[Marxism] Blue-Collar Jobs Disappear, Taking Families ¹ Way of Life Along

[Bonnie Weinstein <giobon@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Blue-Collar Jobs Disappear, Taking Families¹ Way of Life Along

By ERIK ECKHOLM

January 16, 2008

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/16/us/16ohio.html?ref=us

 

JACKSON, Ohio ? After 30 years at a factory making truck parts, Jeffrey
Evans was earning $14.55 an hour in what he called ³one of the better-paying
jobs in the area.²

 

Wearing a Harley-Davidson cap, a bittersweet reminder of crushed dreams, he
recently described how astonished and betrayed he felt when the plant was
shut down in August after a labor dispute. Despite sporadic construction
work, Mr. Evans has seen his income reduced by half.

 

So he was astonished yet again to find himself, at age 49, selling off his
cherished Harley and most of his apartment furniture and moving in with his
mother.

 

Middle-aged men moving in with parents, wives taking two jobs, veteran
workers taking overnight shifts at half their former pay, families moving
West ? these are signs of the turmoil and stresses emerging in the little
towns and backwoods mobile homes of southeast Ohio, where dozens of
factories and several coal mines have closed over the last decade, and small
businesses are giving way to big-box retailers and fast-food outlets.

 

Here, where the northern swells of the Appalachians lap the southern fringe
of the Rust Belt, thousands of people who long had tough but sustainable
lives are being wrenched into the working poor.

 

The region presents an acute example of trends affecting many parts of Ohio,
Michigan and other pockets of the Midwest.

 

Slammed by the continued decline in the automobile and steel businesses,
Ohio never recovered from the recession of 2001-2, and blue-collar families
who had made it partway up the economic ladder find themselves slipping
back, with chaotic effects on families and dreams.

 

Throughout the state, the percentage of families living below the poverty
line ? just over $20,000 for a family of four last year ? rose slightly from
14 percent in 2005 to 16 percent in 2007, one study found. But equally
striking is the rise in younger working families struggling above that line.
The numbers are more dismal in the southeastern Appalachian part of the
state, where 32 percent of families lived below the poverty line in 2007,
according to the study, and 56 percent lived with incomes less than $40,000
for a family of four.

 

³These younger workers should be the backbone of the economy,² said Shiloh
Turner, study director for the Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati,
which conducted the surveys. But in parts of Ohio, Ms. Turner said, half or
more ³are barely making ends meet.²

 

One consequence is an upending of the traditional pattern, in which
middle-aged children take in an elderly parent. As $15-an-hour factory jobs
are replaced by $7- or $8-an-hour retail jobs, more men in their 30s and 40s
are moving in with their parents or grandparents, said Cheryl Thiessen, the
director of Jackson/Vinton Community Action, which runs medical, fuel and
other aid programs in Jackson and Vinton Counties.

 

Other unemployed or low-wage workers, some with families, find themselves
staying with one relative after another, Ms. Thiessen said, serially wearing
out their welcome.

 

³A lot of major employers have left, and the town is drying up,² Ms.
Thiessen said of Jackson. ³We¹re starting to lose small shops, too ?
Hallmark, the jewelry and shoe stores, the movie theater and most of the
grocery stores.²

 

Shari Joos, 45, a married mother of four boys in nearby Wellston, said, ³If
you don¹t work at Wal-Mart, the only job you can get around here is in fast
food.²

 

Between her husband¹s factory job and her intermittent work, they made
$30,000 a year in the best of times, Mrs. Joos said. Since last fall, when
her husband was laid off by the Merillat cabinet factory, which downsized to
one shift a day from three, keeping anywhere near that income required Mrs.
Joos to take a second job. She works at a school cafeteria each weekday from
9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m and then drives to Wal-Mart, where she relaxes in her car
before starting her 2-to-10 p.m. shift at the deli counter.

 

Her 20-year-old son went to college for two years, earning an associate
degree in information science, but cannot find any jobs nearby. He still
works at McDonald¹s and lives at home as he ponders whether to move to a
distant city, as most local college graduates must. Her 22-year-old son
works at Burger King and lives with his grandparents ? ³that was his way of
moving out,² Mrs. Joos said.

 

In late December her husband landed a new job, driving a fork lift at a
Wal-Mart distribution center, a shift that ends at 2:30 a.m. It pays a
little less than he used to make and is an hour¹s drive away, so gasoline
soaks up a painful share of his wages.

 

³We never see each other,² Mrs. Joos, 45, said on a recent morning as she
packed a roast beef and cheese sandwich for her evening meal. ³We never even
think of taking a vacation.²

 

Luckily they had paid off their mobile home and an addition they built.

 

As experienced men in this corner of Ohio have found themselves working for
lower wages, others feel they must move.

 

³I¹m ain¹t going to work for no $8 an hour!² said Lindsey Webb, 52, who,
like Mr. Evans, was one of hundreds laid off when Meridian Automotive
Systems closed its local plant. On a recent night, Mr. Webb was helping out
in a trailer in front of the old factory, a vigil by the United Steelworkers
Union to remind the company of its obligations to former workers.

 

Mr. Webb, who worked at the plant for 33 years, made more than $16 an hour
doing machine maintenance. Now he is thinking of moving to Arizona, taking
along his elderly father, whom he helps care for.

 

Darrel McKenzie, 44, was also a maintenance man at Meridian and grossed more
than $60,000 a year. Now he has restarted at the bottom as a union
pipe-fitting apprentice and expects to make $20,000 this year. His family
just ³does less,² Mr. McKenzie said.

 

Mr. Evans said that moving back into the home where he grew up, after
decades of independence, was a stinging reminder that ³I lost everything I
worked for all my life.²

 

His mother, Shirley Sheline, 73, had worked 28 years at the same auto parts
plant, and shares his dismay. ³Can you believe it, a grown man forced to
move back with his mother,² she said.

 

Seeing his desperation last year, she added a room to her house with a
separate door.

 

³I don¹t know what I¹d have done without my mom,² Mr. Evans said. ³At least
I can help her, or if I get back on my feet, she can rent it out.²

 

By contrast, selling his Harley, which he would have paid off this year, was
pure torture. He had owned a Harley since he was 20, and weekend cruising
with pals was his favorite recreation.

 

³The buyer said he wanted to take it away in the back of a trailer,² Mr.
Evans recalled, ³and I said, ?That won¹t happen.¹ ²

 

³Instead I drove it to his house, threw him the keys, came home and got
drunk.²


________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text before replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism