What is "The Great Speedup"? Might as well call it "The Great Squeeze"

From Mother Jones:

All Work and No Pay: The Great Speedup

Illustration: Mark Matcho

You: doing more with less. Corporate profits: up 22 percent. The dirty secret of the jobless recovery.

— By Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery

This is an absolute must read for anyone trying to face the depressing realities regarding our economy and possibly even our society. Here’s a highlight:

Webster’s defines speedup as “an employer’s demand for accelerated output without increased pay,” and it used to be a household word. Bosses would speed up the line to fill a big order, to goose profits, or to punish a restive workforce. Workers recognized it, unions (remember those?) watched for and negotiated over it—and, if necessary, walked out over it.

But now we no longer even acknowledge it—not in blue-collar work, not in white-collar or pink-collar work, not in economics texts, and certainly not in the media (except when journalists gripe about the staff-compacted-job-expanded newsroom). Now the word we use is “productivity,” a term insidious in both its usage and creep. The not-so-subtle implication is always: Don’t you want to be a productive member of society? Pundits across the political spectrum revel in the fact that US productivity (a.k.a. economic output per hour worked) consistently leads the world. Yes, year after year, Americans wring even more value out of each minute on the job than we did the year before. U-S-A! U-S-A!

Seriously, go read the rest.

What’s the big deal? Well, notice that employers (aka corporations) don’t mind exploiting the workers (aka you and me).  When they want more from us but give us less or nothing in return, it starts to feel like a Ponzi scheme, doesn’t it?

We’re told the wealth will trickle down, but really it trickles up.