Thursday, September 04, 2003
Ah well, I'm back with some time. I was over reading
Joel the un-guru ;oD and find myself outed. No, I didn't blog about labor day.
I don't think I've ever really celebrated Labor Day as a holiday. It was usually just the last day of beaching and camping for us. Labor Day weekend was a big campout where my dad and the other Beach Bums got more than drunk and us kids ran around like escapees from
Lord of the Flies. (I won't go into the summer one of the other kids and I started cutting up soda cans and frying minnows alive over little fires. My dad thought it was cute. Yeah, there's a reason I'm so screwed up.)
My dad worked for Catapillar Tractor Company for 30 years. Which meant that he was a member of the UAW back when that actually meant something. Every day we would hear in graphic detail just how much my dad hated the company he worked for and the bosses he worked for. "Dumber than a box of rocks without a bottom" was one of the nicer things he ever said about his forman. He often told me I was smarter than "Jimbo". And this was when he was working. Every three years the contract between Catapillar Tractor Company and the UAW Local would come up for review. And every three years like clockwork we geared up for Strike Season.
Peoria Illinois is a pretty typical midwest metropolis. A big city in the middle of farm country that tries to be the cultural mecca for the entire surrounding area. And like most of these areas there was one major business that supported the majority of the economy in that area. In this instance, Catapillar. You didn't need to carry an insurance card because every hospital carried Cat insurance forms. It was like that. Cat workers drove miles from small towns all around the area to work there. My dad had a 1 1/2 to 2 hour drive to work every day. And the money they made was taken back to the smaller towns and spent. But every Strike Season the entire area would go on Strike Alert. It was like a tornado warning or DefCon 4. Every news channel lead off with the report on the negotiations. The newspapers were filled with it. Every business from feed store to barber shop would be abuzz about how "The Talks" were going. Churches prayed for the negotiators and food banks started stocking up on supplies. It was like the region was going to go to war. And they were.
The first volley would be Management's proposed contract. The next day there would be a listing of all the cuts they wanted in pay and benefits. Then would be the return volley from the UAW of
their proposed contract with all the additions they wanted. In the early days it was just a bit of give and take and they eventually reached a settlement and life went back to normal. But as time wore on The Talks went longer. News reports showed Union Leaders storming out of conference rooms slamming doors and throwing chairs. The real strikes began. I don't remember what year it was but I must have been in Junior High at the time. They were out on strike for 7 months. The Union will pay you $60 week in strike pay. If your wife/husband didn't work or you hadn't stocked up, things got tight quick. Commercials started coming on the air from businesses saying they would sell you furniture and you wouldn't have to pay until the strike was over. One by one families started losing their houses. Cars were repossesed. The shelters started filling up, food banks started running out of food. Pictures came on the news and in the papers of families living in their cars or waiting in line at the shelter for a meal. And every union member cursed the name of the CEO of Catapillar with all the vehemence of pride colliding with desparation. And they cursed the Union Leaders.
At our house, my mom had a job at the school as a secretary. We lived in a mobile home which was paid off so that was one thing we didn't have to worry about. My dad doesn't believe in buying on time if he can help it. But after a while a family of 4 can't live quite as comfortably on a secretary's salary. We ate lots of hot dogs during that time. My gramma lived just up the lane from us so she would give us some of her canning from the basement. Dad was gone every night at Picket Duty and would come home sloshed to rant and rail against the universe to any of us who would listen.
He's retired now. At the time of his retirement Catapillar was undergoing major overhauls. They were buying out as many workers as they could to early retirement and hiring guys off the street for half the pay. Catapillar Tractor Company operated for, I think it was 5 years without a contract at all. Just this year they cut medical benefits for retirees so my dad with his asthmatic bronchitis and my mom entering into their golden years now, on their fixed incomes, have to pay to go to the doctor and gods know what else.
So why did I not blog about labor day? Because labor day is a farce. If you really want to honor workers, do something about getting the minimum wage raised. Start some legislation to strengthen the unions that Reagan crushed in the '80s. Do away with "Right to Work" or "Employee at Will" states. Write letters to companies and your congressmen stating that sending jobs overseas is killing us here at home! Think about that guy who is sleeping on your stoop because he lost his job making tennis shoes to some 5 year old in Taiwan so you could pay less for it and the CEOs could get another solid gold hub cap on his Mercedes SUV. Giving them a day off and saying "Hey we honor you" doesn't pay their mortgage or get braces on their kids' teeth.
So there. I've blogged about Labor Day.
posted by Kimber
at 3:58 PM ::
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Yahoo! News - Judicial Nominee Estrada Withdraws Name Score one for the good guys!!!!!!!
posted by Kimber
at 10:01 AM ::
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