interests,
including environmental, anti-
nuclear, and anti-corporate cam-
paigns that often antagonize both
big business and the labor
movement. Professionals ad
workers alike must work for
wages, say the Ehrenreichs, but
they confront each other over
issues of knowledge, skills, and
culture.
"We may now be seeing a con-
centration of professionals and
managers in the U.S. cities that
have world corporate headquar.
ters," Barbara Ehrenreich says.
"Other professionals then follow
out of preference for the area."
In many cities, old and new
residents .fight over housing,
race, culture, and ultimately, the
class character of city neigh-
borhoods. Professionals and
managers have more money, and
can pay more for housing,
clothing, restaurants, and enter-
tainment. The new professionals
invariably spark an explosion of
housing sales and condominium
conversions as one urban
population displaces another
using the simple expedient of the
real estate market.
THE OCCUPATIONAL shift is
now underway and being felt in
manufacturing areas.
Steelworkers in Youngstown,
electric workers in Greenfield,
Massachusetts, and auto workers
in Detroit are well aware of the
changing U.S. work force. From
1974 to 1978, overall manufac-
turing employment fell by al-
most 600,000 jobs to less than a
quarter of all U.S. workers.
This month Chrysler announ-
ced it wouldtshut down the giant
Dodge Main plant in Hamtram-
ck, Michigan, at a loss of 3,200
jobs. Last year the company soli
its French subsidiariescto
Puegeot and its Brazilian com-
pany to Volkswagen, but still
operates plants in Canada,
Britain, and Australia, and sells
subcompacts in the U.S. made by
Mitsubishi in Japan.
T HE FAST-GROWING ser-
vice industry is picking up some
of the slack created in part by the
export of U.S. assembly and
manufacturing jobs. More than
three out of every five new jobs
created in the past 26 years have
been in retail trade or services.
But many of those jobs are part-
time, and wages are traditionally
low.
By all accounts, the composite
parts of the labor market are
quickly diverging into two op-
posing camps. Columbia Univer-
sity economics professor Eli Gin-
zberg believes the U.S. is
developing a dual labor market,
sharply dividing high-income,
high-status employment from
service jobs with low pay, poor
working conditions, and little
chance for advancement.
"We can't explain the causes,
says Richard Rosen of the BLS.
"It could be just supply and
demand in the world job market.
But whatever the reasons, the in-
dustrial structure of the U.S. is
undergoing some very basic
changes."
Thomas Brom is a Pacific
News Service editor who
specializes in labor and
economics.