RSGOLD-RUNESCAPEGOLD

According to the White House, 20 years ago the average chief executive of a big American company made 40 times what the average worker made Today, chief executives make 200 times more. But it also reflects a subtle but growing resentment among many Americans at the perception that they have been short-changed by the corporate bosses. It is a perception founded on sound statistics.Fortune magazine said in June that the US economy was stronger than it has ever been. A recent analysis by Merrill Lynch, the brokerage firm, was titled "Paradise Found: the Best of all Possible Economies". And, indeed, the US economy has been growing at a rate of 3.5 per cent for the past 18 months; unemployment stands at 5 per cent, the lowest since 1973. That is one reason why President Bill Clinton has resisted anxious calls from UPS and the business community at large for government intervention.

He owned a new house, two trucks and two cars and had put his two children through college. But he still felt the sacrifice of picking up $55, instead of the $1,000 plus he would have made if he had worked last week, was worth it. "Part-time drivers get paid half what I get and that's not right. Those people have small benefits, no pensions and they've had no raise for four years, even though the company made a billion last year."Mr Radzville - a large, gruff man - spoke with a keen sense that those less fortunate than he were not being treated justly. "I hope people all over the country will flock to the unions now, because in the US the unions have been going down in recent years. But it's time to remind employers that they have to care for all the people who work for them, not just their profit margins."While the negative effects of the strike have been felt everywhere - UPS says that the 12 million packages it delivers daily account for 6 per cent of GDP - polls show that public sympathy is with the unions. But what I see is this trend to hire people on a part-time basis, I see outsourcing to other states and to Mexico, I see chief executives making $1m a year, I see legislation that's tough on labour and gives tax breaks to the rich, I see attacks on the welfare system - and I don't like what I see because I worry about my daughter and other young American couples battling to raise families, struggling to send their kids to college."Dick Radzville, who has been at UPS for 31 years and has the same job as Mr Crigger, said he had made $59,000 last year For himself, he had no complaints.

Wall Street has been breaking records all year and the US economy is, by conventional accounts, booming, yet many workers feel they have been denied their share of the cake, that the approach of big business towards labour has tended to be "How much can we get away with?""For me the money is not the issue," Mr Crigger said "I'm compensated very well As a delivery driver I receive $19.95 an hour. What was most surprising about the sentiment of the strikers gathered at the Teamsters' Washington office to collect their almost token union cheque - value $55 - was that it reflected a measure of working-class solidarity that seemed to have vanished from the American labour landscape. We're not going to take it on the chin any more."The specific demands of the 185,000 workers striking nationwide, two- thirds of UPS's total labour force, concern pay, job security and pensions. They are particularly incensed by the company's increasing reliance on cheap part-time labour to cut costs and boost profits, which last year climbed to $1bn (pounds 630m).But a deeper principle lies at stake.