Many
Americans remember the old McDonald’s commercial that had us all hungry for “two
all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, and
onions on a sesame seed bun.” When you felt compelled to purchase
one of those concoctions, did you feel as though you had just
bought a product similar to the factory-produced computer that
sits on your desktop? Or the desk it sits upon? The Bush
Administration seems to think you should.
The
President sent his new Economic Report to Congress last month,
and buried among
the 417 pages was the Administration’s query about reclassifying
fast food workers as manufacturing positions. The New York
Times reports the White House drew a box for emphasis around
the section that laments the current system of classifying jobs “is
not straightforward.” The report went on to ask, “When a fast-food
restaurant sells a hamburger, for example, is it providing a ‘service’ or
is it combining inputs to ‘manufacture’ a product?” According
to the Administration’s logic, fast food production is the equivalent
of producing an automobile or manufacturing a computer.
It
seems, however, that there is a more logical explanation as
to why this Administration
would like to add burgeoning fast food industry jobs into the
dwindling manufacturing column. It is a good old-fashioned shell
game.
This
President has been under fire from news commentators and presidential
aspirants
for the growing number of manufacturing job losses we are experiencing
in this country. And exit polling of those voting in recent
primaries indicated that jobs were their top priority, and rightly
so.
The
day after the President gave his annual State of the Union
Address, his wished for “bump” was
usurped by headlines similar to the one which appeared in a South
Carolina newspaper that decried three straight years of job losses
in the State. According to the accompanying article this is
the first time South Carolina has experienced such a fate since
the Great Depression, better known to those of us who came of
age in the 40’s and 50’s as “Hoover Days.” South Carolina has
lost 15,000 manufacturing jobs in the last year alone. Our textile
industry has dwindled to around 60,000, less than half its force
a decade ago. The headlines are equally bleak across the country.
Combining
that all-beef patty, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles,
and onions on
a sesame seed bun may require a form of production, but it doesn’t
constitute a product. Would Mr. Bush differentiate between the
fast food employees who make the sandwiches and those who ring
up the orders? How about between the ones who cook the French
or “freedom” fries and the ones who “bust” the tables? That
sandwich may be as popular as a BMW but it is not assembled in
a factory and shipped to outlets, creating jobs for truck drivers,
railroad employees and air and sea workers. For most Americans,
a trip to a fast food establishment is an abbreviated visit to
a full-service restaurant. What can we expect to see next, the
job of making a Singapore Sling reclassified to one of manufacturing?
Just
as that jingle sticks in the American consciousness, the mass
exodus of job
losses is having a similar impression on this nation’s people. I
have high regards and great respect for those who work in fast
food restaurants, but instead of looking for ways to cook the
books to create the illusion that the valuable services they
render are a form of manufacturing jobs, this President ought
to spend more time and energy creating more meaningful jobs and
protecting those that already exist.