A bit north of Seattle Washington is
an area flanked by two giants ... Boeing and Microsoft. Each giant dominates opposite
extremes of corporate actions. Both however, are classic examples of our altered state.
Boeing, the manufacturing giant, dismisses eight thousand five hundred employees while
Microsoft, the world’s mega software producer, is on a hiring binge. The displaced
workers at Boeing were definitely not being hired by Microsoft.
Nintendo of America, a Washington
based division of a Japanese corporation -- another giant related to the chip, provided
the needed capitol to save Seattle’s base-ball team. While that chip related industry
had money to spare, another manufacturing giant, Whyerhouser, closed one of its plants
located just north of Seattle. One thousand workers lost their jobs. It would be hard to
imagine Wyerhouser factory workers migrating to Microsoft.
Chip relayed industries forge ahead.
As we fill their pockets and archives we empty our future. Boeing and McDonnel Douglas say
we want to merge, and in the face of every law America once had on the books to prevent
such giants from being, "now," it is allowed. The merger is sure to create a
flow of layoffs. Once bigger meant better. Now bigger means less jobs, less workers.
Reversal of opportunity has become the order of our times.
As the eight thousand from Boeing and
the one thousand from Whyerhouser are set to pound the pavement, thousands more are
joining them from other local downsizings resulting from bank and communication mergers.
They will turn to the want ads, a
pitiful source for meaningful replacement jobs,
One Sunday I decided to review the
help wanted section of the newspaper. My convictions were worse than I imagined. Scanning
hundreds of ads, there were no more than a handful that might be useful to the ten
thousand or more skilled workers. None came near to offering salaries that previously
supported families.
Looking at the display ads was
another revelation. Heading the parade were schools offering retraining for today’s
jobs. They promised to "put your future together" by training for word
processing, data entry, and office automation. This! -- is the future, and those schools
"are a sign of the times."
Eliminating the chip oriented jobs
from the ads, the bulk of those remaining, required health care or sales experience,
followed by service and general labor. The top salaries were no more than $10,00 hr. and
very few existed in that lofty range.
As I continued to read and absorb the
ads, the jobs of tomorrow looked far worse than the jobs we emerged from yesterday.
Evaluated against the cost of supporting a family -- the dollar offered now, compared to
the value of the dollar earned then, "was a giant step backwards."
The following are two examples of the
more prestigious job opportunities open to applicants.
________________________________________________
Come be a positive team member of
M____ Health Club
WE OFFER
All shifts available, Exc. Salary
$8.30 & up, Flexible Hours
Medical and Dental, Paid Holidays
________________________________________________
IN OFFICE EXAMINER
Draw Blood - EKG - and other duties
Cert. Preferred
to 1,200 Mo.
________________________________________________
I’m sure you will agree neither
of those two could possibly be future jobs for exiled talents. Even if two in a family
could qualify for jobs like those, trying to exist on their restructured combined salary
(lower than before) ... will surely put them in deep trouble. Any wonder why the
traditional family is disappearing?
I continued my investigation by separating and
categorizing the entire classified. The specter of the future grew even more dismal.
Adults Delivering Newspapers .. $300
to 400 Mo.
Temporary positions, Summer . 6.50 to
7.00 Hr.
Bus Drivers
............................ 6.25 up
Electricians
............................ 15.65 Hr.
Data Collector ........................
6.00 up
Home Care Attendant ............. 6.40 Hr.
Laborers ................................ 6.40 Hr.
Maintenance Supervisor .......... 8.75 Hr.
Management Trainees ............. 6.00 to 10.00 Hr.
Mental Health Councilors ........ 7.25 to 8.00 Hr.
Office - Computer Literate ...... 7.00 to 8.00 Hr.
Store Detective ...................... 6.00 Hr.
Welder .................................. 11.00 Hr.
Welders Helper ...................... 6.00 Hr.
The foregoing pretty much depicts the
panorama of hopelessness. it’s a downsizing of the middle-class who may never again
have an opportunity to be employed in family sustaining jobs.
The odds that a downsized worker will
find a decent job in a shrinking manufacturing landscape ... is pooh-poohed by our
leaders. They won’t hear of anything that impacts their ranting about America’s
present prosperity. We won’t be allowed to upset their apple-cart.
Another devastating problem connected
to governments retraining mania that further exasperates older downsizing victims is ...
the government’s intentions to push social security retirement benefits further into
the future. They will not approach the fact that, even with retraining, the older person
is being shunned from the worker’s market. He is classified as too old, overqualified
for the prevailing
low paying jobs, or has a yesteryear
attitude that the kids doing the hiring today don’t want in their world. When your
hair turns gray, try for a job at McDonnald’s. It does wonders for "their
image."
Devoting most of our time to
researching and writing, my wife and I kept afloat financially by working part time as
telemarketers. Our backgrounds as executives made us good communicators and listeners.
Telemarketing gave us an unexpected opportunity to converse with a broad segment of
society. We were inadvertently accumulating a vast amount of understanding, an intimate
poll, "a detailed truth" that reinforced our convictions. There was no escaping
the gloominess of the atmosphere that came across the telephone wires. Far too many people
felt trapped, no longer believing there may be a way out.
We learned that an inordinate amount
of people were forced to sell their homes before the bank would take it over and leave
them homeless. Those barely hanging on by their finger nails, openly discussed their
dilemmas, and welcomed our brief but sincere effort to relay compassion. The fortunate
families in which both husband and wife had a job ... were most often working different
shifts. They barely saw or had the luxury of talking to one another. Communication was
conducted through refrigerator notes. Having jointly chatted with about 100,000 Americans
during the past few years, the obvious conclusion was ... somebody is keeping our state of
affairs under tight wraps. This is not what the American dream is all about.
Whenever I hear our self esteemed
bureaucrats in Washington explain the need to retrain our society "I recoil."
Obviously, the retraining has nothing to do with a rejuvenated manufacturing base. The
retraining pure and simple, is to follow "their pathway to the future" and give
yourself to the computer. As noted in my survey of the help wanted ads, computer literate
jobs were linked to the lowest salaries offered. That is not a path to the future that
anybody I know, wants to put a foot on.
Free trade is another treacherous
euphemism for power’s internationally devised coercive agreements, supported by the
turncoats (our elected) we believed to be protecting us from such anarchy. Our economic
base has become a base for the elite of America. It has become a nightmare for the
pilfered masses.
Obvious giants and obvious limited
earning want ads are outstanding examples of what’s going on. This is what we are
being told to swallow. Sorry, "the pill is too big, too unpalatable," for too
many. It will never go down well.
Of the two different giants -- it
must be crystal clear by now ... the path that power is dead set on making us follow.
"We don’t have to."
Be patient
downloading. It's worth it.
