by Donald Pettyjohn—Ohio
While canvassing in Dayton, Ohio (the second rated city in America for job loss), I met a man who told me his job had been outsourced to Asia after working there for 13 years. This man was a very big, well-built gentleman and when he talked about his job with a lump in his throat and a tear in his eyes he seemed to physically shrink when describing the situation. Thankfully he was able to obtain a position as a corrections officer, though he wasn’t particularly fond of his new employment.
He shook my hand and thanked me for the work I was doing and had absolutely no hesitation about becoming a dues-paying member of our organization. He handed me an ice cold bottle of water before I left. The whole time thanking me for my work. I just want to give Working America a huge shout-out for giving me the opportunity for doing some good in what is sometimes a cold, confusing world!
P.S. To all Working America staff, in every state, keep up the good fight because we really do make a big difference.
Tags: Jobs, membership, outsourcing
by Jonathon Vogt—Ohio
Wednesday was one of the first warm days our office has had after a long winter of canvassing. I walked down a street in west Dayton thirsty and unprepared for the heat.
Then I met this woman. I told her that we were fighting to keep good jobs in Ohio and we needed members to hold our politicians accountable. She told me that she would sign up but that she was very tired; she had been awake for the last eighteen hours. I asked her what kind of job she had that kept her awake for eighteen hours, assuming she worked the long hours that most people do at a hospital.
She told me that she didn’t have a job and had been continually looking for work for the last two days, revising her resume, submitting applications, attending a job fair and several interviews. Dayton ranks second in the country for most jobs lost due to outsourcing, just after Detroit. Linda’s struggles are endemic of the problems created by crooked free trade agreements that help neither American workers or workers overseas.
She said God has a plan for her and it is not for her to give up now, after a lifetime of hard work. I told her that you reap what you sow and since she was working hard, I firmly believe she will find a job. I told her that Working America will fight to make sure that people like her get the economic fair shake they deserve. She offered me a bottle of water and thanked me for stopping by. She said I could come back anytime and that she looked forward to getting involved with Working America.
Walking away no longer thirsty, I thought to myself that there is nothing that tastes better than the water you drink after knowing you made a difference in someone’s life.
Tags: Jobs, outsourcing
by Kara Kukovich—Pennsylvania
I was canvassing in Pottsville, PA and met a woman with a heavily-bandaged hand. I talked to her about job losses. She told me how bad the job situation was, that she had just lost her manufacturing job because the factory shut down. Ironically, her hand was bandaged because she had developed carpal tunnel at this factory job!
Tags: Jobs, outsourcing
CLIFF SCHECTER—OHIO
This is the core value of Working America, a community affiliate of the AFL-CIO. In every sense of the word.
Working America seeks to put hard-working Americans—often victims of a
system that provides pecuniary rewards for venal CEOs for shipping jobs abroad,
slashing health care plans and blowing up respected firms while pocketing obscene amounts of cash—back to work (and improve conditions for many others), while making this a country work for most Americans once again, as it did from the 1930s-1980s.
As we know, with the Little Prince in power, and his heartless legions willing to sink any bill—whether it is making gazillionaires pay more taxes than their servants or providing health care for kids—this is no easy task. But they are accomplishing nothing short of miracles on a grassroots level. And I had an experience last Friday which proved this.
I went over to my local Working America office, which is located in Columbus, Ohio. Ohio accounts for one third of Working America’s members, as well as its offices (700,000 of 2.1 million members and 5 of 15 offices in states from Oregon to Minnesota). Obviously, as a part of the Rust Belt, we’ve been hit hard by neoconservative, napkin-drawn economic theories (see Laffer, Arthur) that have crippled our manufacturing base. People need to know how they can improve things for themselves and their community.
So I met up with their Central Ohio Canvass Director, Scott Sneddon, who runs a tight and enthusiastic ship. We had lunch after a daily briefing for canvassers, and then I joined two particularly talented ones, Tanesha Powell and Jon Middleton, as we headed to a downscale neighborhood in Northern Columbus.
The results, judging from my past experiences doing canvassing work, were nothing short of amazing. Let me back up for a second and explain the theory behind Working America. It is that people care most about economic issues that affect their lives, but need to be reached where they live and breathe, as most of us who don’t obsess over politics don’t always know all of our rights and the possibilities that lay in front of us.
Therefore, Working America seeks DPMs, or Dues Paying Members, the dues being a-not-so-overwhelming $5 per year, as well as the chance to let all working Americans know how they can positively impact their own economic situation. Whether it is shady trade deals, the health care crisis or keeping up wages, those who are not members of unions often do not know how important their voice can be in righting our economic wrongs.
The key part of what they do is providing a community to those unable to join unions because of corporate shenanigans or because they are retired or out of work. Working America serves as their union. And a powerful one indeed.
In the time I was with my two hosts, they easily signed up two dozen new members (some offering dues up front, others an interest joining and providing information), and this was on only two blocks at 4PM, while many were still at work. Powell and Middleton were a picture of professionalism, with a passion to better these United States. Sneddon could not be more perfectly suited for his job, a guy who had the feel of an inspirational football coach on a mission, yet one who also could right away become your best friend.
With the reptilian Roves of the world running Republican fear campaigns, and the weakening of unions over the years by corporate stooges masquerading as public servants, we need Working America today more than ever. They educate people about the issues. They create a sum greater than its parts. Hell, they produce progressives.
In any case, that was my experience and I felt duty-bound to share it. I am honored to be aligned with such an organization. And can’t wait to see their impact in November 2008 and beyond.
Cliff Schecter is a Senior Fellow at Working America. On May 1 his first book, The Real McCain: Why Conservatives Don’t Trust Him And Why Independents Shouldn’t, will be released by PoliPoint Press.
Tags: economy, Jobs, membership, outsourcing
by Dave Ninehouser—Pennsylvania
He was definitely sitting firmly on the fence before he finally took the clipboard. The issue at hand was sweatshop labor, job outsourcing and the devastating effects on American families. It turned out he worked on corporate America and wavered for a minute before he snatched my pen and signed up as a new Working America member.
As he passed back the clipboard he said, “Somebody has to be the conscience of Big Business.” This guy knows first hand the issues and excesses of the corporate world and wants somebody (us) to fight to put some balance back in the system.
Tags: membership, outsourcing
by Alex Barth—Pennsylvania
Tonight, I had a woman rip my clipboard out of my hand to sign up when I talked about the loss of jobs in Pennsylvania. The woman’s job had just been outsourced and she was denied unemployment because she wouldn’t take the job the company offered to give her instead (paying less than half of her original salary). It’s really obvious that corporate America has the upper hand.
Tags: Jobs, membership, outsourcing, unemployment
by Erin Gill—Pennsylvania
If you do this kind of work long enough, it’ll make you really angry. Anyone that knows me, knows I’m a fairly laid-back, easy going kind of gal, and I am, for the most part. Except when I hear stories like the following:
Last night I reconnected with a woman who had signed up as a Working America member when we were organizing her community back in 2005. As soon as I said I was from Working America, she started to tell me how she had been affected by outsourcing and the economic pressures that so many of us are struggling to deal with everyday.
This woman had worked her whole life for a local company and saw her job outsourced overseas, as so many people have. She was too young to retire and had to keep working in order to provide her mother with the medical care she needed. So, she found work as a customer service representative, making far less than she had at her previous job. In fact, she told me, that her salary barely covered the cost of providing her mother the care she needed. She confessed that her best hope at this point was to buy a good digital camera, in order to start selling her family’s possessions on eBay, as many of her friends had begun doing. I let her know that scarily enough, her story is now the rule, more than it is the exception and that I’d been hearing similar stories from her neighbors all night, because I could tell from the careful way she told her story that she felt ashamed.
So this is what our American dream has become: selling a lifetime of accomplishments on eBay; working at a job just to pray that we’ll be able to pay for medical care for us and our families and living every day in fear of anything that might upset our delicate economic situations. This is insanity. We’re a better people than this. It’s time for us to be patriotic about something other than war. It’s time for us to stand up and call this story and every one like it what it is—a national disgrace. It’s time for us to fight with everything we have to make sure that in America, we do better than this.
Tags: Health Care, Jobs, membership, outsourcing
by Tommy Todd—Missouri
I met a woman while knocking on doors in Kansas City tonight. Walking up to her door, I saw a “for sale” sign in their yard. When she came to the door, I noticed scissors in her hand, but didn’t think much of it. I started talking about jobs leaving the country when she stopped me, and told me that her husband had recently been laid off, which was why they were selling their home. I had actually knocked on the door as she was cutting up all of her credit cards.
She gladly signed up, and thanked me for the hard work we are doing.
Tags: layoffs, membership, outsourcing
by Carissa Lovelace—Pennsylvania
I knocked on a door that had a significant impact on the rest of my evening. The woman who answered grumbled as she took my clipboard that our jobs would never stop going overseas. I told her that WE were going to make the difference and as she signed her name I noticed she was crying. It turned out the she, her, sister, mother, and grandmother had all worked in the garment industry; the women in their family were proud of the work they did and had faith that the company they worked for would take care of their family. They all lost their jobs, the grandmother and mother lost their retirement plans and their neighborhood fell into a depression.
It is important to note that this occurred 20 years ago. I happened to come to this woman’s door and bring up one of her most devastating memories. I may not have been able to comfort this woman but I realized that my work now could prevent a canvasser from encountering a similarly heart breaking story 20 years from now.
Tags: membership, outsourcing
by Don Pesek—Missouri
While canvassing last week, I ran across several men who worked for a food processing company. They had been laid off on the same day after a combined century of service. They were escorted out of the plant by armed security. One man said it was the only job he had ever had. They were given no severance package or even a letter of appreciation. Their jobs had been outsourced and they felt they were being treated like criminals because the company had security to make sure they left.
Tags: Jobs, outsourcing
