Adios, Ford
There are times I'm very, very glad that I grew up in a field as psychotically unstable as radio. The first time I got fired (not for cause, of course) was at age 17. It was a lesson that always caused a little dissonance with my father and I, who was a high school teacher and never, that I can recall, worried about a job going away. I, on the other hand, learned bright and early that jobs are nothing you can count on - and that loyalty to a company was like faith in a flat earth.
It's a lesson all of society should learn:
The first time Denny Dickhausen heard a rumor that the Ford plant in St. Paul would close was his first week on the job -- 36 years ago.
The recurring rumor finally became fact Thursday, and Dickhausen, 59, said it was like losing his home.
"I grew old at the Ford Motor Company," he said. "I'm still in shock. It's a very sad day."..."It's the young ones I feel sorry for," said Dickhausen, who works as a janitor and equipment cleaner.
"I was thinking of retiring the first of the year, anyway, but I haven't made up my mind yet," he added.
He'd advise his younger co-workers to get some retraining: "Get something you can count on," he said. "Be a pipefitter, or be a welder
There's a huge swathe of our society that believes, still, that if you get a job in a big manufacturing business with a union, you're set for life; that you've done all the vocational learning you'll ever need; settle down for forty years of fishing.
It's not so, of course. And it never has been throughout human history, except for the brief period where manufacturing was king and unions managed to set themselves up in a symbiotic (and ultimately untenable) relationship with management.
It's a word to the wise; take some time out from your recreational and social life and figure out what it takes to become and stay marketable, if your job should happen to disappear.
Good luck, Ford guys.
Posted by Mitch at
April 14, 2006 07:34 AM
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As my wife and I who have both been layed-off in the past said to each other last night "join the club". It happens, you find a new job and you move on. If you don't get $27.50 per hour for pushing a union broom, well, reality bites, don't it?
Posted by: Kermit at April 14, 2006 09:40 AMPaying $27.50 per hour to push a union broom is meant to help the little guy, of course, to pay his union dues.
http://www.unionfacts.org/news.cfm?id=16
Posted by: Eracus at April 14, 2006 10:31 AMMitch, you went from something as "psychotically unstable as radio" to the tech biz? There's not a whole lot of difference in job stability between the two.
Posted by: nerdbert at April 14, 2006 11:15 AMYou have fifteen jobs and one hundred applicants. At most, fifteen get jobs.
You have fifteen jobs and one hundred applicants. You teach them how to write better resumes. At most, fifteen get jobs.
You have fifteen jobs and one hundred applicants. You retrain them for marketable skills. At most, fifteen get jobs.
Posted by: Max at April 14, 2006 12:47 PM...
If you become marketable, then you are eligible for more than 15 jobs.
Posted by: Scott at April 14, 2006 01:04 PMYou have fifteen jobs and a hundred applicants.
You teach ten of them (or he/she figures it out) how to start their own business, and you have 25 jobs and 90 applicants.
The business is a success, some of our heroes need to hire help; you have 35 jobs and 80 applicants.
You teach 30 of those applicants (or some of them learn on their own) how to do something in greater demand, and you have 35 jobs and 50 applicants.
You make it possible for ten of the applicants to work as contract-to-hire workers (rather than needing instant full-time jobs), and there are 45 jobs and 45 applicants.
Posted by: mitch at April 14, 2006 02:27 PMYou have roughly 3.8% unemployment. What's the problem?
Posted by: Kermit at April 14, 2006 02:42 PMWonder who is going to buy them half million dollar condos, 50 thousand dollar trucks (made in Indonesia or China soon) when the 25-35 union/trade job is gone and replaced by 9-12 dollar an hour no benefits service jobs.
Hope Generous Motors and Fords foreign inventory ends up on the docks unsold in the "States"...after all you just "fired" the customer who could afford it.
Mendacious NeoCons with their weirdo capitalist dog-eat-dog views are just as destructive as the Socialist Democrat "kiss the ass of the State" pressure groups to families, towns and cities.
Two sides of the same coin.
Posted by: Greg at April 14, 2006 03:36 PMThe young guys should be extremely pissed at the old-timers who killed the goose who laid the golden egg.
Greedy unions sucked Ford dry and now we have the inevitable fallout.
Must have been nice while it lasted. Low skills...high pay...stable job...gold-plated benefits...I was born too late!
Posted by: JB Doubtless at April 14, 2006 04:01 PMTrade union membership in the private sector peaked in 1960 at 37% of the US workforce. Unemploment that year averaged a shade over 5.3%.
Posted by: Terry at April 14, 2006 06:08 PMIn 2004 private sector trade union membership was around 7%, the lowest number since the turn of the 20th century. The unemployment rate that year averaged a little more than it did in 1960, about 5.4%.
Make of the numbers what you will.
Terry, I find the more interesting stat is that construction jobs, which have been flooded with illegal aliens, are at the same hourly rate in 2006 as they were in 1964. Make of that what you will.
Posted by: nerdbert at April 14, 2006 07:40 PMYeah, I know what you mean, Nerdbert. I've got brother who does home construction up by Forest Lake. I Worked with him for a summer twenty years ago. Back then you never saw an illegal on a construction site. Times have definitely changed.
Posted by: Terry at April 15, 2006 12:13 AMGreg,
Posted by: Kermit at April 15, 2006 08:54 AMPerhaps we are seeing an inevitable and (perhaps) positive shift in society away from rampant consumerism. It's true that soon only a few will be able to plop down $80,000 for that H3. Is that a bad thing? Can we look to a future that is less disposable and more concientious? True economics of supply and demand could force the issue. If we are no longer demanding all the superfluous crap being offered the supply will dry up. Imagine a world without cell phones...
Change is often not pretty, but it is inevitable.
"Wonder who is going to buy them half million dollar condos, 50 thousand dollar trucks (made in Indonesia or China soon) when the 25-35 union/trade job is gone and replaced by 9-12 dollar an hour no benefits service jobs."
Oh, please, Greg. At least make it a challenge.
The condos are being bought, largely, by retirees with lots of money and a desire to downsize their lives.
Not assembly-line workers. They're living in Apple Valley in houses that they should have a ton of equity in, if they were smart; more than enough to float them through a career change. I've had two career changes on a lot fewer resources. If they're smart enough to get the signal, they'll be fine.
"Hope Generous Motors and Fords foreign inventory ends up on the docks unsold in the "States"...after all you just "fired" the customer who could afford it."
Really? GM and Ford fired the nation's registered nurses, business analysts, HVAC technicians, lab techs, radiology techs, programmers...the people in the high-paying fields that are growing rapidly (as opposed to manufacturing, which pays artificially well and is dying fast?"
"Mendacious NeoCons with their weirdo capitalist dog-eat-dog views are just as destructive as the Socialist Democrat "kiss the ass of the State" pressure groups to families, towns and cities."
Rubbish. Economic growth - the core policy of all *real* Republicans - is the best hope for people who have cast wisdom aside and banked that a job was going to keep them in the chips for life.
Posted by: mitch at April 15, 2006 09:37 AM"Mendacious NeoCons with their weirdo capitalist dog-eat-dog views are just as destructive as the Socialist Democrat..."
--------
That's just nonsense, Greg. Capitalism works every time it's been tried, while Socialism has failed every time it's been tried.
Adios, Ford and GM. Hello, Toyota.
Posted by: Eracus at April 15, 2006 11:00 AMGlad you guys like Mitch and Eracus will work for $9.00 an hour. At least you know your place.
Love how the inventory of condos and housing and goods are piling up. I do follow real estate around the country and things are getting bad quickly.
Unbridled Capitalism sucks bad as Socialism. Both promise riches and equality and liberty and dignity for the workingman or the investor.
Neither delivers.
Trouble is we do not have capitalism in this country. It is a symbiotic corporate-government capitalism similiar to sporting team stadiums to be built via taxpayers and bailouts for airlines via state of Minnesota funds that will never be paid back..It has always depended on subsidies from an all encompassing government whether it was the Erie Canal, Pacific Railway Act or airport contruction.
We will see but think all you guys are whistling past the graveyard.
Also, we are built on a petroleum-based transport and economic model that is "going south" for the lack of cheap energy anymore. Peak Oil will put an end to the "condo economy" along with a lot of other thing.
Future will be food production on a more local based economy, more coal production and more muclear electricity generation. Transport will become problematical in a period of 5-10 dollar a gallon diesel, except for the military, which we are going to need to acquire and protect what is left of the resources to carry on.
City life will become untenable when you can't get the latte' delivered to Starbucks and UPS will not be able to deliver when the delivery cost will exceed the value of the object being delivered. It will be a bad time to be a pizza delivery guy...hehehe...
When good paying middle class jobs go away, so will just basic stuff in the economy like food, reasonable priced housing, vehicles and such.
Posted by: Greg at April 16, 2006 06:22 PMOne of the problems I see in the business world is people with art history majors expecting math major wages and opportunities. Want a good job, bring some skills to the table. In many fields, there are more high paying opportunities than there are applicants. Lower wages are not the only reason we outsource or bring in non-citizens on work visas. In many fields there is a shortage of qualified labor. It can take weeks or months to fill a spot.
Oh yeah, and lose the entitlement attitude (ala French youth) and you'll go farther. You are not owed a job, you earn a job.
Posted by: Nordeaster at April 17, 2006 11:18 AMStrawman arguments followed up by nonsense responses.
"huge swath"... really, who? I mean outside of a few nuts, no one believes they are "set for life" in anything anymore.
Ford was killed by Unions? Hardly, Ford made plenty in the 90's because big, gas guzzling trucks were made it's staple. It lived by the big SUV, and now it's dying by it.
Reality is that good jobs are leaving because a global economy allows and supports it.
Bill
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