For rank and file, wages are falling

LOS ANGELES, May 28 (UPI) -- U.S. workers and the unemployed are finding out the labor market belongs to employers these days, with wages falling, data shows.

With 13.7 million U.S. workers listed as unemployed, there is little pressure on employers to raise wages. "They know so many people want it, they're going to get someone to do the job," said Tangela Ridgeway, an entry-level clerk and mother of three who has taken a cut in pay -- from $18.75 per hour to $14 per hour -- in recent years, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday.

Data shows that entry-level workers that make up 80 percent of the private sector workforce were paid an average of $8.93 per hour two years ago and are now making $8.76 per hour.

In California, private sector rank and file workers pay went up 2 percent in April, but the cost of living rose 3 percent in the same period, the newspaper said.

Nationally, retail workers are making 55 cents less per hour this year then they did in 2006. At HVH Transportation Inc., in Denver, compensation is now $30 per stop and 87.5 cents per mile, less than wages in 2009.

"Workers have no bargaining power at all when unemployment is this high," said former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, now a professor at the University of California, Berkeley.