By Ashley Keith — Ohio
Like too many other Ohio families, Renee’s is struggling to cover the costs of raising a child with autism in a slow economy. Sometimes even everyday costs are unaffordable. “People need to know that they are one misfortune away from financial ruin,” says Renee. “Families like mine really have to make these tough decisions between housing, marriage, and the needs of a disabled child.” She expects that the new health care reforms will help her family stay afloat by helping cover the costs of out-of-pocket medical expenses, but that is only half the battle.
Like a lot of parents, every year when the stores start stocking more backpacks and fewer inflatable pools, she starts worrying about budget cuts and available resources. However, those concerns are magnified by her son’s special needs. Struggling to cover the costs that her health insurance provider refuses to cover during the summer, starts worrying about teacher layoffs in the fall. “The cost to educate a child with a disability is so high,” she explains. “He is in a class with six children, a teacher and a teacher’s aide. I’m holding my breath that next year things will be ok.”
As states like Ohio try to balance budgets and make strategic cuts, children with special needs may be forced into classrooms that are too crowded and understaffed to serve their needs. Why should Renee’s child, or anyone’s child, suffer a reduced quality of education because of what Wall Street has done to the economy? Where is the justice in requiring our children to pay for their misdeeds?
Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown introduced the Local Jobs for America Act to provide funds to state and local government to save and create local jobs, and the passage of this bill may be exactly what parents like Renee need to keep teachers on the job.
Renee’s life demonstrates how we are all connected in this economy, how we are all in this mess together. When we lay off teachers to cut budgets, we jeopardize the future of our children, and the children who are most at risk and vulnerable often have to shoulder more than their fair share of the burden. Investing in our kids is probably the most humane and sound investment we can make, but without legislation like for the Local Jobs for America Act we will soon be shortchanging their future and our own. And in the short run, keeping teachers on the job puts money in the pockets of working people, who will spend it and boost business.
We’ve seen how investing in Wall Street works out. It’s time to get our priorities straight and invest more in our communities and our families instead.
By Eric Cromer — Working America Member, Ohio
The new global economy has become a “race to the bottom” to see which nation is capable of producing the greatest quantity of products with the lowest paid workers. As manufactures save dollars with a non-domestic workforce, the American consumer has seen a steady rise in basic costs for housing, education and health care. American employers and corporations are finally paying the price for their poor decisions, with the highest recorded level of workers who are dissatisfied with their jobs. I have to admit, I’m hardly surprised.
Our great nation transformed from a nation of farmers, frontiersmen, trail blazers, and risk takers into the most envied industrial superpower of the globe after World War II. Our soldiers came home from the war to easily find stable work that would last them a lifetime, with unions setting standards in pay, benefits and safety; this security fueled a housing and baby boom. Today many of our soldiers come home to find a foreclosure note on their door and an anemic job market. Should it be of any surprise that a meager 45% of Americans are happy with their current jobs?
While we are all neighbors on a global scale, should our goal as world inhabitants be to see which countries’ workers can be ripped off the worst? Should we sacrifice all the hard earned lessons of social justice of the past so we can buy that item at Wal-Mart so inexpensively? What would be the result if the pictures of the factory workers from whatever nation that made that inexpensive item you where about purchase where put on the box for you to see the conditions they worked in? Would you still buy if you saw a child working not older than your elementary school student with tired eyes and ragged clothes? What would this child say if asked if she was satisfied with her own job?
It is not beyond the ability of American pride and ingenuity to reinvent ourselves again and become the envy of the world once more. For this to happen again, many things need to change. These changes need to run from top to bottom, including changing the idea of what it means to have a successful business model. Corporations need to be held accountable to workers and our communities again.
As I’ve seen in my own life, working people bear the costs of bad management, while the super-rich walk away with all of the wealth we create. I spent 15 loyal years working for General Motors to start on an assembly line, and finished my career being the last group of elected Union Leaders. We had the very sad duty of helping carve out a closing agreement for a plant that had been around since the 1920’s and helped to sustain a vibrant and middle class community for nearly 90 years. Unhappy employees were not to blame for the lack of product planning and development that brought the demise of a once great American icon. But we sure as heck got blamed for it.
I began a new path in my life and recently completed nursing school because the opportunity to work in a factory like the one that closed its doors seemed like an unattainable fantasy. I took pride in manufacturing a product and building something that people could find a use for, but my pride and that of the other workers did not keep the plant open or prevent housing foreclosures.
We cannot continue to let communities of working families die in America. We cannot sit idly by as board members and CEOs decide that the best thing for our country is to fire all of the American workers as they ship our jobs overseas. When employment security returns, and employers are able to show their employees some loyalty again we will start to see a happier workforce. Then there will be people to buy American-made products again.
By Ashley Keith — Ohio
Walter from Cincinnati once owned a small IT business and used his computer expertise to help people solve their technological problems. He is engaging, intelligent, and understands how to navigate the temperamental waters of computers in an age of constant updates, upgrades, and innovation. Unfortunately, he had to close his business in 2001 because he was unable to compete with larger companies. Since the closing of his business, Walter has had a difficult time maintaining steady employment. He has primarily worked restaurant jobs for the last nine years. For the last two and a half weeks he has worked in the maintenance department for a national retail chain after four weeks of being unemployed. There are so many people in this economy who are working in fields and positions that don’t let them fully use their potential, but Walter faces an additional challenge: he was convicted of a felony 20 years ago.
In a time when foreclosures are making headlines across the country and adult children have to move back in with parents after college graduation, everyone knows the job market is oversaturated. The nation’s best talent is ripe for the picking. Many people will have little sympathy for someone in Walter’s position. Some will say that Walter made his bed, and now he has to sleep in it. But what good does it do any of us to waste the potential of people who have already repaid their debt to society? Working people come in all forms, shapes, sizes, and from various backgrounds.
When we as working families were stronger and better organized, the American Dream was a reality for a lot of us. It actually seemed like anyone could work hard to accomplish their goals, and we were a nation that gave people enormous opportunities to succeed. But today we are living in the Right Wing Dream, created by decades of policies that weakened unions, encouraged outsourcing, and gave Wall Street free reign to cause a re-run of the Great Depression. Now it seems that the American Dream is only available if you have five years of specialized experience, an advanced degree, a spotless past, three recommendations, and a relationship with someone who can open doors for you…and that’s just to get your resume on the top of the stack.
When workers are faced with desperate choices and employers have only one position for every five unemployed workers, people in Walter’s position are some of the first left out in the cold. I often hear people say things like “pay your debt to society” or “serve the time you deserve” when people pick up the controversial topic of our penal system, but when that time is over and that debt is paid what happens next? The issue of job creation is really about what kind of country we want to be. Do we want to be a creative, productive country where we strive to give everyone an opportunity to use their talents, skills and abilities, or do we want to create an underclass of workers who are kept on the margins, just scraping by?
By Ashley Keith - Ohio
Bambi is funny, energetic, hard working … and has been unemployed for three years. Last week, I had the pleasure of talking to her at her home in Canton, OH. We sat on her back porch over-looking her garden of budding tomato plants, peppers and beans, as she explained that she can’t afford these items in the grocery store. So she grows them herself.
Bambi has lived her life doing everything she thought she was supposed to do as a working class mother. She started working as a tow truck driver at the age of 18. She stuck with it for 10 years in spite of the challenges, including dealing with a gun being pulled on her, until one day she was crushed between two cars while working. She suffered severe damage to her right leg, an injury that still limits her mobility and ability to stand for long periods of time. Even with this injury Bambi continued to hold various positions throughout her adult life to support herself and her daughter. She was eventually able to send her daughter to college to become a school teacher.
In spite of applying for countless jobs in the last three years, Bambi hasn’t been able to find work. “I think I’m a few years too young to retire, but a few years too old for most employers to hire me,” she explains. Although Bambi has paid off the mortgage for her home, she still struggles to pay her property taxes because she can’t find work. Bambi’s daughter and son-in-law, both of whom are public school teachers in Virginia, have paid her property taxes for the last few years so that she could stay in her home. As they send these funds to sustain their mother, they worry that their school district will face the same massive lay-offs or cut backs that other school teachers are facing.
Bambi’s experience shows the absurdity of the “conventional wisdom” in so much of Washington.
We are told that people who can’t find work are lazy, but with 6 people applying for every job opening, some of the people who need the jobs the most are bound to slip through the crack. We are told that teachers should be laid off, and we should sell out our kids’ education because we are in a recession. But those jobs are sustaining families and communities and businesses around the country, and what sense does it make to sell out our kids’ education to pay for Wall Street’s crimes?
We hear plenty of stories of bad mortgage deals, and we are often confronted with the argument that we as a society had to learn “lessons” about personal responsibility and living within our means. What about people like Bambi who are responsible, who have lived within their means…unfortunately, even those of us who own our homes can barely hold onto them when work disappears.
Bambi’s life also shows how we are connected. When we can’t find work, we can’t pay our property taxes, and when we can’t pay our taxes schools lose revenue. Cutting education will only make it harder to compete for jobs in the future. It is a vicious cycle, and Wall Street’s recklessness is the root of the problem. Bambi also shows us the solution: we need to have the courage to speak out about what is happening with us, stand together, and hold the people who caused the crisis responsible for what they have done. Otherwise, working families will continue to struggle to make it, fighting over the scraps they have left us.
Tags: unemployment
Dan O’Malley–Ohio
We had a great week organizing customers and employees of the Sandusky, OH Wal-Mart
around education reform. We heard the same thing we’ve been hearing all around the community: schools in towns like Sandusky are hurting badly, with recently announced layoffs the latest piece of evidence.
Of course, at Wal-Mart, we heard that message more loudly and clearly than anywhere else we’ve been. After all, this is a corporation that, while running up annual profits in the tens of billions, gives its new employees special forms to help them prove their poverty status for the purpose of public assistance.
I’m going to bet most Wal-Mart workers with whom we spoke are sending their kids to public schools.
Tags: education, Ohio
by Matthew Hall—Minnesota
One day I was canvassing and encountered a member that was really excited to see me. She invited me in to meet her elderly mother. We talked for a couple of minutes and she informed me that she was on Minnesota Care and was worried about funding for the program with all the state budget cuts. Her and her mother decided to sign down as members and pay $5 in dues. Just then the door bell rang. She went to answer it but no one was there. She then informed me that her father had died last year and before he had died he had vowed to fix the broken doorbell but had never got around to it. The door bell had worked only twice since then. Once when they were having Easter dinner and the other time right then. I took this as a sign that her father approved of what were doing and wanted to show his encouragement.
Dan O’Malley—Ohio
General Motors plants across the country all stood on the dartboard last week, each hoping to not be affected by a sweeping round of closings. The GM stamping plant in Mansfield, Ohio was not so lucky.
“Things are getting really bad out here,” a GM retiree told me on Tuesday. “I really don’t see how we’ll survive it.”
The man estimated the Mansfield plant had 3,600 employees when he retired from there in 1991. Today it employs just over 500. In a year it will be completely closed.
Cities like Mansfield and neighboring Ontario were once sustained by the good-paying jobs and secure benefits its residents earned at General Motors. For decades, Ohio stood on the shoulders of such working men and women throughout the state. Now, more and more hardworking Ohioans are finding themselves turning to unemployment assistance, their will to work unmatched by opportunity.
Just a few miles from the GM plant is Richland Mall, once a bustling commercial center with a diverse array of high-end shops. The mall is now a small collection of discount clothiers and other stores struggling to stay afloat. At 2 p.m., the food court is completely empty, save for a single teenage worker at Nicky T’s Grille who wipes clean the counter while waiting for customers. At the end of the mall is a large, vacant, dilapidated building that once housed the now-defunct Lazarus Department Store.
Signs off the entrance to Richland Mall direct passers-by to visit the Red Farms development, a newly-constructed community of homes that “combines country living with urban appeal.” A short drive proves Red Farms to be just two nice but modest houses, built a few years ago. One resident tells me that when the housing crisis hit, demand for the new homes plummeted, and the development was eventually stopped. Overgrown grass and a smattering of utility boxes are all that are to be found where a thriving new community of families once promised to be.
As if jobs, commerce, and home ownership weren’t enough to worry about in such an economy, residents of Mansfield are worried about how it all will affect their local schools. The results are likely to be devastating, because in Ohio, funding levels for public education are tied directly to property values in the local community. And with the city’s manufacturing plant, commercial center, and neighborhoods turning more and more into ghost towns, property values and money for education are sure to plummet as well.
Tags: education, jobs, Ohio
Greg Lyons—Ohio
In Lima I spoke with an elderly woman who was reluctant to join because she was distrustful of people coming to her door. I could see she wasn’t comfortable so I politely thanked her and went on my way.
Later that night I was on her street doing call backs, she saw me, called me over and became a member. She said of I were that committed I must be working on something important. I know that being polite earlier in the night had impressed her and gave me the opportunity to later sign her up as a member.
Tags: membership
Rebecca Hawkins—Ohio
The other night I met a woman on turf whose husband had been laid off from his auto manufacturing job. He has not been able to find steady work and has been working for a temp agency in a desperate attempt to support his family. The woman related to me that she often doesn’t have enough money to feed her children. I asked if she was registered to vote; she said no. She then asked for a voter registration form because she finally realized she could help to make a change by voting.
Tags: children, voting
by Joe Bonenfant—Ohio
The other day I was canvassing in Hamilton, Ohio. I came to a house on the corner of two main streets on my turf. 2 small children were playing in the front yard. I asked to speak with one of their parents. An older woman came out to speak with me. I gave her my rap and I noticed she didn’t have any hair. When I asked which issue was most important I knew she was going to say health care.
She explained to me how she was in the middle of chemotherapy. There were better procedures to treat her breast cancer but the insurance company said they were “experimental.” I told her to stay strong and wished her and her children a blessed evening. This story was so important because when I was only three, the same thing happened to my mom. She suffered through chemo and as a result, early menopause. This put a tremendous strain on our family dynamic. I was reminded of myself in her two children. People like this, who are going through hard times but can still help their fellow man, are the reason I love this job so much.
Tags: children, health care
