by Jennifer Tschappat—Ohio
I was in Fostoria, Ohio and canvassing to put a stop to job outsourcing. A woman who had just had her 90th birthday explained to me that her daughter was losing her factory job to Mexico. She was happy that Working America was helping change public policies involving outsourcing. When she gave me the $5 dues payment, she said it was for her daughter and all her daughter’s friends that were losing their jobs.
Tags: membership, outsourcing, seniors
by Tyler Boas—Ohio
While in Fostoria, Ohio I spoke to a woman who had spent her entire life without health coverage. She had raised four children who were unable to see a doctor while growing up. Because of these experiences her son decided to become a doctor so he could help people in a way that his family had needed help for themselves. He lived his entire childhood below the poverty level but went on to get a medical degree from Yale. His mother told me that she and her son now have the medical coverage they need, and would love for every American to as well because they understand firsthand how important it is.
Tags: Health Care
by Nathan Horak-Hern—Kentucky
I recently canvassed a wonderful woman who was very excited about the issues Working America addresses. When I told her we were fighting to stop the outsourcing of American jobs, she signed up as a member immediately, and when I showed her our adhesive bandage campaign, she got her husband so they could both sign it.
She said that she and her husband have to go without health insurance so that they can afford it for their kids. Despite her hardships, she gave a voluntary dues payment and said she would tell everyone she knows about Working America and the great work we are doing.
Tags: Health Care, membership, outsourcing
by Frank Holmes—Ohio
I spoke to a guy who worked for a local factory for 31 years and was forced into early retirement. Two months ago he went to the Social Security office twice to get his benefits started. He has to return two more times and each appointment requires a month and a half wait — so it will be at least five months before he sees any of his Social Security benefits. He has 13 and 15 year old daughters.
When he answered the door he seemed reluctant to speak to anyone, but his attitude changed when I told him who I was and what I was doing. “Oh, come on in!” he said, and told me his story. After listening to him I told him that retirement security is one of the very things we are fighting for, it was a great thing to see his face light up. He not only signed up, but thanked me for what we do.
Wow, I love what we represent.
Tags: membership, Retirement, social security
Deborah El, Working America member and 64 year old mother of a disabled daughter struggling with recent unemployment was mentioned in this article in Business Week. See the article at:
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8UJ0KK00.htm
Tags: Jobs, membership, unemployment
by Jared Ames—Michigan
I talked to a retired woman today who was initially very standoffish. Once I introduced the issue of keeping our jobs in America she opened up. She talked about all three of her children who had lost jobs due to outsourcing. One of her daughters was in the customer service field for a phone company.
Outsourcing affects everyone even retirees whose family can be devastated by the choice of companies to save a few extra bucks.
Tags: membership, outsourcing, retirees, seniors
by Jared Ames—Michigan
I canvassed a guy last night who was in his 90s. He was excited about what we were doing and said the country should have focused on keeping our jobs here years ago. He posed a question to me: “Why don’t we hear people say we should buy American any more? I always buy American!” It got me thinking about this era when people wrap themselves in the flag about warfare but but where’s the cries for patriotism to keep our jobs here? We built it here, let’s keep it here!
Tags: outsourcing, seniors
by Dean Powers—New Mexico
At a distance, a city is only a high orange glow in the darkness. The glow emanates out of the vagrant depths of persistent nights. It appears to circumferential travelers on dark stretches of radial highways that convene at its source. The highways stretch outward through uninhabited farmland or forest or, as is the case in New Mexico, high desert.
The high desert in New Mexico is carpeted with a pinkish loam that crumbles onto and crowds both edges of Highway 550. The edges of the highway are sculpted out of darkness by headlights before the beams disappear into hundreds of thousands of acres of impassive sage and prairie grass, yucca, and saltbush. These dark squat recalcitrant shapes offset the lighter darkness around them, oblivious to the distant orange glow.
At night the city of Albuquerque emits its street lights, parking lot lights, billboard lights, car lights and even porch lights into the ceiling of sky. In the stretch of Highway 550 in the southern part of the Santa Anna Indian Reservation, the muddled orange glow appears long before its source is visible.
The northern end of Highway 550 begins in Montrose, a town near Grand Junction, Colorado. It quickly becomes a perilous two-lane traverse over Red Mountain Pass, cutting through Ouray and Silverton, before it dumps into Durango. It connects northwestern New Mexico, west of the Continental Divide, with central Interstate 25 (east of the divide) about 20 miles before the southbound lanes of the freeway lead into Albuquerque.
The approach to Albuquerque begins with exits. The exits appear in higher frequency as the city nears. They have numbers and divert cars away from the main thoroughfare to familiar hotel chains and restaurants. As the big box and industrial lights increase on either side of I-25 the freeway lanes expand from two to three and the speed limit drops from 75 to 65 MPH.
At morning the sun breaks on Albuquerque over the Sandia mountains, which bank up to the east in stark and jagged relief against the frequently blue sky. The city sits between the eastern slope of the Sandias and the rise of the Canoncito Navajo Indian Reservation to the west, as if in the gulf between the pages of an open book. The Rio Grande cuts out a wide shallow path in the basin of this broad arid valley.
To a stranger, the city is intersection between the north-south freeway, I-25, and the perpendicular I-40. Locals call this intersection the “Big ‘I;’” two giant lines: one slashing vertically from Billings, Montana to El Paso, Texas; the other slashing horizontally from Willmington, North Carolina to Barstow, California, just shy of Los Angeles.
After several days in the city, new horizontal lines become familiar: Central Avenue (the old Route 66) and Lomas Boulevard. New vertical lines become familiar: San Pedro Boulevard and Louisiana Boulevard. Slowly, the city becomes a series of number sign glyphs, each line represented by a major Boulevard or Avenue cutting perpendicularly across I-25 or I-40.
And then the canvassing begins…
by Carissa Lovelace—Virginia
As I talk to people in Manassas, Virginia it is becoming clear to me that everyone, no matter what state they live in, is deeply affected by the issues that we fight for.
Last night was an especially eye-opening experience. I was talking to a woman on her porch about our issues and after taking the clipboard she pointed directly at “secure retirement,” saying “that’s the one that I care about.”
Before I could ask why, she began to tell me the story of her 62 year old husband who had worked for an airline for 31 years, 5 months and 24 days. The airline filed bankruptcy and laid off their most tenured employees, one of which was her husband. A government pension compensation program had taken up his plan and was paying him half of what his actual pension was. He was receiving half what he expected per month for the first 2 years, which dropped by $200 the next two year and is expected to drop by an additional $1,220.00 when he turns 66!
She has taken extra work around the neighborhood, and he has taken an evening job that pays 13 dollars an hour for a different airline. They pay double their mortgage payment so that when his pension sinks lower they will hopefully own their home. She could not stress enough the depression and anxiety that this scenario was causing both of them.
They had not envisioned their lives coming to this after they worked so hard. The last thing she told me was that the CEO of the airline was guaranteed a multi-million dollar salary during the time of the bankruptcy no matter what happened in the future of the company.
Tags: Jobs, membership, pensions, retirees, seniors
by Charity James—Minnesota
Last night while I was canvassing in an apartment complex. I knocked on the door of a 98-year-old lady. After going over the rap with her, I asked her to sign up. All she kept saying was, “this is crazy, because I pay $660 a month for rent, and we do need more affordable housing.” I stood confused for a second, then noticed that she thought I was offering affordable housing.
Again, I let her know what we were about. She then let me know that she was having a hard time hearing, but her hearing aid had been misplaced and her health care plan wouldn’t allow her to have a new one for another two months. She said that if she had better health care, she would be able to hear me better. I told her “that’s what we are out here fighting for.” She signed up and became a dues-paying member.
After about 20 minutes in her home, I was ready to go, but not before I gave her a couple of numbers for better housing.
Tags: Health Care, Housing, membership, seniors
