The End Of The Line
You can't help but feel bad for people in this situation. Setting aside the question of who to blame, there is no arguing with the fact that seeing families thrown into chaos and doubt is terrible.
"I understand it’s a business, and they have to make decisions when it comes to business. If this is what they feel they have to do, then I’ll have to accept it. But it’s hard when you see money going to other places, when you see C.E.O.s making the money they’re making." - Jonathan Achey Jr.
This is capitalism. When people on the right, especially, talk about how the market can fix everything, that it's the solution to all problems, episodes like this should spring to mind. Dave Green says “We need G.M. It’s the last thing standing around here.” But employees' needs do not signify here; they do not determine what a corporation will ultimately do. Corporations do whatever their owners and shareholders need, and that need is always about profit.
"I was so loyal to G.M., but it’s just a game to them." - Kesha Scales
Pretty much. Loyalty to a corporation is not going to be reciprocated. Corporations basically operate like psychopaths. They only need you for what you can do for them. They only reward you as necessary to keep you working there.
"One mistake the international unions in the United States made was when Ronald Reagan fired the air traffic controllers. When he did that, the unions could have brought this country to a standstill." - Louis Robinson Jr.
Unions used to be a big deal, a counterbalancing force against the brute force of supply and demand that normally determines how employees are treated. If your skills are rare and in demand, you have great bargaining power, and get a higher wage and better benefits. If your skills are common, you'll get the lowest amount that anyone with those skills is willing to accept. Unions get all those people to agree to insist on a minimum standard of treatment, on what's acceptable pay and benefits. Bargaining power through unity.
So yeah, it sucks that unions fell apart. Reagan and his successors got away with it because too many Americans got duped into thinking that worrying about the welfare of the weakest members of society made the country weak. It turns out, caring about your fellow Americans is necessary to keep the country strong.
"People keep saying: 'Well, I feel sorry for you. Your plant’s closed.' It ain’t closed! It’s unallocated!" - Dave Green
Lacking anything akin to compassion or a sense of basic decency, corporations will exploit whatever loopholes they think they can get away with. If you want corporations to behave decently, you have to force them. If unions are too weak to get the job done, then you need regulations -- you need Congress or your state legislature to pass laws.
Protesting in the street outside the "unallocated" plant may win you sympathy, may raise awareness, but it's highly unlikely to get the company's directors to change their minds. Not if there isn't a strong financial or legal incentive to back it up. Arguing that the company is actually violating its contract with this "unallocated" BS, getting the courts involved: that has a chance to go somewhere. Unfortunately it might also take years to resolve. Folks will still need paychecks in the meantime.
Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign relied heavily on the promise of restoring those jobs ... Significant to his Ohio victory was flipping the Mahoning Valley from blue to red. In the summer of 2017, Trump visited Youngstown, signaling the importance of the region to his re-election prospects. "Don’t move; don’t sell your house," he said. "We’re going to fill up those factories." (In a sign of how concerned he may be about Lordstown’s closing, he recently took to Twitter to personally attack Dave Green, who had appeared on a Fox News segment about the plant, writing that Green "ought to get his act together and produce.")
This is rich. Trump wants to blame the head of the union? For not "producing"? Typical Trump: he's best at blaming others when he ought to be accepting the blame himself. Anything but admit his promises during the campaign were as empty as that plant.
If you actually cared about these people's jobs, Don, you'd champion some legislation to make the unions strong again. You won't do that; you don't care about anyone except in the same fashion corporations do. You care not about what you can do for your country, but only about what anyone around can do for you. Support unions, help the common American? You famously stiff the people working for you.
The last time Donny crowed about having saved a plant, he didn't actually save the workers' jobs. Remember that? The Carrier plant that Trump convinced not to move to Mexico with a big tax break? The owners invested in automation instead. Robot labor accepts the lowest wage of all.
If we want industry churn to stop creating huge problems for hard-working Americans, here's a simple plan for you:
1) Admit that the "free" market does not do what's best for everybody. Not everybody can get a job who needs one. Your employer will not return your loyalty.
2) Accept that changes to regulation are needed. Corporations won't change their behavior until forced into it.
3) Realize the Republicans have been systematically lying to you about this. ("Government just gets in the way and we'd be better off with a smaller one.") They're getting those same companies to line their pockets in return for tax breaks. Ditch them.
4) Find legislators with real plans to fix the system. Even bold plans. Be willing to experiment. If they don't work, hey, we'll tear them down later.
5) Can't get your choice elected? Read up on gerrymandering.
6) Got him/her elected, and still no change to the laws? Read up on the duopoly that is paralyzing our federal system. (Read Why Competition In The Politics Industry Is Failing America by Katherine M. Gehl and Michael E. Porter.)
This is the root cause of many of America's woes right now. Agitate for fixing the thing that's broken. Too many people remain unaware of this.
7) Vote Trump out on his ass in 2020. He represents the poisonous idea that we can just lie about our problems instead of facing them honestly. He has fixed nothing, he has no skills apart from conning people, and he has no respect for our system of laws. These are basic principles, without which we cannot consistently reward practices that work and phase out those that don't. His very presence in the highest office signals that the powerful, corporations included, are free to keep cheating the rest of us without fear of consequences.
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