Background
Uchitelle, Louis was born on March 21, 1932 in New York City. Son of Abraham and Alice Lee (Cronbach) Uchitelle.
(Layoffs have become a fact of life in today’s economy; in...)
Layoffs have become a fact of life in today’s economy; initiated in the mid 1970s, they are now widely expected, and even accepted. It doesn’t have to be that way.In The Disposable American, award-winning reporter Louis Uchitelle offers an eye-opening account of layoffs in America–how they started, their questionable necessity, and their devastating psychological impact on individuals at all income levels. Through portraits of both executives and workers at companies such as Stanley Works, United Airlines, and Citigroup, Uchitelle shows how layoffs are in fact counterproductive, rarely promoting efficiency or profitability in the long term. Recognizing that a global competitive economy makes tightening necessary, Uchitelle offers specific recommendations for government policies that would encourage companies to avoid layoffs and help create jobs, benefiting workers, corporations, and the nation as a whole.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1400034337/?tag=2022091-20
(The Disposable American is an eye-opening account of layo...)
The Disposable American is an eye-opening account of layoffs in America—their questionable necessity, their overuse, and their devastating impact on individuals at all income levels. Yet despite all this, they are accelerating. The award-winning New York Times economics writer Louis Uchitelle explains how, in the mid-1970s, the first major layoffs, initiated as a limited response to the inroads of foreign competition, spread and multiplied, in time destroying the notion of job security and the dignity of work. We see how the barriers to layoffs tumbled, and how by the late 1990s the acquiescence was all but complete. In a compelling narrative, the author traces the rise of job security in the United States to its heyday in the 1950s and 1960s, and then the panicky U-turn. He describes the unraveling through the experiences of both executives and workers: three CEOs who ran the Stanley Works, the tool manufacturer, from 1968 through 2003, who gradually became more willing to engage in layoffs; highly skilled aircraft mechanics in Indianapolis discarded as United Airlines shut down a state-of-the-art maintenance facility, damaging the city as well as the workers; a human resources director at Citigroup, declared nonessential despite excellent performance; a banker in Connecticut lucky to find a lower-paying job in a state tourist office. Uchitelle makes clear the ways in which layoffs are counterproductive, rarely promoting efficiency or profitability in the long term. He explains how our acquiescence encourages wasteful mergers, outsourcing, the shifting of production abroad, the loss of union protection, and wage stagnation. He argues against our ongoing public policy—inaugurated by Ronald Reagan and embraced by every president since—of subsidizing retraining for jobs that, in fact, do not exist. He breaks new ground in documenting the failure of these policies and in describing the significant psychological damage that the trauma of a layoff invariably inflicts, even on those soon reemployed. It is damage that, multiplied over millions of layoffs, is silently undermining the nation’s mental health. While recognizing that in today’s global economy some layoffs must occur, the author passionately argues that government must step in with policies that encourage companies to restrict layoffs and must generate jobs to supplement the present shortfall.There are specific recommendations for achieving these goals and persuasive arguments that workers, business, and the nation will benefit as a result. An urgent, essential book that tells for the first time the story of our long and gradual surrender to layoffs—from a writer who has covered the unwinding for nearly twenty years and who now bears witness.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1400041171/?tag=2022091-20
Uchitelle, Louis was born on March 21, 1932 in New York City. Son of Abraham and Alice Lee (Cronbach) Uchitelle.
Bachelor of Arts, University of Michigan, 1954.
He has worked for the New York Times since 1980, where he writes about business and economics. Uchitelle joined The Times in 1980 from the Associated Press, where he had been a reporter, editor, foreign correspondent in Latin America and a news executive. From 1967 to 1973 he was bureau chief in Buenos Aires, Argentina, reporting such stories as the rise and fall of the Tupamaro urban guerrillas in neighboring Uruguay, the Argentine guerrilla movement, the numerous economic issues and trends in Latin America"s southern cone countries, the return of Juan Domingo Perón and the election of a Peronist government in 1973.
From 1964 to 1967 he was the Associated Press"s correspondent and bureau chief in San Juan, Puerto Rico, with responsibility for the Caribbean.
His reporting included heavy emphasis on economics, at a time when the islands were trying to form an economic union. He played a lead role in Associated Press"s coverage of the United States. military intervention in the Dominican Republic in 1965.
Uchitelle began in journalism as a general assignment reporter on The Mount Vernon (New York) Daily Argus. He grew up in Great Neck, New York and received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Michigan.
He has taught news and feature writing at Columbia University.
In March 2006 Knopf published his book, The Disposable American: Layoffs and Their Consequences. He lives in New York City. Recently, Uchitelle moderated a "Times Talk" panel discussion with John Edwards, Barbara Ehrenreich, Stephen Moore and Katherine Newman entitled "American Middle Class: At Risk?".
(The Disposable American is an eye-opening account of layo...)
(Layoffs have become a fact of life in today’s economy; in...)
Married Joan Eva Shapiro, October 7, 1966. Children: Isabel Anne, Jennifer Emily.